Why had something like that never occurred to her?

“Of course I remember.” She sat back on the couch and tucked her feet under the blanket. “Tell me all your ideas.”

Chapter Twenty

WHEN THEO WALKED BACK INTO CITY HALL MONDAY MORNING, IT FELT like it had been months since he’d been there, not a week and a half. Apparently, it felt like that to other people, too: two people from the counsel’s office hugged him as he walked into the building, the security guard who did like him gave him a high five in the lobby, and there were “Welcome back!” balloons in his office.

It was all so nice, except how it made him feel like a piece of shit. Didn’t they all know the concussion had been his fault in the first place? That he’d ruined the kickoff rally for a major statewide initiative because of his own hubris?

Didn’t they all know he was the biggest asshole Maddie had ever met?

On the plus side, he’d been able to think more clearly over the past few days and had realized it was possible that his anxiety about losing his job over the rally was not completely rational, even though he still felt terrible about ruining the rally. The mayor liked him; he’d done great work there—Alexa had maybe even been right about all that. At least, he hoped so.

Everything with Maddie, however, seemed just as dire. He missed her so fucking much he felt pathetic. He constantly wanted to pick up the phone and text her something ridiculous Ben had said, or tell her something he knew she’d think was funny, or see when she was coming over. But he knew she didn’t want to hear from him.

Alexa walked into his office holding two cups of coffee.

“This was your doing, wasn’t it?” he asked her, gesturing to the balloons in the corner.

She set his coffee on his desk and shook her head.

“Nope. I guess there are more people in this building who care about you than you knew.”

He got up to give her a tight hug.

“We missed you around here, you know,” she said.

He’d missed them, too. He was so glad to be back at work. He knew he wasn’t anywhere near a hundred percent well, but not working for so long had made him jittery. And he was so glad to be out of the house and have something to do other than miss Maddie. He needed to apologize for what he’d said to her, but the only way he could explain why he’d said what he’d said to Ben was to tell her the truth. And he couldn’t admit that he’d fallen in love with her.

“Are you sure you’re okay to be back here?” Alexa asked.

He nodded, even though it hurt his head.

“One more day in my apartment and I would have started climbing the walls, Lex. Or murdered my little brother. I’m probably not going to be in great form for the first week, but I had to come back.”

He couldn’t tell her he also needed the distraction from thinking about Maddie.

“Okay, but go home early, at least today, okay? See you at staff meeting.”

Theo finished his coffee and then walked over to the mayor’s office. He might as well get this part over with as soon as possible.

The mayor’s secretary jumped up and gave him a hug as soon as she saw him.

“Theo! I was so worried about you! Did you get the banana bread I sent over?”

He hugged her back.

“I did, and I was so grateful for it. Thank you. I ate it for breakfast every day last week.” He pointed at the mayor’s office door. “Is he in there?”

She nodded and glanced down at the phone on her desk.

“Yes, and he’s off the phone. Go on in.”

Theo knocked on the door and walked in when the mayor boomed out, “Come in!”

“You’re back!” The mayor grinned as Theo walked through the door. “I knew the bastards couldn’t keep you down for long.”

Theo returned his boss’s vigorous handshake.

“I’m back. I may not be up to speed for a few days, but I couldn’t handle being at home another day.”

Maybe everything really was okay? The mayor seemed happy to see him.

“Someday, someone needs to teach you how to take a break,” the mayor said as he sat back down at his desk.

Theo sat down, too, and took a deep breath. No matter how relaxed his boss was, he still had to say this.

“Sir, I just want to say that I’m sorry about what happened with the rally. I’m the one who pushed to have it in Berkeley, and I blew off the people who predicted we’d have issues with protestors. I should have done a much better job on contingency plans. I know it hurt the campaign, and I take—”

The mayor’s laugh rang out.

“Please don’t tell me you take full responsibility for some violent protestors; the chief of police was in here telling me the same thing, and he’s not even the one who got hit over the head. He feels awful about what happened to you, by the way.”

Alexa had told him the chief of police sent him an apology, but he hadn’t really believed her.

“I appreciate that, but I really should have—”

“No more apologies! You should have talked to him, yes. He should have staffed the rally better, absolutely. But it’s over and done with, and both of you will do better in the future. And yeah, I’m not going to lie to you and say we got great press out of it, but a lot more people know there’s a ballot initiative for universal pre-K on the November ballot than they did two weeks ago, that’s for sure.”

Theo hoped his face didn’t show how relieved he felt.

“Well, I’m glad my concussion could help the cause.” He stood up. “See you at staff meeting.”

On his way back to his office, he ran into ten more people, all of whom hugged him and asked him how he was doing. After a while, he wished he had a little card he could hand everyone. “FEELING MUCH BETTER, THANK YOU. STILL HAVE A HEADACHE, CAN’T READ MUCH FOR A WHILE, BUT HAPPY TO BE BACK AT WORK.”

He poked his head into Alexa’s office. She had a bakery box sitting on the edge of her desk.

“What’s in that box?”

She glanced up from her computer.

“Oh, just leftover cake. Drew and I did a cake tasting this weekend, and I have some leftovers to share.”

Cake tasting. For her wedding. Shit.

“I’m the worst person in the world. I can’t believe you’ve spent the past two weeks doing my job and your job when it’s less than three weeks before your wedding. No wonder you need me to pull myself together.”

She laughed at him.

“You’re exaggerating again. You aren’t the worst person in the world; let’s reserve that label for the guy who hit you over the head, causing me to have to do my job and part of your job for the past week and a half.”

He plopped down in the chair in front of her desk.

“Okay, fine, I’m the worst bridesman in the world. I’m sorry. I should have been more helpful, Lex.”

She rolled her eyes at him.

“You had a concussion—give me a break. Plus, I don’t really know what you could have done. I mean yes, I had to do a wedding dress fitting while I was on conference calls the entire time, so keep your fingers crossed that I told them the right stuff to fix and the dress doesn’t come out a size too small or with brand-new ruffles around the bottom or whatever. But other than that, this wedding thing hasn’t been as stressful as everyone says. It’ll be fine.”

He reached for the box.

“I want to see this cake.”

But when he popped the box top open, it was row after row of his favorite chocolate chip cookies.

“It’s not cake, come on. Who does a cake tasting less than a month before the wedding? I can’t believe you bought that. We had the cake even before I had the dress. You didn’t think I’d get you cookies to welcome you back?”

He grabbed a cookie as he stood up.

“Thanks. You’re the best.”

She grinned.

“I know. Everything went okay when you went to talk to the boss?”

He hadn’t even told her he was going to do that.

“Yeah. Just like you said.” He shook his head. “I always thought I had to be perfect, I could never make a misstep, or everything would come crashing down, but I guess I was wrong about that? I could have been fucking up for years!”

She laughed and reached for a cookie.

“See? It’s never as bad as you think, Teddy.”

He thought about that on his way back to his office. Was it as bad as he thought with Maddie, too?

He sighed. No, that was different. He’d proved himself to his boss. The only thing he’d proved to Maddie was how right she’d been about him all along. He never should have said those things to her. He’d been hurt and scared and lashing out, he realized now, but why did he have to say the handful of things he knew would hurt her the most?

He sat down at his desk.

Maybe if he apologized to Maddie, it would make him feel a little bit less like a piece of shit?

His phone rang. Oh thank God, he had work to do.