Now she needed to call her mom and tell her she didn’t have a plus-one after all—that or find one. She’d be much better off finding one, but at this late date…

“Dammit,” she muttered to herself as she set the phone down hard on the table and started packing her things in her bag to take home.

“Okay,” Cole said, already standing, his legal pad and pencil back in his work bag, ready to go. “What did what’s-his-name do to you?”

“How do you know it’s what’s-his-name?” She stood and picked up her Dunn & Lowell fleece jacket from the back of her chair and put it on.

“You were fine all day, even with the wedding stress. He shows up, you slam the door, I find you swearing a blue streak after him… Are you going to tell me it’s not?”

Cole was the kind of guy who didn’t say too much but who paid attention, sometimes more than she wanted him to.

“He screwed me over for a wedding date,” she said.

“He canceled on you?”

“Broke up with me. Which wouldn’t be a big deal if not for Kennedy’s wedding. We were never that serious but had agreed to at least get through the wedding.”

“What changed?”

She blew out a breath as she pulled her ponytail out from under her jacket. “He met someone he really likes. Wants to see her this weekend.”

Cole watched her, assessing, and then he said, “That blows.”

“I’d be okay with it if it didn’t leave me in the lurch for the wedding.”

“Do you really need a date?” he asked skeptically.

Such a guy.

“I really do. My mom is militant about RSVPs and head counts for the hotel caterers. If I don’t show up with a plus-one, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

There was more—as the youngest Lowell sibling, Sierra always felt she had to prove herself, in every arena, justified or not, and both her siblings had found their person, were settled or settling, and she was so far from it, it wasn’t funny—but it wasn’t worth going into with Cole. She fully acknowledged it was at least partially in her head, but it wasn’t likely she could resolve twenty-some years of mental crap in the next forty-eight hours.

“Plus there’s the bridal party dance…” She shook her head, realizing how woe-is-me she would sound to admit out loud she didn’t want to be the odd girl out.

“What kind of dance?” Cole said, lowering his bag to the chair he’d been sitting on.

“Just a slow song. Standard partner dance. Nothing special, but it’s a thing.”