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“Should we carpool down to Minneapolis?” Lauren asked. “We can go to a men’s store for you and then swing by my place. If we leave now, we can be back by three.”

“Sure.”

Ten minutes later, we were on the road. I drove.

“Well, we did it,” I said.

“Yes, we did.” She looked at me. “Hey, what are you going to do for the bachelor party?”

I scoffed. “Nothing? Have you seen the schedule? There’s no time.”

“There has to be something you could do really quick. What do guys here usually do?”

“Leave? Go to Vegas?” I said. “There’s a strip club on the edge of town, The South Pole. He’d hate that, though.”

“The South Pole?” She laughed.

“Not to be confused with the North Pole. Very different place.”

“Ha.”

She pulled up the itinerary and studied it. “We could split off right before the engagement party for an hour. You take him for drinks and cigars, and I can take her for a pedicure or something.”

“There’s a place off Main. MistleToes.”

She lowered her phone. “Are you serious? You know what, never mind, of course you’re serious. I’d think all this was a prank show if it wasn’t so elaborate,” she mumbled. She put her phone down. “You know, this could actually be fun now.”

I glanced at her. “You think so?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not a tropical cruise. But I do like weddings.”

I nodded. “Now that we’ve mitigated the risk. Yeah. Me too.”

She smiled and looked out the window, and I smiled and looked at her. She was right, this could be fun.

But I was still worried.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy for Nick. I was. I just didn’t want to see him hurt again. He’d been through more heartache than anyone I knew and he deserved that less than anyone I knew too.

I hated to admit it, but there was a small piece of me that thought maybe this marriage could actually work. Maybe he wasn’t making a bad decision—yes, it was a knee-jerk one. One he hadn’t fully fleshed out. There was no way he was actually in love—you can’t fall in love in three days. But perhaps what he had with Noel would lead to love.

I wanted that for him.

I wanted that for me one day too.

5

LAUREN

“GOT WHAT YOU NEEDED?” I asked as William got back into the car.

The men’s store didn’t allow dogs, so I’d opted to stay with Daisy.

“Got it,” he said, putting a garment bag into the back seat. “You think two suits is enough?”

“One for the engagement party, one for the wedding. What about the rehearsal dinner?”

“It’s an ugly sweater thing at Rudolph’s,” he said while he started the car.