Both our phones started jangling alert tones. Irritated, I dug mine out of my pocket, and she did the same.

*thirty minutes to tux fitting. Traffic is moderate to heavy. If you leave now, you will arrive at three thirty-one.*

“Shit,” I cursed under my breath as I stood up. “I don’t want to leave this conversation unfinished again because something tells me the offer will be off the table if I do.”

Darcy looked up at me and smiled. “Probably,” she answered honestly. “What else is on your schedule?”

I thumbed open the schedule I’d set:

• 3:30 p.m. tux fitting
• check car and hotel reservations for Bran & Jay’s honeymoon
• make sure J has picked and purchased his pre-wedding gift for B.
• double-check suite reservations, food, and strippers for the bachelor party
• 5:00 p.m. rehearsal
• 6:00 p.m. rehearsal dinner
• 10:00 p.m. bachelor party

For the first time in my life, I hated my ability to plan everything right down to the minute in order to get maximum productivity out of my day. There was no fucking wiggle room in this schedule. Doubly irritated now, I selected the rideshare app to call a car for me and Jared and sent a text to the guys at the hotel to make sure they were headed to the tux shop too.

“I… Maybe we can snag a moment during the rehearsal dinner?”

She stood and faced me with a sad smile on her lips. “This weekend isn’t supposed to be about me, Tommy. We shouldn’t be sneaking around during Jared and Brandi’s rehearsal dinner to weigh the pros and cons of acting on feelings that we have no business feeling.”

“Darcy.” I moved in as close as I dared. “There are absolutely no cons to having this conversation. I will find the time.”

“You can’t just create more hours in a day, Tommy,” she said, laughing at what probably sounded like a borderline tantrum to her ears. “This schedule is packed. Maybe that’s the universe’s way to prove to us that we shouldn’t do this.”

“I don’t accept that,” I said. “What about after the bachelor party?”

Darcy’s brow creased with a frown. “After? I assumed that it would go on until dawn.”

“Yeah, but it’s in a strip club, which means — theoretically — that I could end the night when the lights come up.”

“Really?” She arched an eyebrow and looked down at her phone to read the details on the itinerary. “You’re going to leave a bachelor party with six strippers to come back here and talk to me?”

“There’s a shit-ton of things I’d rather do than babysit a bunch of drunk frat boys, Darcy.” You, for instance.

“And is one of those things old lady shit like drinking bourbon, while watering my plants, and gliding around my empty townhome in a caftan like a boo hag until dawn?”