“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She laughed again. “You’re going viral. What’s your name?”
“Uh . . . Garrett. Why?”
She grinned, took a photo of him, and then started typing on her phone. “No reason.”
“Stop tweeting about me!” Garrett didn’t use Twitter much, but he dug his phone out of his pocket and pulled up the app, trying to remember his password. He looked up at the road and didn’t recognize the route. “Do you know where you’re going?”
“Yeah, I grew up around here. We’re only about five minutes away.”
Garrett glanced at his phone. His worthless Twitter app was open, but it was unusable without the proper password. “It’s five minutes ’til. I should barely make it.” Neil would be up at the altar already. Since he thought Garrett had a contract that would guarantee him a few million dollars, Neil wouldn’t mind getting pulled away, but Nana Ruby had a part to play in this new scheme. How would he know where to find her?
“Oh,” the woman in the back murmured, sneaking a glance up at him. “They have a good point.”
“Who does? What are you talking about?”
“People think you look like shit. We need to clean you up if you’re going to crash a wedding.”
He let out a groan and looked down at his jeans and T-shirt. “I’ve spent an hour trying to hunt Blair down—”
She frowned and cringed. “Uh-uh. Don’t put it like that. You sound like a stalker.”
He shook his head. “And then I’ve spent the last three hours trying to draw up a legal document to get my cousin to agree not to marry my ex-girlfriend. I didn’t have time to change into my tux.”
“Wait. Tux?” the driver interrupted. “You’re in the wedding?”
“Was. My grandmother made me a groomsman, but after this morning, I doubt anyone wants me there.”
“What happened this morning?” the guy asked, leaning closer.
“Uh . . .” What was he doing? He was spilling his guts to complete strangers. He looked over his shoulder—and saw that the woman behind him was tweeting a play-by-play. He snatched the phone out of her hand and scanned the screen. When he saw the photo of him littering the stream—his eyes half closed and his mouth open, his body twisted at a weird angle as he leaned over Roy in the hotel lobby—he understood her previous comment.
“I took another one.” She grabbed the phone and swiped the screen. “Here.”
The new photo showed him sitting in the front seat, his eyes wide, making him look crazed. He wasn’t sure it was much better. “What are people saying?”
The woman beamed. “They love you. You’re a trending topic.”
Oh, shit. Blair was going to flip out. “You have to stop them.”
“Dude,” she laughed. “I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to—which I don’t. Helping something go viral is like my lifelong dream come true.”
“You need new life goals.”
She laughed again.
The car slowed down, and Garrett looked up to see a traffic jam. “Why’s everyone stopped?”
“If I had to guess . . .” The guy sat up straighter, then looked out his side window. “I think there’s a bunch of people going to the church.”
“Wait. All the guests they invited would already be parked.”
“Dude, you went viral. Don’t you get it? These people found out about it on social media.”
The blood rushed from his head. “All these people are going to Blair’s wedding?” he asked in horror.
“Of course not,” the guy laughed. “Some of these people are just driving. I guess about fifty percent are planning to go to the church.”
“I’ll find out,” the woman said, typing furiously on her phone. Seconds later cars started honking.
“Huh,” the guy said, twisting his mouth as he concentrated. “I’d say it’s more than fifty percent.”
The car came to a dead standstill. Based on the seemingly endless line of cars ahead of them, Garrett suspected they weren’t moving very far, very fast any time soon. “How far is the church from here?”
“Uh . . . about three blocks up and one to the left.”
Garrett opened his car door, holding the papers in his hand. “Thanks for the ride.” He looked at the woman in the back. “I think.”
“Go get ’er, Garrett!” the woman said with a wide grin.
He shut the door and walked around the front of the car to the sidewalk and started jogging. As he ran, people leaned out their car windows, shouting his name.
“It’s him!”
“Go, Garrett!”
“Get your woman!”
After two blocks, he glanced at his phone, horrified to see it was five o’clock. He still had two blocks to go. It was a hot and humid summer day, and he hadn’t dressed for a summer afternoon run. Perspiration beaded on his forehead, sending streams of sweat down the side of his face and his neck.
People were leaning out their windows, chanting his name.
“Garr-ett! Garr-ett!”
A teenage girl ran up to him and handed him a bottle of water, then jogged beside him for several paces. “What you’re doing is so romantic!”
Shit. Blair hated romance. Would she see it that way?
People were lined up on the sidewalk in front of the church, chanting his name. How in the hell had so many people heard about this in thirty minutes? He reached the top of the steps leading to the church and leaned over his legs to catch his breath. Then he looked at his phone. 5:10.