Chapter 29
Theo
Saying goodbye to Jeremiah felt like trying to leave a warm bed on a cold, wintry morning—physically painful and utterly counterproductive. We stood at my front door, neither of us making any real effort to part ways, our hands linked and his thumb tracing circles on my palm.
“I should go,” he said for the third time in five minutes. “You’re going to be late for lunch.”
“I know,” I said, making no move to let go of his hand. “According to Mike, Mrs. H gets cranky when people are late.”
“And you don’t want to see Mrs. H cranky?”
“If Mike’s to be believed, she’s terrifying enough when she’s in a good mood.”
He laughed and pulled me closer, pressing a soft kiss to my lips that lingered longer than it should have for a casual goodbye. When we broke apart, he rested his forehead against mine.
“Last night was . . .” he started, then seemed to lose his words.
“Perfect,” I finished. “It was perfect.”
Another kiss, deeper this time, and I was seriously considering calling Mrs. H and claiming sudden illness when Jeremiah finally stepped back.
“Go,” he said firmly. “Before I decide the gym can wait and drag you back inside.”
The idea held considerable appeal, but I forced myself to nod. “Text me when you get home?”
“Yes, dear,” he said with a wink and a smirk.
Leaning against the doorframe, I watched him drive away before reluctantly gathering my keys and heading to Mrs. Henderson’s house, my lips still tingling from his goodbye kisses.
The drive over was short, but my nerves had plenty of time to ramp up.
I was about to meet the legendary Mrs. H—the woman Mike described as “terrifying in the best possible way” and Sisi called “a force of nature with zero filter.” According to them, she was the undisputed matriarch of their little group, the one who’d somehow adopted them all and now felt entitled to meddle in their personal lives with the enthusiasm of a professional matchmaker.
A matchmaker. Shit.
What if she didn’t like me?
What if she decided I wasn’t good enough for Jeremiah?
From what I’d heard, her approval seemed to matter to everyone, and the last thing I wanted was to become the guy who didn’t pass muster with the group’s unofficial mother figure.
Mike had made her sound both formidable and lovable, but what if I said something wrong?
What if my persistent nervousness made me come across as awkward or boring?
I was probably overthinking this, but meeting the people who mattered to Jeremiah felt like a big step. These weren’t just his friends—they were his chosen family, and their opinion would matter to him whether he admitted it or not.
The driveway was full, so I parked on the street. Peering out the driver’s window, I couldn’t help but gape. Mrs. Henderson lived in a two-story cottage-looking house one might see on the cover of Highland Living magazine, if such a thing even existed.
“Come on, Theo. Suck it up and get in there. Mike will have your back.”
Little did I know, the pack turned on itself when humor—and old Scottish women—were involved.
I climbed out of my car and shuffled my way up the two stairs to the front door. It was slightly ajar, so I pushed it open and stepped inside.
“Holy shit,” I whispered to myself.
The outside was a mix of Atlanta meets the UK, but the interior of Mrs. H’s house looked like Scotland had exploded inside it: tartan everything—curtains, throw pillows, even a lampshade that appeared to be wearing a kilt.
But it was the aroma that hit me hardest.
It smelled like something that might generously be called “traditional Scottish cooking” and less generously described as “what happens when good ingredients go to die.”
“Theodore! It’s about time,” an older woman’s voice announced from across the house. Apparently, Scots had Spidey’s tingling sense—or his hearing, at least. “Get your skinny ass in here. I’ve made haggis.”
My stomach immediately filed a formal complaint.
“That sounds . . . wonderful, Mrs. H. Very authentic.”
“Damn right it is!” she shouted back. “My great-great-grandmother’s recipe, passed down through the generations.”
I’d heard this story from Mike. Mrs. H was about as Scottish as a hot dog on the Fourth of July, but she’d been obsessed with her supposed Highland heritage ever since she’d taken one of those DNA tests and discovered she was 0.
03 percent Celtic. She’d never actually been to Scotland, but that hadn’t stopped her from transforming her house into a shrine to plaid and her kitchen into a battlefield where innocent vegetables and unidentifiable meat went to suffer.
In the living room, I found Mike, a black haired woman I assumed to be Sisi, and two guys I assumed were Omar and Matty arranged around a coffee table that looked like it had been attacked by someone with very strong opinions about bagpipes.
Mike was staring at a plate of something gray and lumpy with the expression of a man contemplating his own mortality.
Sisi sat curled in the corner armchair, a cup of tea in her hands and a look of barely contained horror on her face.
