He looked appropriately embarrassed now. Good. Why should she feel bad about pointing out the shittiness of it? He squared his shoulders and opened his camera app, shooting her an apologetic smile.

“Okay, I’ll make this right.” He held his phone up to his face. “Happy Saturday, peeps. Most of you might have heard about the article by now. I’m not linking to it to boost any more hits to it, so don’t ask. Well, I made a really not cool joke, and I’m truly sorry. Women have guys belittling everything they do every damn day, and I added to that. Which was frankly fucked up. My mom would have my ass if she knew I did that.” He winced. “I guess she’ll ask me about it after this, Lord, help me. So, I wanna say, flat out to Cherisse, I’m sorry. And I’m grateful for you calling me out on it.” He glanced over at her, then back at the screen, corner of his lip quirking up as he fought a grin. “In a unique way, but message received.”

She bit her lip to hold in her snort. The macaron message was still hilarious, and she had no regrets about sending it.

“So, I’m gonna do better. I don’t expect her to forgive me, it’s her right not to, but I just want her to know I’m truly sorry. Last thing...” His eyes hardened. “To the assholes commenting utter shit under that article, grow up, get a fucking life. Oh! And go check out her Sweethand website for sweet treats. I’ll leave the link in my post. That’s it. Laters.” He threw up deuces before stopping the video, played it back, then looked to her for approval. She nodded, and he posted to his accounts.

“Are we good?” he asked, and Cherisse pursed her lips. Did he think it was that easy?

Cherisse folded her arms and leaned back in her seat. “It’s a start.”

Keiran shrugged. “Damn, you’re a tough one, but thanks for not poisoning those macarons, I guess.”

She cocked her head. “So, you did eat them?”

“I admit nothing,” he said, looking out the window.

They made it to the bridal store, late as expected. Eric and Ava parted ways so the groom’s party could see about their suit fittings.

The store attendant peered at them over the top of her glasses. They looked a hot mess, but Ava wasn’t about to be judged while in this fancy ass store. She adopted a haughty stare as she tossed out her future mother-in-law’s name. It was amusing how quickly the woman’s disposition changed, suddenly turning charming, attentive.

“How ‘bout dem dollar signs, huh?” Remi whispered out the side of her mouth. Not a single lie detected. Mrs. Jones’s name clearly held weight here.

Cherisse grabbed a seat as her sister described the sort of styles she was looking for, so one of the store girls could pull up the options on her tablet. Cherisse switched between watching Ava as she tried some dresses on and her phone, going through updates from Reba. As maid of honor, she felt a little guilty not giving this her full attention, but work was never done, and multi-tasking was a thing.