Runaway Groomsman
PRAISE FOR MEGHAN QUINN
The Reunion
“Funny, brilliant, and full of swoon. Fans of The Family Stone will adore this book. A must read.”
—Kendall Ryan, New York Times bestselling author
“Are you a fan of the family dynamics in Schitt’s Creek? Then you will devour this book. Real, raw, and hilarious. Meghan Quinn at her best.”
—Rachel Van Dyken, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“I was hooked from the very first page; this book has it all. The drama, the romance, the heat, and especially the humor.”
—Laurelin Paige, New York Times bestselling author
“This laugh-out-loud romantic comedy was also filled with brilliant romance and surprising depth that absolutely enthralled me.”
—Corinne Michaels, New York Times bestselling author
“Sweet, hilarious, and delightful, The Reunion captivated me from page one.”
—Melanie Harlow, USA Today and #1 Amazon bestselling author
“Laughter and tears with a heavy dose of romance. Highly recommend to any romantic comedy fan.”
—Lucy Score, #1 Amazon bestselling author
“An emotional journey of three siblings finding love and family all over again. Meghan Quinn brings both humor and depth in The Reunion.”
—Skye Warren, New York Times bestselling author
“The Reunion is a delicate balance of laugh-out-loud moments and thoughtful tones that will leave every reader wanting more.”
—Kennedy Ryan, Wall Street Journal bestselling author
“Flawless storytelling of six points of view, three love stories, and one big happily ever after.”
—BB Easton, Wall Street Journal bestselling author
“The way Meghan Quinn was able to carry humor through the emotional aspects of the story was pure brilliance. Another hit.”
—Tessa Bailey, New York Times bestselling author
“The Reunion is positively gripping, with intertwining story lines and six points of view. I wondered with bated breath what was going to happen next in this fun and witty romantic comedy.”
—Amy Daws, #1 Amazon bestselling author
“A Meghan Quinn classic! Rich with her signature humor, clever in the storytelling, and brimming with delicious spice!”
—Lauren Blakely, #1 New York Times bestselling author
The Wedding Game
“Readers won’t have to be reality TV fans to get a kick out of this fun, quirky rom-com.”
—Publishers Weekly
That Forever Girl
“A terrific read.”
—Once Upon a Book Blog
“A heart-tugging, slow-burning, second-chance romance . . . This is a couple that I couldn’t help but root for.”
—Red Cheeks Reads
“If you love small-town romances that are rich in scenery and packed with sweetness, heat, and fun and [are] looking for an easy reading escape, look no further.”
—TotallyBookedBlog
“Filled with emotion, laughter, and loads of sexual tension . . . I dare you to not fall in love with Harper and Rogan!”
—Nightbird Novels
“Sweet, sassy, sexy, and sentimental.”
—Harlequin Junkie
“Second-chance enemies-to-lovers romance at its finest.”
—Bookishly Nerdy
“I’m a sucker for second-chance romances, and add in the small town and I’m hooked. And who better to give me all the feels with a little humor and a mix of sexiness than Meghan Quinn.”
—Embrace the Romance
That Second Chance
“With each book I read by Meghan Quinn, I become more in awe of her writing talent. She truly has a gift! That Second Chance was simply perfect!”
—Wrapped Up in Reading
“A sweet, sexy, swoon-worthy, MUST-READ romance from Meghan Quinn, and I would HIGHLY recommend it! I fell head over heels in love with the quaint and charming small town of Port Snow, Maine, and all of its residents.”
—The Romance Bibliophile
“I’m basking in the HEA goodness of That Second Chance, which gets five stars.”
—Dog-Eared Daydreams
“I adored the small town of Port Snow and the fabulous tight [bond] the Knightly family have not only with each other but their community as a whole.”
