Chapter 2
THEO
As it turned out, Theo wasn’t getting off the hook so easily.
He drove five times around the block in front of the café Max had given him the name of, looking for a parking spot and cursing the fact that this brunch had been necessary.
He did want to help his brother organize this wedding, but why was a brunch part of that?
Couldn’t Max have just given him the maid of honor’s phone number?
He pushed aside thoughts of the board meeting he had skipped to be here. He would get the minutes from someone. He’d be playing catch-up all day, but that was all right. He was doing this for his brother, after all. He would do anything for Max.
He finally found a parking spot and pulled into it.
Before getting out of the car, he adjusted the rearview mirror to make sure there wasn’t anything in his teeth.
He had sat through enough interviews with people who forgot to do this that he would never forget it again himself.
It was a terrible first impression to make.
He got out of the car and went into the diner.
It was a quaint place with paintings by local artists on the walls.
Theo had never been here before, but it was sweet, and it struck him as the sort of place his brother would like.
It charmed him to think that Tara had chosen a place that would make Max happy.
Whether it was to her own taste or she’d been picking for his sake, the fact remained that the two of them were a good match, and that was a satisfying thing to realize.
“Can I help you?” the hostess asked as he went inside.
“I’m meeting— oh. There he is.” Max was waving at him from a corner booth. Theo sidestepped the hostess and went in.
As he reached the table, everyone rose to their feet to greet him.
Max wrapped him in a bear hug and slapped his shoulder.
Tara, so tall she was of a height with Max, blond, and willowy, stepped forward and kissed him on the cheek.
She was beaming, and she held out her hand. “Look,” she said happily.
Theo admired the ring. “Congratulations to you both,” he said. “You’ll be great for him, Tara. You might be settling a bit, though.”
“Oh, shut up,” Max said cheerfully. “Theo, meet Harper Martin. Harper, this is my brother, Theo.”
Theo turned his attention to the third person at the table.
She was shorter than Tara by at least a foot, and where Tara’s hair was sleek and pale blond, Harper’s was a mass of thick auburn Irish curls.
She beamed up at him, looking as if she was being introduced to a celebrity.
“Theo! It’s so nice to finally meet Max’s brother. He says the sweetest things about you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Theo said. “My family really loves Tara.”
“Of course you do. Tara’s the best. I’m so lucky to have her as a friend, and I’m so excited to be a part of this wedding. I bet you feel the same. I’ve been waiting ages for these two to finally tie the knot.”
Theo couldn’t honestly say he had felt anything of the sort, but he smiled and nodded. “It’ll be a nice event,” he said. “I know it’ll be lovely for my mother to have a wedding to celebrate. This is going to mean a lot to her.”
“And it means so much to me that the two of you have both volunteered to help,” Tara said, easing back into her seat.
Everyone else joined her, and Tara pulled a large binder out of her oversized purse and set it on the table.
“Okay,” she said. “This is everything you’re going to need.
Now, Max tells me that you’re going to help with the venue and all of the vendors we need, right, Theo? ”
“Um,” Theo hesitated. Was that what he had agreed to? He had certainly said he would try to help, but it sounded like Tara had something very specific in mind for him.
She rotated the binder to face the side of the booth where Theo and Harper sat. Harper leaned over eagerly and began to peruse the pages, but Theo kept his eyes on Tara as she pointed things out.
“This is a list of venues I’m partial to,” she said. “It’s probably going to come down to which one can take us on the date we have scheduled — although if there are multiple options that work, we trust the two of you to choose something that suits our needs, of course.”
“Of course,” Harper said. “We’ll go out and tour them together, won’t we, Theo?”
“Um,” Theo said again, feeling like an idiot.
He was usually so articulate and well-spoken in business meetings — he wasn’t used to being reduced to monosyllabic grunts like this.
But what on Earth had he gotten himself into here?
How much were they going to expect him to do?
Touring venues? When he had spoken to Max about planning this wedding, he’d imagined that his role would be something along the lines of handing Harper a vendor list.
Maybe they weren’t even going to need his vendor contacts.
Harper was now pulling a folder out of her own purse — not as fat as Tara’s wedding binder, but a lot bigger than Theo would have expected given that she wasn’t the one getting married.
“I’ve started looking up vendors in our area for things like food, flowers, and music,” she said.
“I have printouts from the most highly rated places, if you’d like to take a look, Theo.
When we go for things like tastings, we can put them in order of how optimistic we each feel about the place, so we can make sure we’re more likely to see everything each of us wants to see. ”
Theo couldn’t think of a polite way to say that he didn’t care who the vendors were. He was only doing this because Max had asked him to, and as long as the vendors delivered everything they promised and the food wasn’t poisoned, he couldn’t imagine being very particular about any of it.
