From the bestselling author of The Summer of Broken Rules comes a
charming coming-of-age romance about family, firsts, and finding love.
When Madeline’s brother gets engaged without telling anyone, she
reluctantly agrees to be a bridesmaid – despite not liking his fiancée.
A game of “Truth or Dare” reveals Mads has never been kissed, and
soon her fellow bridesmaids are setting her up on a series of chaotic
dates. As Mads’ heart pulls her in different directions – toward old
friends, new crushes, and unexpected connections – she must decide
who to bring to the wedding ... and whether her brother should be
walking down the aisle at all.
Chapter 4
“Madeline!”
My smile slipped off my face right as my heart slipped into my stomach. “Yes?”
“Truth or dare?”
Blood pounded, pounded, pounded in my ears. I liked a good dare, but there was no way I was going to risk Katie and her embarrassment countering Meredith’s dare by instructing me to draw on her grandfather’s face with lipstick or send me over to Wawa for snacks. (That walk didn’t scare me, but it was past 1 a.m. and I hadn’t packed my pepper spray.)
“Truth!” I basically shouted. “I pick truth.”
Katie’s shoulders slumped; she’d definitely had a dare planned. “Um…”
“I have one,” Reese said when Katie couldn’t come up with a question. “Mads, which guy are you hooking up with?”
My mind went blank. I had zero clue what she was talking about, even though Katie’s cousins both exclaimed, “I was wondering that too!”
Reese could tell. “You were hanging with two guys in the kitchen earlier,” she said as if I had amnesia. “The dude washing dishes, and the lax bro stuffing his face at the island. Which one are you with?”
It clicked.
Oh.
My.
God.
Too much cheese curdled in my stomach. “Neither!” I all but vomited. “Ew, neither. Connor and
I have been friends forever, and his girlfriend was also there tonight.”
“Is that why you aren’t with him?” Reese asked. Her voice somehow poked me. “Because he’s taken?”
I ignored her. “And we went to high school with Marco. He goes to Princeton now.” “Ooh…” Amanda raised an eyebrow. “A Princeton man.” “Never in a million bazillion years!” I exclaimed.
“Okay, okay, we get it.” Courtney gestured for me to lower the volume. “You are not romantically linked to either of them.”
“But are you romantically linked to someone?” Yasmin asked.
Meredith chuckled. “Yaz, she’s seventeen!”
“Says the person who started dating her high school boyfriend at fourteen!”
“Yeah, and he turned out to be a total shithead,” Meredith said, shrugging. “I’m just saying that you have a lot on your plate at seventeen, and maybe Mads doesn’t have time for a love life.” She glanced at me. “Please tell me to shut up if I’m off base.”
I shook my head. I liked Meredith – I actually liked her a lot but couldn’t help wondering why she was the one sticking up for me rather than Katie. Because Katie was the one who’d known me for more than several hours. “You’re not.”
She nodded in confirmation, but just when I thought that was the end of that, Katie cleared her throat. “Mads,” she said. “Have you ever kissed anyone?” Have you ever kissed anyone?
The question felt like someone was tugging my heart up from my guts, back to my chest where it belonged and could rattle around in my rib cage.
The answer, of course, was now obvious.
No, I hadn’t had my first kiss. I was seventeen yet hadn’t done more than hug a guy. Which barely counted because the only guy I’d hugged besides my brother was Connor, and hugs with Connor were more like football tackles.
Katie tilted her head, as if she suddenly found me the most fascinating creature alive – an absolute alien. “Have you ever gone on a date?”
Blood began pulsing through my ears again. This was, officially, the most embarrassing moment of my life. How had the weight of everyone’s judgment not broken the bed yet?
“Mads, come on!” Katie lobbed a grape at me. “You seriously haven’t been on a date?” My hands balled into fists, wanting to scream at her. Why was she doing this? “Katie,” Meredith murmured as my eyes smarted with tears. “Stop.”
Everyone was looking at me. I so very desperately wanted to go home, but I couldn’t. And even if I could, I still had an abundance of quality time to spend with these people in the coming months. You need to own this, I told myself. Just own this, Mads.
“No, I haven’t been on a date,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “And I’ve never been kissed.” I reached for our Whispering Angel rosé, and no one protested when I took a sip straight from the bottle. One dose of liquid courage. “It’s not that I don’t want to fit someone onto my metaphorical plate, and it’s not that there haven’t been opportunities…but those opportunities usually present themselves at field hockey camps.”
