“Thad,” I beg. “Can we talk, at least? I’m trying here—you have to meet me halfway.”

“I don’t have to do anything, Alec.” He tosses the book on an end table. “Do you even realize how embarrassing that was, you helping someone else from the other team? You know how important this competition is to me. How important it is for me to find a bigger place, a better place to raise my child. But you’ve been treating it like a joke the entire time.”

“That’s not true,” I shoot back. “If I thought it was a joke, I never would have worked as hard as I did the past few weeks. I wouldn’t have put in practice time at home, gone to craft stores, baked cakes. Dude, I’ve been trying.”

“You’ve been helping the competition.”

“She’s been helping me!” I yell, and then pull on my hair. “Fuck, I don’t want to yell at you. I want to make things better.” I point at the scrapbook. “I wanted to show you where we started, how much fun we had when we were young, even though we were going through some heavy shit. I wanted to show you that, yeah, we’ve grown apart, but it’s my fault and I regret that so fucking much. And I wanted to show you where I want to be with you, where I want our relationship to stand. I want to be your best friend, the guy you lean on when you don’t think you can do this parenting thing. I want to be there for you, every step of the way. But I can’t do that if you don’t give me a chance.”

Thad nods and looks toward his bedroom, where Naomi probably is, letting us hash this out on our own. He slowly lets out a breath. “I gave you your chance, Alec. Many times. You ignored it.”

“That’s not fucking true. I took this chance. This Wedding Game chance. I might have been unenthusiastic to start, but I picked it up. I helped—I wanted to be there to help you. Don’t you see that?”

“How did she help you?”

“Jesus Christ, is that what’s really bothering you? That I started dating Luna?”

“She’s the competition.”

“She’s more than a goddamn competitor. She’s a person. A person who—” I catch myself and remind myself that this person wants nothing to do with me. “What do you want? For me to never see her again?”

“Yes,” Thad says, but I see his answer even surprises him.

“Done, fine. I won’t see her again. Not like she wants to fucking see me anyway. But even if she did, if that was the only way to get you to understand how serious I am about mending things with you, then fine. I won’t—” My breath catches in my throat. “I won’t see her again.”

“Thad,” Naomi says, appearing in the bedroom doorframe. “I know Saturday was a tough pill to swallow. It was confusing for me too.” She gives me a sympathetic look. “But Alec has been trying, and you need to recognize that.”

“He’s been sleeping with the enemy,” Thad says, motioning toward me. “He’s seen me on the weekends, but that’s it. If he wanted to practice, he should have practiced with me, not her. How many times did I invite him over? Begged him to spend a little bit more time with me, with us, with the idea of putting together an amazing wedding?”

And there it is, the part of this entire argument that I’ve been missing. Thad wanted more than just time on set. He wanted me to help him. He wanted to bond.

Fuck. How could I have been so blind?

“Shit, Thad.” I take a step forward. “I didn’t even think. Hell . . . I’m sorry. I was so focused on trying to be better for you that I didn’t think about being better with you.”

Thad takes a deep breath. “I would have liked to try baking with you. Doing invitations—hell, anything at this point. I miss hanging out with you, Alec. The show was a chance to see you, but it was stressful, and I never got a second to just . . . enjoy you. And I don’t know, hearing that you did all this stuff with someone else, someone who’s trying to win the penthouse for their family . . . it fucking stings. She might know her shit and have better skills, but what would it have been like if we’d worked together to create something?” He shrugs. “We could have won.”

“We could still win,” I say. Thad shakes his head.

“I’ve been trolling all the comments on social. Team Rossi is the clear winner. No one likes Helen. People think our wedding is a joke.” Thad lets out an exhausted breath and sits on his couch. “It doesn’t fucking matter at this point. It’s over this weekend, and then we can move on.”

“Move on in what way?” I ask.

“I really don’t know.” Thad stands again, leaving the scrapbook on the table. “But this weekend hurt, and if I’m hurt, I can’t imagine what Cohen must be feeling.”