—Book Angel Booktopia
OTHER TITLES BY MEGHAN QUINN
All her books can be read on Kindle Unlimited
GETTING LUCKY SERIES
That Second Chance
That Forever Girl
That Secret Crush
That Swoony Feeling
BRENTWOOD BASEBALL BOYS
The Locker Room
The Dugout
The Lineup
The Trade
The Change Up
The Setup
The Strike Out
The Perfect Catch
MANHATTAN MILLIONAIRES
The Secret to Dating Your Best Friend’s Sister
Diary of a Bad Boy
Boss Man Bridegroom
THE DATING BY NUMBERS SERIES
Three Blind Dates
Two Wedding Crashers
One Baby Daddy
Back in the Game (novella)
THE BLUE LINE DUET
The Upside of Falling
The Downside of Love
THE PERFECT DUET
The Left Side of Perfect
The Right Side of Forever
THE BINGHAMTON BOYS SERIES
Co-Wrecker
My Best Friend’s Ex
Twisted Twosome
The Other Brother
STAND-ALONE TITLES
The Modern Gentleman
See Me After Class
The Romantic Pact
Dear Life
The Virgin Romance Novelist Chronicles
Newly Exposed
The Mother Road
The Reunion
The Highland Fling
The Wedding Game
BOX SET SERIES
The Bourbon series
Love and Sports series
Hot-Lanta series
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2022 by Meghan Quinn
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542035002
ISBN-10: 1542035007
Cover design by Caroline Teagle Johnson
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE SAWYER
CHAPTER ONE FALLON
CHAPTER TWO SAWYER
CHAPTER THREE FALLON
CHAPTER FOUR SAWYER
CHAPTER FIVE FALLON
CHAPTER SIX SAWYER
CHAPTER SEVEN FALLON
CHAPTER EIGHT SAWYER
CHAPTER NINE FALLON
CHAPTER TEN SAWYER
CHAPTER ELEVEN FALLON
CHAPTER TWELVE SAWYER
CHAPTER THIRTEEN FALLON
CHAPTER FOURTEEN FALLON
CHAPTER FIFTEEN SAWYER
CHAPTER SIXTEEN SAWYER
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN FALLON
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN SAWYER
CHAPTER NINETEEN FALLON
CHAPTER TWENTY FALLON
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE SAWYER
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO SAWYER
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE FALLON
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR SAWYER
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE FALLON
EPILOGUE SAWYER
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Excerpt: A NOT SO MEET CUTE
PROLOGUE LOTTIE
CHAPTER ONE HUXLEY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
SAWYER
“She’s so beautiful.” A cooing aunt swoons.
“Absolutely breathtaking,” a mother admits while waving her hand in her face, warding off tears.
“Simon is one lucky SOB,” a man says while turning to Simon and giving him a wink.
“Oscar de la Renta in white looks spectacular on Annalisa. Don’t you think?” Armie, Simon’s brother, says as he nudges me with his elbow, pulling me from my lethal reverie.
“Yeah . . . a real goddess,” I say, my voice dripping in sarcasm as I watch my ex-girlfriend walk down the aisle, hand in hand with her father, toward my best friend, Simon Fredrickson.
You read that correctly.
My ex-girlfriend is marrying my best friend.
A large, wet sniff echoes through the illustrious cathedral, which is coated in white from the light-washed floorboards to the vaulted ceilings connected a forty-foot pitch. A church made in Hollywood Heaven.
I glance over at Simon, who’s dabbing at his eyes with a light-blue handkerchief, a tender yet purposeful groom’s gift from his bride: a statement that it’s not just okay to cry while she walks down the aisle but required, because the cameras will be flashing.
The cameras have not stopped flashing since they were caught together on a boat cruise to Catalina. She was wearing a floral-print sundress, Gucci leather sandals, and her hair in loose curls, while he sported a pair of simple navy-blue shorts and a light-blue button-up with the top four buttons undone. No man undoes the top four buttons of his shirt as casual wear unless his first name starts with Douche and the last ends with Canoe.
The reason I know exactly what they were wearing when they were “caught” is because I read the caption under the picture of their love tryst at least 752 times before it actually processed in my head.
Annalisa Morton, my girlfriend of five years—the woman I planned on marrying—and breakout actress from the wildly popular streaming platform Movieflix, known for starring in wholesome romantic movies, was cheating on me, with my best friend.
Not just my best friend.
But her costar.
Her costar in the movie I wrote for both of them.
Some blogs said I practically wrote the script for their love, and with the undeniable force between their looks and my words, it was bound to happen. I should have been smarter.
Yeah, sure, blame it on the guy who was cheated on.
Couldn’t have been the fact that my ex-girlfriend and best friend wouldn’t know loyalty if it slapped them in the face with the latest fad drink from Starbucks.
Overnight, the affair erupted, and the world embraced the new couple.
Embraced!
I thought that was a kick in the crotch, until Simon asked me to meet him at the pub around the corner from my beachside apartment and begged me to be his best man at their wedding.
Begged.
Pleaded.
At one point . . . threatened.
Which has landed me in this very spot, staring down Annalisa in a slim-cut silk dress that screams old Hollywood, tears brimming in her eyes as she walks down the aisle toward Simon.
Why not say no?
Why not tell them to fuck off?
