The Worst Wedding Date
: Chapter 1

Ah, smell that?

That salty, fresh breeze with a hint of passion fruit and a golden sunset layered over the ocean surf?

That’s the scent of happily ever after.

After years and years and years of my best friend waiting for her boyfriend to pop the question, then another forever of planning, we are finally here.

Their wedding week.

Emma’s getting her dream destination wedding, and I haven’t stopped smiling—no, beaming since my plane touched down in Hawaii two hours ago.

Everything is love. The gentle wind softening the humid air. The fragrant flowers. The giant coconut trees. The gecko watching me from the shorter tropical palm tree. Emma’s shampoo as she hugs me outside the entrance to the Midnight Orchid Club Resort barely a minute after I texted her that my driver was pulling into the parking lot.

“Laney! You’re here!”

“Happy wedding week, you beautiful bride, you.” I hug her back like we weren’t watching the January snow fall while we had coffee together at Bean & Nugget Café back home in Snaggletooth Creek four days ago. “Are you nervous? Are you eating enough? Did you have dinner?”

She laughs as she pulls back, but it’s higher-pitched than it should be. “Hawaiian feast. You saw the schedule, right? Of course you saw it. You live by schedules.”

Her stomach grumbles like she did not, in fact, partake in the Hawaiian feast.

It’s an instinctive reaction to reach into my purse and whip out a protein bar for her. “Em? Everything okay?”

Her eyes go impossibly wider and she shake-nods her head too fast and insistently. “Of course.”

For the first time since I boarded the plane to catch up to the rest of the wedding party after having to delay a day for an unfortunate work emergency, I’m not smiling. “Talk to me. What’s up?”

She has three inches on me, so I have to look up to study her. Her blond hair is pulled back in a ponytail. Her sharp cheekbones are undeniably sharper. And I don’t think the tinge of hysteria in her brown eyes is a trick of the fading evening light.

“Wedding stress. That’s all. This is normal. How was your flight? Are you exhausted? Here. I have your, erm, room key. We checked in the whole wedding party yesterday. Come on. Everyone’s at the pool. Here. Leave your luggage.” She turns her Emma charm on the bellhop, a young man with brown skin and a bright Hawaiian shirt. “Can you please get my friend’s luggage taken to the Plumeria Bungalow?”

“Of course, ma’am.”

“Thank you so much!” she says too brightly as she slips him a tip.

She grabs me by the elbow and tugs me inside the lobby of the resort entrance, past the unmanned check-in desk and dying potted tropical plants and large beach landscape paintings. At the open-air atrium where three paths split off, she pauses for just a second.

“This way!” she says, even brighter still.

Emma’s a happy person.

But this is too happy. Even for her.

And there it is.

The nibble on her thumbnail as we head down the tiki-torch-lit walkway on the left.

She has the protein bar in the same hand. She’s practically shoving the wrapper up her nose to nibble on her nail.

“Em?” I say.

She jerks her hand down and once again treats me to a smile, but this one feels so fake that I have to blink to make sure travel fatigue isn’t making me see things.

“This way,” she repeats.

We’re surrounded by flowering shrubs and palm trees beyond the walkway. The light wind off the ocean rustles the bright red-and-green leaves on a shorter tree, and upbeat island music trills somewhere in the distance.

Sure, a few of the tiki torches have gone out. And there are some dead palm fronds littering the grass under a tree or two.

But this place is a tropical paradise.

My best friend shouldn’t be stressed here. Especially not a few days before she finally marries the love of her life at the resort she’s told everyone she’ll be getting married at since the day she pulled a photo of it out of a travel catalog when we were little.

I draw to a stop, grab her arms, and look up at her. “Em. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Emma’s been one of my two best friends for over twenty years. I know when she’s lying. I know when she’s trying hard to convince me she’s not lying. And I know when she’s on the edge of a breakdown and is lying as a last resort to convince herself that nothing’s wrong.

Which is exactly where we are now.

“Okay. Let’s start with some deep breaths. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it.”

“Laney,” she whispers, a plaintive plea full of hope, “I don’t know if you can.”

“Gotta talk to me first. Tell me what’s going on. Everything okay with you and Chandler?”

She winces.

I tilt my head and wait.

“Chandler and I are fine,” she says. “The wedding is fine. Everything’s fine.”