I waited for them to put it together.
They did not.
“’We’ll put our brains together and orchestrate different dates to help you find your dude.’”
Alright, I thought. None of you played sports.
“I was flattered by the attention,” I said slowly. “And love is love – ”
“But you aren’t into girls,” Meredith said, nodding as the other bridesmaids’ eyes blinked with enlightenment. “Got it.”
“And I have no social life,” I went on. “I’m away almost every weekend for field hockey, so I’ve only been to three – maybe four – parties since I started high school. And when I’m not gone, I really want to spend time with Connor and my family. I just…” I raised my arms. “I don’t know.”
A knot twisted when no one responded, and I took another sip of rosé to hide how uncomfortable I was from the silence. Then, a third sip.
But before I could take a full-on pull, Meredith confiscated the bottle and said, “I have an idea.” She nudged Yasmin.
“What’s your idea, Mer?” Yasmin asked in an obvious stage voice.
I laughed, letting a few tears loose. “You two are terrible actors.”
“They are,” Reese agreed. “Hamilton once put on an amateur production of Twelfth Night, and they were – ”
“A travesty!” Meredith interrupted like she still wasn’t over her flop as a thespian. “We were a travesty, okay? Twelfth Night is a comedy, but Yaz and I turned it into a tragedy.” She exhaled. “Moving on.”
“To your idea,” Yasmin prompted (much more naturally this time).
“Yes, my idea.” Meredith smiled at me. “Remember how you said you and your friends would go on Bachelor Nation benders during your sleepovers?”
I nodded.
“Well, I think you should be the Bachelorette!”
A little part of me deflated. Aspiring to Bachelor Nation? That was her idea? “Sure, maybe someday,” I said gently. “But I’m underage right now, and even if I weren’t, that audition process is pretty much a science. I heard if you make the top hundred there’s a mock cocktail party with producers, and psych tests are involved…”
Katie laughed and shook her head. “Mads, I don’t think she’s talking about you actually going out for the show.”
The snark was out before I could stop it: “Then what is she talking about, Katie?”
“Making you our Bachelorette,” she replied, taking it in stride. In fact, her eyes had lit up with what resembled delight. “You have no romance in your life. Let us help you change that.”
“Exactly,” Meredith said. “We’re Katie’s hype squad for the next ten months, and we can be your hype squad, too. The seven of us can totally help boost your confidence to put yourself out there with guys.” She squeezed my shoulder. “We’ll put our brains together and orchestrate different dates to help you find your dude.”
“Absolutely!” Amanda nodded enthusiastically. “The goal will be for you to have a plus-one for
Katie and Austin’s wedding.”
“Well, no,” Meredith said, “I didn’t mean for the wedding to be the motivating factor. Maybe she has a plus-one; maybe she doesn’t. She’ll have an amazing time at the wedding either way. I think the overarching goal should be for Mads to gain some valuable experience and have some fun as she searches for – ”
“That message does not translate well into an Instagram story series, Meredith,” Reese interrupted. “Amanda’s is much catchier.” She tipped her rosé at me. “Let’s get you a wedding date, yes?”
Hesitating, I glanced around at the other bridesmaids.
Yasmin winked at me. “I’m in.”
“Me too.” Courtney nodded. “Definitely.”
My mind swirled. Was I in? Was I actually going to do this?
“Me three,” Paige said, and then there was only the Bride. Her eyes still shone, but I couldn’t read
Katie’s expression; unlike her college roommates, she had some acting chops. Or a poker face, at least. My heart hammered.
I’ll say yes, I thought. If she wants me to do it, I’ll say yes. Because then we would really have the chance to bond, and if we finally clicked, maybe she wouldn’t be so dead set on keeping her distance from my family anymore – or worse, so dead set on taking Austin away from us. And I wanted Katie to like me. I admit, I did.
“How about it, bride-to-be?” Meredith asked. “Is there room in this party for another journey to love?”
One heartbeat.
Two heartbeats. Three.
And then Katie smiled and raised her rosé to me. “Yes,” she said, “as long as she’s doing it for the right reasons.”
Extracted from A First Time for Everything by K.L. Walther, out now.
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