Backed out!

Mike went into the bathroom at the church just so he could check his phone for the millionth time without being so obvious about it.

His desperation was back in full force—he could tell from his four texts to Stella over the past hour and a half. Texting a woman this many times was unlike him, but this stupid wedding had him on edge.

She'd replied only to the first one where he'd tried to be cool, just confirming she was coming with a "see you then," and the last, where he told her they were about to leave the church for the restaurant ("on my way").

He'd questioned the lack of exclamation points in both texts—women, in his experience, tended to use a lot of exclamation points. Did that mean she was feeling like she should have backed out?

He was certainly feeling like he should have backed out. Not from the date with Stella—no, that was the only part of the weekend that he was one hundred percent glad was happening. He should have backed out from the rest of it.

Josh and Molly were being so welcoming and friendly that he felt like even more of an asshole for hating every second of this. Molly's mother, who had always been so nice to him, was noticeably chilly.

Molly's sister, Amy, who had always been kind of a bitch to him, kept looking him up and down and smiling at him in a way that disconcerted him.