She doesn’t sound fine.

She sounds like she’s a hair’s breadth from hopping a passing freighter and running away from her life.

I add a brow lift and wait for more.

“It’s not like that time we almost broke up three years ago,” she finally says in a rush. “We’re fine. Both thrilled to be here and finally getting married. It’s…neither one of us.”

No lies detected, but there’s still so much stress making her expression tight and her breath too shallow.

I nod and squeeze her arms. “Okay. So what is it?”

She pulls away and starts down the path again. A hint of the sunset comes into view between two bushes, and oh my god.

That’s gorgeous.

Oranges and pinks swirled together behind a row of coconut trees.

Whatever—or whoever—is ruining this for Emma is going down. She should be out on the beach with Chandler, watching this show.

But the sunset disappears behind a tall, flowered bush while I follow her along the winding, cracked sidewalk.

“Emma?”

She uses her teeth to rip open the protein bar package, then gnaws off a huge corner, chews three times, and swallows. “Oh. Cookies and cream. That’s my favorite.”

“I know. What’s wrong? How do I make the bride of the hour as happy as she can be?”

She slides a look at me before attacking the protein bar with a bite that demolishes half of what’s left.

Uh-oh.

“Ah nee a vava,” she says with a full mouth.

“You need a favor?”

She nods and doesn’t look at me while we keep walking.

“Emma. You know I’m here for anything you need this week. Anything. Name it. Oh. My. God.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “Are you pregnant? Do you need—”

“No!”

“Okay. Okay.”

She visibly swallows and winces again. “I wish I was pregnant,” she grumbles. “But no. This is bad, Laney. I should’ve known, but I didn’t, so now I’ll deal with it, except I’m tired. I’m so tired. And I hate to ask this, but you’re the only one I can count on.”

“Name it. I’m here for you.”

The bushes open up, and she pauses while the music gets louder and the view of the sunset widens beyond a kidney-shaped pool where roughly a dozen people are gathered about, either in the water or on loungers or at the tables at the edge of the deck.

This time, she lets herself fully nibble on her thumb when she could be nibbling on the rest of the protein bar, and she stares at the pool. And it’s not a distant, unfocused, I’m thinking hard about something stare.

This is an I’m staring at the problem stare that’s accompanied by the deepest sigh I’ve ever heard her sigh in my life.

Emma’s closest sorority sister from college, Claire, who’s her third bridesmaid, has claimed a pool lounge. She’s one of my favorites of Emma’s college friends. Her hair and her bright swimsuit are wet like she’s recently gotten out of the water. There’s not enough sun left to soak up any rays, but there’s something else clearly keeping her there.

A very distinctive something else.

She’s leaning forward at the edge of her lounger, smiling and flirting with a man in a—what?

Why is that server wearing an inflatable ride-on flamingo costume?

It’s like one of those blow-up tyrannosaurus rex costumes, except it’s a giant blow-up flamingo, and his shirtless top half is out. The flamingo costume has inflated legs across its back to make it look like the man’s riding the flamingo, and it would be funny if it wasn’t so unexpected here.

He’s offering a tray of pineapples with drink umbrellas and straws to Claire, who is eating it all up.

Good for her.

I glance at Emma, who is definitely staring at the server.

He’s ripped. And tattooed. With surfer hair. And I can’t see his face, but I can tell Claire is charmed.

Charmed charmed.

Drooling, even.

Oh, god.

Emma also has a crush on a resort pool boy and is having second thoughts.

I mean, I get it. Chandler’s a catch in Snaggletooth Creek, but he’s not built, tatted surfer hot. Do you see those broad shoulders? And those back dimples above his, erm, flamingo butt?

I angle closer to her and slip an arm around her waist. “Um, Em? Tell me you’re not—”

She cuts me off with a half-sob. “Uncle Owen dared him to wear the costume, and then the bar was understaffed, so he just picked up a tray and started…helping.”

I squint up at her. I’m missing something. “Your uncle dared—”

“And I don’t know what happened while they were all deep-sea fishing this morning, but they came back and Chandler was so mad at him, and he was pretending he wasn’t even though I know he was, and I don’t get it. I mean, I do. I know he’s a total ass sometimes, but he’s never an ass on purpose. And really, he’s almost never an ass at all anymore. It’s more like he sees a toy, he goes after it, and sometimes things just…happen…when that happens.”