The dark-haired man, Omar, was prodding something brown and mysterious with his fork, while Matty—with his unmistakable platinum blond curls—was actually eating whatever Mrs. H had concocted, though his face suggested he was doing so through sheer willpower.
“Theo!” Mike hopped up and gave me an awkward hug while still holding his untouched plate. Sisi remained seated, a queen on her throne, though she did offer a tiny fingertip wave. “That’s Omar and Matty,” he said, pointing his plate at each man in turn.
Mrs. H chose that moment to appear from the kitchen with a platter that looked like evidence from a crime scene, complete with blood splatter from a sausagy, meat-like substance that clearly hadn’t rested long enough. “Traditional neeps and tatties to go with the haggis!”
The collective silence was deafening.
“What exactly are neeps and tatties?” Mike asked weakly.
“Turnips and potatoes, you ungrateful little shit,” Mrs. H said cheerfully, plopping a serving onto his plate. “It’s good Scottish comfort food.”
Omar leaned over to whisper to Matty, “I think the turnips are still alive. They’re making sounds.”
“Can turnips talk? Or groan?” Matty whispered back.
“That’s just the seasoning,” Mrs. H said, her superhuman hearing exposing itself once again. “My secret blend of herbs and spices.”
I accepted a plate with the resignation of a man walking to his execution.
The haggis looked like it had been assembled by someone who’d heard a description of food but had never actually seen any. The neeps and tatties appeared to be engaged in some kind of chemical warfare with each other.
“Now then,” Mrs. H said, settling into what was clearly her favorite chair with obvious satisfaction, “who’s ready to plan some proper mischief for our boys’ wedding?”
The collective perking up was immediate.
“I have ideas,” Omar said with sinister glee.
“Of course you do,” Sisi said. “But first, we need proper gifts. None of this registry bullshit—anyone can buy a toaster. We need something meaningful.”
“I was thinking custom cutting boards,” Mike offered. “Shane could make them, so they’d be practical and sentimental.”
“That’s actually sweet,” Sisi said, looking surprised. “But why would Shane make a gift for his own wedding?”
“Fine,” Mike grunted. “Fair point.”
“What about a couples’ massage?” Omar suggested, his London accent making even the simplest idea sound like sexy algebra. “They’re both wound tighter than a nun’s corset.”
“Poor Mateo carries the weight of the world on his shoulders,” Mrs. H agreed. “Always has. A massage would do him good. And Shane works himself to death in that workshop.”
“I don’t know,” Mike replied. “We should do something that will last. A massage is great, but when it’s over, it’s over.”
Sisi nodded and raised her cup. “He’s right. This is too big to blow.”
“Too big to blow.” Matty snickered, clearly a seven-year-old boy who’d just heard a fart joke.
“Fine. I’ll do a little research, but we don’t have much time to decide, especially if whatever we choose has to be ordered or customized,” Omar said.
“Speaking of which”—Matty’s grin turned positively wicked—“shouldn’t we be planning some proper wedding shenanigans? It’s tradition.”
Mrs. H’s eyes lit up with the kind of gleeful malice that probably made her fictitious ancestors successful in whatever battles they’d fought. “Now you’re talking dirty to me. I was thinking we could mess with their honeymoon suite—”
“No,” Sisi interrupted firmly. “Whatever you were about to suggest, absolutely not. They’ve been living together for a year. They’ve been doing all the sex for many months now. Trust me, there’s nothing new to see there, and nothing we need to interfere with.”
“Spoilsport,” Mrs. H muttered, but she was smiling. “What about the reception?”
“Now that has possibilities,” Omar said. “Something during the dancing?”
“Or the speeches,” Mike added. “We could coordinate something with the DJ.”
“Ooh, what about during the cake cutting?” Matty suggested.
“Too fucking obvious,” Mrs. H said. “Everyone expects something during the cake cutting. The whole smushy-face-cake-move is older than I am, and I’m ancient.”
We spent the next hour coming up with increasingly elaborate schemes while moving food around our plates without ever actually taking bites. Mrs. H didn’t appear to notice. Thank God.
It felt a bit strange, planning shenanigans for someone I hadn’t met with others I barely knew, but the whole thing was too funny to walk away from.
Omar suggested hiring a flash mob, which was quickly shot down when Sisi pointed out that Shane would probably hyperventilate while Mateo would simply join in the show.
“What about strippers?” Matty proposed with a completely straight face. “We could get them costumes to look like wedding cake toppers.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
“Jesus Christ, Matthew,” Mrs. H said finally. “Even I have standards.”