Because you see, there is a hierarchy in society we must follow. It goes: God, Hollywood, the president, and then it trickles down from there. At times, Hollywood and God duke it out for the power to make decisions, and more often than not, the greed from Hollywood wins out.
Unluckily for me, the producers of the movie we were all making together, as one big happy family, pulled me to the side and whispered in my ear that if I ever wanted to write in “this town” again, I needed to suck up my pride and do what was best for the film.
With my career in the balance, I sucked up my “pride” and I went along with the romance, acting as if everything was okay.
I smiled gaily when their engagement pictures spread like wildfire.
I gleefully shook Simon’s hand when he asked me to be his best man—after the ominous threat, of course.
And I even gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to a paparazzo when Simon’s bachelor party was staged in Vegas.
And now that I’m here, standing at the altar with my sniffling weasel of a best friend, all I can think about is how I’m not sure I can possibly take any more of this fanciful mockery of a union.
When she’s midway down the aisle, because Annalisa is living up this nauseating moment, the congregation breaks into joyous applause, as if she’s Miss America taking her victory stroll, sash and flowers clutched dramatically to her bodice.
The men next to me clap.
The parents in front of me clap.
The bridesmaids to the right of me tear up and of course . . . clap. Trained actors at their finest.
I’m the only sane person in the building who is looking around, wondering what the hell is going on—until I’m on the receiving end of a sharp elbow jab to the ribs from Armie, accompanied by a ferocious side-eye that can only be described as the embodiment of derisive contempt.
I lift my hands and offer a slow clap, laced in sarcasm.
Thankfully, no one notices the true meaning behind my subtle clap. As long as I’m performing joyful noise, they don’t bother considering my intent.
After what feels like half an hour, Annalisa makes it to the altar, kisses her dad on the cheek, and then sucks in a sharp breath as she makes a scene of giving her besotted groom a slow once-over. And because they are expert performers, she turns to the audience—oh, excuse me, ahem, friends and family—and gestures to Simon with her bouquet.
“Give our groom a round of applause. Have you ever seen anyone more handsome?”
The best man cleans up pretty well, but who am I to argue with the bride on her wedding day?
Once again, the chapel rings with clapping, and as all eyes are on us, I smile and give Simon a few claps as well while I envision his head between my hands, and instead of clapping my palms together, I’m slapping him right in those floppy, surgically pinned-back ears of his.
The chapel finally calms down, people take their seats in the sturdy pine pews, and the pastor begins his speech.
I tune him out. Not quite in the mood to hear about how the happy couple is the model for a perfect marriage. Instead, I stare down at the light-blue wing tip shoes that expertly match my light-blue Armani tuxedo, Danny Kaye–style.
The shoes bring me back to a time I brought Annalisa to my Boyle Heights apartment, which was littered with friendly drug dealers and ruled by an unspoken agreement—you don’t rat us out and we won’t murder you in your sleep. It was a deal I didn’t mind taking. Annalisa was a struggling actress at the time, so she understood the need for low rent and didn’t even think twice about where I lived. Instead, we cuddled up on the futon on my floor and streamed White Christmas. I marveled at the timeless story line, and she sighed over the costumes, declaring that one day, she was going to marry a man who wore a suit that matched his shoes. I promised her that on her wedding day, I’d make that happen.
Only . . . at the time, I was convinced I was going to be the groom, not the best man.
“The couple has prepared their own wedding vows,” the pastor says with an impressed lilt to his voice.
Of course they have.
Bet they didn’t actually write the vows themselves.
I refrain from crossing my arms over my chest and tapping my toe indignantly as they proclaim their everlasting love for each other.
This should be good.
Simon continues to dab at his eyes—the man must have tear sticks attached to his handkerchief because even though his eyes haven’t stopped dripping, his facial expression remains stoic. Wouldn’t be the first time he inconspicuously taped a tear stick to his eye. I was the one who introduced him to the magical Hollywood trick.
In grand fashion, Annalisa sets her shoulders back and makes a dramatic display of drawing a folded piece of paper from the depths of her cleavage like a magician pulling a bunny from his hat. The awe that falls over the crowd is exasperating. You’d think she’d just mastered boss-level sorcery from their oohs and aahs.
If they think that’s spectacular, they should attend one of my family reunions, where my aunt Suzie utilizes her cleavage like Mary Poppins’s carpetbag. Roarick, my brother, still swears to this day that he saw her pull a live succulent from between her “bosoms.”
Carefully, Annalisa unfolds the paper and looks up at Simon. One would think for being such a trained actress, she’d memorize her vows. But like everything else, it’s all for the show.