I am so confused. “Chandler isn’t an ass, sweetie.”

Chandler can totally be an ass, but in all of the years that they’ve dated, he’s never been an ass to Emma, and on the off chance that he gets close to ass territory, he tends to make it up to her with big, ridiculous gifts.

Also, if Emma’s considering calling off this wedding because she’s attracted to one of the hotel staff, I will defend Chandler to the end.

Marrying Chandler is what she wants.

She’s said so approximately forty-three billion times since their first date in high school. We forgave him for not proposing then—we were all way too young, and then they broke up in college—but since they got back together after college seven years ago, the rest of us have gotten pretty tired of waiting too.

In my opinionated opinion, he should’ve popped the question at least four years ago. It’s not like there was ever any doubt where their relationship was going. Even during that little break-up three years ago. And I know Emma dropped hints. Might’ve even proposed to him once or twice.

But much like he didn’t listen to any hints or outright frank discussions until about this time last year, she’s not listening to me right now. She’s charging ahead with getting everything out, which means she’s fixated.

I’ll ask questions later.

“And then there was that thing on the plane ride here,” she’s saying, “and now Chandler’s all hung up on what happened at Thanksgiving, and I hate to ask this. I know it’s awful. But we’re this close to getting married, and I know he doesn’t mean to put that in danger, but I feel like he is, and can you just… God, I can’t believe I’m saying these words, but can you babysit him?”

I gape at her.

I know she’s not talking about Chandler.

“Okay, babysit is a harsh word. More like…be a buffer. Yes. Can you be a buffer between him and Chandler? Just for a couple days?”

“You need me to babysit the pool boy?”

She finally looks at me, and her whole face crinkles in confusion. “The pool boy?”

I point to the guy in the ride-on flamingo costume, who’s clearly telling Claire something hilarious because she’s doubled over laughing and fawning all over him at the same time.

I can’t blame her.

He’s hot. And undeniably funny. Who wears a costume like that to work at a resort?

“That’s who you’re talking about? The drink server?”

Emma squeaks, and when I look back at her, I realize her face has gone three shades past horrified. “Laney. That’s—that’s—that’s not a drink server. That’s Theo.”

I gape across the breezeway at the pool again while the server turns his head so I can see his wide grin, and oh my god.

She’s right.

That’s her brother.

I mean, of course she knows her brother.

But that does not look like her brother.

Not the version of him I’ve known and been irritated by most of my life.

But I look closer, and oh my god again.

Theo Monroe, the boy who nicknamed me, Emma, and our friend Sabrina the ugly heiresses in third grade, who once got suspended from high school for recreating a scene from Braveheart in the school kitchen with a bunch of their dad’s taxidermy animals, who nearly took out the town’s prized statue of our founder on a dare a few months after high school graduation, and who ordered something so obscene I can’t even talk about it from my family’s print-on-demand company and then wore it all over Snaggletooth Creek not long after I got back to town after getting my master’s degree, accidentally made me drool over him.

Ew.

Ew.

This is jet lag. Or the humidity. Or something.

How did I not see that that’s Theo?

Snaggletooth Creek—the Tooth to us locals—is small, but it’s not so small that you run into everyone every time you turn around. Especially when I live on the east side of town, where my family’s company’s world headquarters are located, and last I heard, Theo lives in a single-wide at the edge of his dad’s property just beyond the western boundaries of our little mountain town. While I’ll go have lunch or coffee downtown, Theo spends his off-time rock climbing or snowboarding or kayaking anywhere but the heart of the Tooth. Or so I gather from hearing Emma talk about him occasionally. I don’t think I’ve seen him in person in four or five years. And definitely not shirtless. And definitely not grinning at me the way he’s grinning at Claire.

Ew.

This is mortifying.

“Oh, god, Laney, you were my last hope,” Emma whispers. “Please don’t fall for the Theo glow-up.”

I blink, shake my head, and school my expression while I look back at her. “Does he still have the same personality?”

She cracks up, and this is such a real, genuine amusement that my shoulders relax.

“Yes,” she says firmly. “So much yes.”

“I think we’re clear then.” Except as I’m saying it, the rest of our conversation catches up with me and clicks into place.

Oh, no.

Oh, no no no.