He heads toward the bedroom, and I call out, “Thad, where do we stand?”

He pauses but doesn’t look at me. “I’ll see you on Friday, for the Rossi wedding.”

“What does that mean? Are we working on us?”

He pauses at the bedroom door. “It’s going to take a bit. You might not see it this way, but I felt betrayed. You chose her over me, and that fucking hurts, man.”

“I’m choosing you now,” I say, my voice growing hoarse. “It’s over with her. Over.”

“Choosing me now . . . after she ended things.” He nods and walks into the bedroom.

Fuck.

Naomi shuts the door behind him, and as I press my hand to my forehead, ready to fucking lose it, she murmurs, “I’ll talk to him. It will be okay, Alec.”

I bend over, hands on my knees as the simple act of filling my lungs with air becomes increasingly difficult.

“This shouldn’t be this hard,” I say as Naomi rubs my back.

“Just breathe, in and out, Alec.”

I press my fingers to my eyes, my emotions spilling over in a matter of seconds.

“I want everything to be normal, and no one seems to want to forgive me. I know I fucked up, I know I hurt Thad, but I’m . . . fuck, I’m here now, begging for forgiveness.” Tears roll down my face. “I’m trying, Naomi.”

“I know, shhh,” she says, still rubbing my back. “I see your effort. But is Thad the only reason you’re upset?”

“What? Of course.”

“You didn’t get truly upset until you started talking about Luna,” Naomi says, helping me straighten up. “Do you . . . do you love her?”

“Does it matter?” I ask. “Thad clearly doesn’t want me to be with her.”

“If you didn’t like me, Thad wouldn’t give two shits. He’d still marry me. So Thad doesn’t get to dictate who you want to be with. What I want to know is if you love her.”

My teeth roll over my bottom lip. Quietly, I say, “Yes, I do.” My heart twists at the truth in my words.

Naomi gives me a curt nod. “Then why don’t you let me work on Thad? He’ll come around. You know him—he puts on a front, but you know the minute you leave, he’s going to be buried in that album, crying his eyes out and asking me to order him a calzone to heal his wounds.” I snort. I can picture the entire thing. “So that means you need to work on Luna, because if you’re not happy in here”—she taps my heart—“then how are you going to be able to give one hundred and ten percent to Thad when he needs you? You know he’ll demand it.”

“He will.” I chuckle, already starting to feel lighter. “I just don’t know how to get to her, how to make things better.”

“What matters the most to her?” Naomi raises a brow at me.

“Cohen,” I answer, not even having to think about it.

“Exactly. Which means you need to help repair that relationship. And the rest will fall into place.”

“You think?” I ask as hope blossoms in the pit of my stomach.

“I do. Now get out of here so I can watch Thad cry like a baby.”

I laugh and nod, pulling her into a hug. “Thank you, Naomi. I’m really excited you’re going to be my sister.”

She pulls back and smiles. “Glad you’re going to be my brother. Now get out of here.”

I’m not going to say how I got this address, but I will say it was not entirely kosher. But, you do what you’ve got to do sometimes to make things right.

It’s closing in on an inappropriate time to be visiting people when I knock on my second door of the night. Taking a deep breath, I step back from the door, clutching the bakery box I brought like it’s a shield.

I hear footsteps and the press of a hand against the door. There’s a pause, and then the door is unlocked and opened. Declan stands on the other side in a pair of striped pajama pants and a plain red shirt. His glasses are perched on his nose, but his normally styled hair is comfortably disheveled.

He folds his arms over his chest. “This should be good.”

“Can I please talk to you and Cohen?”

“Who is it?” I hear Cohen call from within the apartment. Declan pushes the door fully open, revealing not only me but also the fact that Cohen and Declan are wearing matching pajamas.

“What are you doing here?”

I motion to their clothes. “I thought that was just a lesbian thing.”