“Too much?” he asked innocently.
“Way too much,” Sisi said, looking slightly green.
He raised his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine. What about replacing all the wedding music with death metal? Really get people’s blood pumping?”
“Shane would literally die,” Sisi said. “Like, his heart would stop. We’d be planning a funeral instead of celebrating a wedding.”
“Polka then?” Omar suggested. “Everyone loves polka.”
“Nobody loves polka,” Mrs. H corrected. “That’s why it’s called polka.”
I wasn’t sure that made sense, but everyone simply nodded like her explanation was the most logical thing in the world.
“Ooh!” Matty’s eyes lit up again. “What if we arranged Shane’s woodworking tools to spell out something inappropriate in the background of their photos?”
“Like what?” I asked, immediately regretting opening my fat mouth.
“You know . . .” He waggled his eyebrows. “Something about his wood . . . or his drilling techniques . . . or how he knows how to handle a good piece of hardwood—”
“NO,” we all said in unison.
“You people have no imagination,” Matty complained.
“We have plenty of imagination,” Mike said. “We also have functioning brain cells that understand the concept of ‘appropriate for a wedding.’”
“What about hiring a mariachi band to follow them around during the reception?” Omar suggested. “Nothing says romance like unexpected mariachi music.”
“Shane would hide in the coat closet for the rest of the night,” Sisi pointed out.
“Or punch the trumpet into a flat piece of metal,” Mike added.
“Exactly!” Omar said, as if this was somehow a selling point.
Mrs. H waved her fork dismissively. “You’re all thinking too damn big. We need something subtle. Something that’ll make them laugh, not give them PTSD.”
“What about replacing the wedding favors with something ridiculous?” Mike suggested. “Like . . . I don’t know . . . tiny bottles of hot sauce labeled ‘Shane and Mateo’s Spicy Love’?”
“That’s actually not terrible,” Sisi admitted grudgingly. “Or replace the rice with those tiny confetti penises. They’re all different colors. It would be amazing.”
“And it would kill every bird in town who tried to eat them,” Mike said, killing the idea.
“Or we could mess with the photo props,” I spoke up. “Replace all the normal signs with increasingly ridiculous ones.”
“Now you’re talking,” Mrs. H said approvingly. “What kind of ridiculous?”
“Nothing X-rated,” Sisi said firmly, giving Matty a pointed look.
“Killjoy,” Mrs. H muttered.
“We could have signs that say things like, ‘I survived Shane’s bachelor party and all I got was this stupid sign,’” Omar suggested.
“Or ‘Mateo’s better half,’” Mike added. “And then another one that says, ‘Shane’s better half,’ so people fight over who gets which.”
Mrs. H grinned and nodded. “I like where this is going. What else?”
“Signs about their weird habits,” Mike suggested, practically bouncing off his seat. “Like ‘I promise to still love you even when you leave wood shavings everywhere’ or ‘Italians roll off your tongue.’”
“Oh, that’s good,” Sisi said, actually smiling now. “Personal but not humiliating.”
“Or . . . we could mess with the seating chart,” Matty suggested, apparently having given up on his more scandalous ideas. “Put all the most talkative relatives at one table and see what happens.”
“That’s not a prank; that’s biological warfare,” Mrs. H said. “I like it.”
By the time we’d finished brainstorming—and we’d successfully avoided Matty’s creative suggestions involving power tools and anatomical euphemisms—we had settled on a couple of ideas that were sweet enough to honor the occasion but mischievous enough to satisfy Mrs. H’s need for chaos.
“Those boys won’t know what hit them,” she said with satisfaction.
“In the best possible way,” Sisi added firmly.
“Of course. I’m not heartless,” Mrs. H protested. “I just believe that love should be celebrated properly—with a little mayhem thrown in for flavor.”
The sun set early in the late autumn sky, triggering a mass exodus.
Mike and Sisi stayed to help Mrs. H clean up—and discreetly hide the fact that none of us had actually eaten the food.
Omar and Matty walked with me to our cars, chatting and laughing, as I suspected they always did.
I couldn’t help but marvel at the amazing group of friends I’d stumbled into.
Found family indeed.
As I reached for my car’s door handle, my phone buzzed.
Postie: Thinking about you.
I smiled and typed as quickly as my thumbs allowed.
Me: If you think last night was good, wait until you hear what Mrs. H has planned for the wedding.
Postie: Should I be scared?
Me: Probably. But it’ll be worth it.