“So you’ll do it?” she says. “You’ll baby—erm, be the wall between Chandler and Theo?”

I’m all the way around the pool from Chandler, where he’s sitting with his triplet cousins who are serving as his groomsmen. They’re at a far table with a great view of the sunset, and even from here, I can see his lip curl in irritation while he, too, watches Theo. He’s tapping something that looks like a tennis racket against the edge of the table while he scowls.

This wedding? A week of sun, fun, and being a tourist with her family and best friends while everything’s cold and snowy in the mountains back home?

This is Emma’s dream.

She grew up in a crumbling cabin just outside of town limits. When we were little, my parents ran a local T-shirt shop and her dad owned a small taxidermy business.

With the internet age, our families’ businesses have both expanded.

But hers doesn’t have quite the same level of respectability around town that mine does.

Never has. Not even when her mom was alive and driving our bus to school.

And I know it bothers her that she’s celebrated back home as that Monroe girl who overcame her humble beginnings to make something of herself.

Making something of herself was coming home with an accounting degree and starting an accounting firm that now does taxes for half the town. And she loves it.

Marrying Chandler and starting a family?

This is the final cherry on Emma’s dream life sundae.

“Of course I’ll do it,” I say with what I hope is all the conviction I need to believe myself too.

Theo can be a dick, and he wouldn’t know responsibility if it did a striptease for him on top of Ol’ Snaggletooth, the gold miner statue in front of city hall back home. Emma’s quit fretting that she’ll have to support him in old age, but I suspect it’s more out of loyalty to family and not wanting to talk bad about him to anyone than it is that she no longer worries about him. But he is known for having fun.

So the flamingo costume? The flirting? The drinks?

It’s all perfectly Theo.

“I’d ask Sabrina, but she’s been making these faces at him—” Emma starts.

“Awesome,” I sigh before I can stop myself.

“—and I’m sure it’s just loyalty to Chandler since he’s her cousin and they work together and everything, and Chandler was really mad this afternoon because he’s stressed—”

“Everyone wants everything to go right the week of your wedding.”

“And as for Claire—” She drops her head in her hands and sighs, smearing the last bite of cookies and cream protein bar over her forehead as she mumbles something.

I take the bar from her and wipe her forehead. “What was that, sweetie?”

“He’d seduce her before the night’s over, and then I’d have to deal with her broken heart too because she doesn’t know he’s totally a love-’em-and-leave-’em guy,” she whispers. “And any other time, that would be absolutely fine, but she’s super vulnerable right now after a horrible break-up and I just don’t want to put this on her and leave her worse than she got here.”

I don’t think she’s wrong.

Theo’s drawing Claire’s attention like he’s a sea nymph and she’s a love-starved sailor who’s been lost for weeks, which isn’t exactly the Claire I remember. The Claire I remember is fun and put-together and wouldn’t flirt with Theo. And she’s not the only woman at the pool giving him their undivided attention.

Although Chandler’s Great-Aunt Brenda might be glaring. Hard to tell the difference between her glare face and her swoon face sometimes.

I swallow hard. “Don’t worry, Em. I’m on it.”

“It’s just for a couple days. I swear, once Chandler has some space from Theo and gets to just hang out on the beach and play a round or two of golf, he’ll be fine, and Theo being Theo won’t bother him so much anymore.”

“Absolutely. No problem.”

“And maybe talk to Sabrina and replace out why she’s mad at him too?”

“Emma. Bare minimum here. Of course. I’ve got this.”

“And there’s one more thing.”

I look at her.

She doesn’t look back at me. “We’re short one bungalow so I put you in his,” she says on a rush.

Don’t twitch, Delaney. You are a Kingston. You are one of Emma’s very best friends. You are here for her. This is her week. This is for her wedding. The wedding of her dreams. Do. Not. Twitch.

It’s not working.

I’m twitching.

And then I think about what my parents will say—they are not fans of Theo and would have an absolute fit if they saw me going into his bungalow—and I twitch all over again.

They’ve also made subtle comments about how lovely it is that Emma is getting married when I declined a proposal from their perfect choice for me a year ago, and they’re concerned that I’ll end up a lonely old maid without any good prospects if I don’t start considering the men my mother keeps introducing me to.