It’s probably good that Harper seems to care so much. She can make all the decisions, and honestly, she’s likely to thank me for letting her do it.
A waitress came over to the table. “Can I get you all something to drink to start things off?”
“How about mimosas?” Theo asked. “To celebrate the happy occasion.”
“Oh, not for me,” Tara said quickly. “I’m still breast-feeding.”
“And I’m not drinking — in solidarity,” Max said. “Not until Tara can.”
“Oh,” Theo said. “Then just… coffee, I suppose.”
“It’s all right if you want to — go ahead,” Max said.
“I’m all right.” He’d wanted to toast with his brother, not drink mimosas on his own. “Coffee and orange juice for me.”
Everyone else ordered their drinks, and the waitress disappeared.
“All right,” Max said. “Let’s talk about what you two are going to be able to handle specifically.”
“They’re going to handle all the major planning, right?” Tara asked. “That was what you told me, Max. You said we wouldn’t have to do anything.”
“We won’t,” Max assured her. “They know how busy we are with the kids, don’t you, Theo? Harper?”
“We know,” Harper agreed. “Honestly, I don’t know how the two of you do it — holding full-time jobs and taking care of two kids at the same time. There’s no way I could manage it!”
“You’ll manage it when you have kids of your own,” Tara told her. “You’ll see. You don’t think you could do it right now, but actually, it comes very naturally.”
Harper flushed and looked down. “Let’s not do this now, Tara,” she said quietly.
Much to his own surprise, Theo was pretty sure he had picked up on what was happening between the two of them right away.
There was something about this conversation that was awkward for Harper, something that made her want to avoid it.
He had the impression that the two of them had discussed the matter of when Harper would be having children before, that it wasn’t a comfortable subject between them.
And he understood.
Max would never have put any pressure like that on Theo, but their mother had done so in the past. Both times Max had announced that he and Tara were expecting, their mother had called Theo to ask when he was going to give her a grandchild.
She liked to remind him that she was all alone in the world and had been since their father had abandoned the family.
Theo, who had no desire for children, felt burdened by those conversations and would have liked nothing better than to never have one of them again.
He didn’t know Harper’s circumstances, of course, but he could see that she was uncomfortable with what was happening, so he spoke up.
“I know I couldn’t do it,” he said. “Working full-time and managing a kid, that is. Although maybe if I had a job like Max’s, I could. At least he can set his hours.”
Max heaved a sigh. “You know it isn’t that easy, Theo,” he said. “If I could be home all the time with the kids and still do my job, I would do that. Sportswriting requires actually attending the games you’re reporting on.”
“It’s sounds like such an exciting job,” Harper said eagerly. “Max, I would love it if you and I could work together on something sometime.”
“What do you do?” Theo asked her.
“I’m an events planner. I’m trying to move into full-time wedding planning, but right now I take on all kinds of events, and sports banquets are something I deal with sometimes.”
“I’m surprised I haven’t heard of you,” Theo said.
She lowered her head modestly. “I’m just getting started, so that’s probably why,” she said.
“She’s great,” Tara said loyally. She’s going to be the best wedding planner in Houston.”
Even better. She’ll be determined to take over this whole event, which will mean that much less for me to worry about. Theo was pleased.
And he filed away her name for future reference, too.
If she was into events planning, she might be able to help him with occasions for the ball club.
He wouldn’t bring it up right now, but maybe someday in the future they could discuss it.
Maybe he could even hire her on, and she would be able to take some things off his plate.
She might want to be a wedding planner now, but if she were offered a real job, she would probably change her mind.
And if she changed her mind, maybe Max would follow suit…
“Theo?”
He turned his attention to Harper. “Sorry. Did you say something?”
“I asked you whether you were doing anything for the rest of the day,” she said. “Because I thought, if you’re not too busy, that we could get started on this.”
I really ought to get back to work. I’ve missed enough for one day. That was his first thought. But, quick on the heels of that idea came another one — that meeting was the most important thing happening today. Now that I’ve missed it, I might as well take the rest of the day.
“I can take some time,” he told her.
“That’s great,” Tara said, getting to her feet. “Since you two are getting along so well, we should really get back to the kids. You’re the best, Harper, Theo!”
Max tossed an apologetic glance over his shoulder, and the two of them vanished.
I guess they were never planning on staying for brunch. This was all a setup.
He turned back to Harper. “How about that mimosa?”