Page 70 of Last Night Was Fun

Before Emmy blinked twice, they were embracing in a tangle of backslapping and matching grins.

“I’m here for a wedding!” Gabe said excitedly. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for a wedding too! I’m the best man!” Henry cried.

“No way!” Gabe turned to Emmy with surprised joy all over his face. “This is my cousin Henry from LA. Henry, this is my girl— I mean, my co-work— I mean my... Emmy. This is my Emmy.” He stroked a hand through his messy hair and blushed.

“Nice to meet you,” Emmy said, and felt her face warm at his charming fluster.

My Emmy.Her heart grew three sizes.

“Oh, is this the girl? The one your mom said you’re wild about?” Henry asked with a wide grin.

“What?!” Gabe screeched and turned a burnt shade of red. “Mymomtold you about her?”

“No, dude.Mymom told me about her.Youtold your mom, she toldmymom, and now like half of LA knows. What did you expect to happen?”

“Oh Christ.” Gabe buried his face in his hands.

“Anyway, good to see you, man!” Henry slapped him on the back again. “Small world to run into each other like this.”

“Yeah, what are the odds,” Gabe muttered, still recovering.

Emmy felt her own cheeks flaming. She knew his mom knew about her, but not his extended family. And,wild about? That would takeat leasttwo couch and wine therapy sessions with Beth to sort out later.

“I need to find Cary,” Henry said, and craned his neck toward the crowd. “I just got here—dude, my flights, I can’t even.” He shook his head in dismay. “But I guess there’s some kind of drama going on? I don’t know. His texts have been getting progressively more incoherent. And violent...” He looked down with a grimace and thumbed his phone.

“Wait, Cary?” Emmy said.

“Yeah, you know him too? Wait, are you guys here for thesame wedding? How wild wouldthatbe! I mean, I know some of Gary’s friends, but not a ton, so there’s totally a chance we’ve never met and we’re all here for the same reason.”

The man spoke a hundred miles a minute. Emmy was tempted to put her hand over his mouth just to get a word in. She noted Gabe instantly adapted to the same style of speech. She’d never seen him around his family other than Captain Carl and wondered if all the Olsons spoke like auctioneers around each other. Listening to them talk was like watching popcorn kernels in a kettle with the way they jumped around.

“No. We’re here for the other wedding,” Gabe said.

“Other wedding?” Henry asked.

“Yeah. Emmy’s sister is getting married, and for a second, when you said you were the best man, I thought you might beBen’sbest man, and that would have been—”

“Ben?”

“The other groom. Well, one of the grooms, I should say.”

“There are a lot of grooms.”

“There are. The hotel double-booked the venue this weekend. We were just down here trying to—”

“Oh, shit!That’swhat Cary has been freaking out about?” Henry thumbed his phone again. “Ah, I see it now.” He nodded and tilted the screen to show Gabe. “I didn’t get all the twins and wedding rings and knives and skulls before. But now I do. Makes sense.”

“Totally. So, it’s kind of a disaster, and we’re trying to figure out—”

“Time-out!” Emmy shouted. She stepped between them and made a T shape with her hands.

They both stopped blabbering and looked at her.

“First of all,” she said, turning to Gabe, “how many cousins do you have?”

“A lot. I told you I have a big family.”