“It’s a big bungalow,” she assures me too enthusiastically. “With two bedrooms. All of the bungalows have at least two bedrooms. And I’m working every day—no, every hour—with the staff here to get you into your own as soon as it opens—I know you were planning to share with your parents, so we’ll have a space for them before they arrive for sure without having to put them in the overflow hotel, and I know you’d be fine sharing with Claire and Sabrina and there are pullout sofas and all, but I realized…” She pauses, sighs while she eyes Theo again. “It’ll be easier for you to keep him out of Chandler’s way for a couple days if you’re with him all the time,” she finishes with a whisper.

I am definitely going to need four of whatever’s in those pineapples that Theo’s handing out. “Oh my god, Em, this is the least I can do for you.”

I’m squeaking.

She can hear it.

She knows this is the worst thing she could ask any of us to do.

But it’s just for a day or two. Just until space opens up somewhere else and tensions die down and everything goes back to normal. I can do this for a day or two.

Probably not three—my parents get here in three days—but I can absolutely help tensions die down by keeping Theo away from Chandler until then.

I pat her back and stifle a frown at how sharp her shoulder blades are. She’s always struggled to keep weight on. Stress isn’t good for her.

And while my parents abhor Theo, they love Emma.

The girl who rose above being raised solo by a taxidermist after her mom tragically passed while we were in middle school to become a respectable accountant who pays her own bills and socializes with the right people in the Tooth.

They’d want me to do whatever it takes to keep her happy and healthy. “Don’t you worry. I’m on the job. Five years from now, we’ll all look back on this while your babies are opening their birthday presents and laugh and laugh at how silly we all were this week and how amazing it all turned out in the end. Everything’s under control. I’ve got this.”

She tackles me in a hug. “Thank you.”

“Em, it’s your wedding. Of course.”

“I know it’s an awful thing to ask—”

“It’s not. Awful would be asking me to monitor who your uncle’s flirting with.”

She laughs.

I laugh.

We both sound like desperate fools.

“Em. You’re marrying Chandler, and then after a week in Hawaii, you’re going to Fiji. You’ve waited your whole life for this. Even the years when you were on a break in college. Waiting for that doofus to propose counts as double, right?”

She laughs again as she pulls out of the hug, and this time, she sounds more normal. “You’re the best, Laney. Truly.”

I smile at her. “Just wait until I ask you for a favor for my wedding.”

“Oh, god, tell me you’re not dating that banker your mother introduced you to last week.”

And this is why I love Emma. “No, but I’m starting to think about dating someone completely inappropriate just to freak them out,” I joke, even though it’s not as much of a joke as it would’ve been a year ago.

She looks at me.

Then at Theo.

Then back at me.

“No,” I say.

She snickers.

It’s still a little hysterical.

“Not yet, anyway,” I say quickly. “Maybe…later. After they’ve signed the company over to me and can’t go back on it.”

Which is supposed to happen in the next five years so that they can retire and enjoy the rest of their lives.

I love my job. I love our mission and our purpose, and I’m so excited to continue expanding what I watched them build as I was growing up.

I just wish it didn’t come with quite so many expectations for all aspects of my life. It wasn’t like this when I was little.

But as Kingston Photo Gifts has expanded, my parents have gotten stiffer and pickier about everything. Mostly about who’s worthy. And believe me, some days I think they still question if I am.

I glance at Theo again.

He doesn’t have any expectations to live up to. And so he gets to go to a destination wedding in Hawaii and be a total screwball.

“What’s he doing right now?” I whisper to her. “Like, for real. Do I need some background on the costume?”

“The costume—it’s Theo.” She rolls her eyes. “He and Uncle Owen saw it in the window of a thrift store. Uncle Owen dared him to wear it. And like I said, the resort is a little short-staffed, so he decided to help pass out drinks. And it is kinda funny. Isn’t it?”

“You want me to make sure he doesn’t wear it to breakfast tomorrow?

“That would be amazing. But when you talk to him, don’t—”

“Em. I think I know how to handle your brother and at least what not to say.” Probably.

Mostly.

I haven’t actively avoided Theo since I got home from college, but I haven’t been sad that our paths have rarely crossed.

She sags in relief while Chandler swings the tennis racket at something.

“What—” I start but stop myself when her eyelid starts twitching.

“The bugs here really like Chandler,” she whispers. “This is maybe not his ideal wedding spot.”

“That’s…?”

“An electrified tennis racket bug zapper. Theo got it for him and he was super annoyed at first, but now he’s using it all the time. So. You ready?”

Right.

Ready.

For my job. The one thing that will make my best friend happiest during her wedding week.

Theo’s circling the pool closer to the groom’s table. His shaggy light brown hair lifts in the breeze as he holds a tray with a final pineapple drink in one hand and the flamingo reins in his other. His hair isn’t long. More due for a haircut, which is a big change from the days that he kept it buzzed close to his scalp, which was a direct result of an incident with a match and fermented apple juice in the middle school cafeteria. And if he wasn’t Theo, I might be gawking at his tattooed chest too, like Claire is.

But it’s Theo.

And he’s definitely headed toward Chandler, which is the one thing I’ve been asked to make sure doesn’t happen.

“I’m on it,” I say.

Did not see this coming, but I probably should’ve.

Why would Theo be anyone but himself even here in paradise? And who else can Emma trust to make him behave beyond her biggest wet blanket of a friend?

I stifle a sigh. When do I get to have fun?

Not when your best friend needs you to make sure she gets the wedding of her dreams.

“I swear, I’ll get you another room before your parents get here,” she says. “Them too if we can’t get another bungalow.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of that too.” We’ve been besties for a long time. It’s pretty normal for her to know I don’t want my parents knowing I’ll be spending a lot of time with Theo.

Just like I can tell you she’s having nerves but knows this is what she wants, and once she gets through making sure her wedding week goes great, everything will be amazing and they’ll start a family soon and she’ll be the happiest Emma to ever Emma in the history of Emmas.

Theo pauses next to Chandler’s table and offers the table a pineapple with the paper umbrella.

And then it happens.

As he’s standing there extending the tray of drinks, Theo sneezes.

And I don’t actually mean sneezes.

Normal people?

Normal people sneeze.

Theo, however, has a full-body, full-lung, full-nose, full-vocal-cord seizure that sounds like a freight train slamming its brakes and honking its horn at full speed.

He is one of those sneeezers.

It’s sudden.

It’s loud.

And it’s so startling that Chandler yelps, “Jesus Christ!” and swings his bug zapper tennis racket in the direction of the danger, which just so happens to be Theo.

But he doesn’t hit Theo.

Oh, no.

He hits something far worse.

A paper drink umbrella.

There’s a zzzzzzzip! that echoes across the pool as the zapper connects with the drink sloshing in Theo’s hand.

It’s immediately followed by a very distinct poof!

And accompanied by a spark of flame.

“Oh my god.” I drop my purse. I drop the leftover protein bar. And I take off at a dead run.

The drink umbrella has lit up on fire.

It’s on fire.

And it’s too close to Theo’s costume.

Way too close.

“In the pool!” I yell as I get halfway around the pool. “Theo! Jump in the pool!”

The Sullivan triplets scatter, one closer to get pictures, the other two to clear the older people out of the way of the fire, while Chandler gapes at Theo.

Theo twists his head at me while his costume ignites. The flamingo head is on fire.

It’s on fire.

We’re mountain people. We don’t screw around with fire.

Especially flaming flamingo head fires.

But Theo’s giving me a look I’ve seen so many times, I hear him in my head. Oh, good, Princess Plainy-Laney is here.

I’m still in sneakers. Practical for plane rides, practical for sprinting around a pool, and I’m closing in fast. “You’re on fire!” I shriek at him.

Finally—finally—he looks down.

And then the dumbass grins. “Aww, are you worried about me, Laney?”

“You’re. On. Fire,” I yell again. So close. So close.

“What the hell, ass—idiot—Theo,” Chandler snaps.

“Theo. Theo! Jump in the pool!” Chandler’s mom yells from behind the triplet who’s trying to get her out of harm’s way.

I’m finally right on top of him.

He has me by at least six inches and probably fifty to sixty pounds of solid muscle, but I won’t let a little thing like his size and his strength stop me.

He’s about to be on fire himself.

There’s only one thing to do here.

I angle in my dash toward him, feel the heat growing as I get right up next to him, and I use all of my momentum to shove him into the water.

Unfortunately though, that’s not where my momentum ends.

And when his eyes go wide and he realizes he’s falling backward, he reaches for the nearest thing.

Me.

And that’s how I, too, end up tumbling into the pool.