The Russian made an awww noise and dropped his hand to the exposed fur of Beefcake’s belly.

“Don’t!” Noah cried.

But it was too late. Beefcake sprang like a trap in the woods. He wrapped all four legs around the Russian’s arm and bit his hand. The Russian shrieked and stood, the cat hanging from his forearm.

“Bad kitty! Bad kitty!” The Russian waved his hand in the air, but that just made Beefcake dig his claws in deeper.

Noah smacked Colton’s arm. “Do something!”

“What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know! You’re a cat owner! Get a treat or something!”

“Like what? A baby?”

The Russian bellowed like a man who’d been shot and dropped to one knee with a desperate plea. “Help me!”

Noah smacked Colton again. “Meat. Get meat.”

“You said Alexis is a vegetarian. There is no meat!”

“I am the meat,” the Russian cried.

Colton ran to the fridge and dug around. He returned with a piece of cheese. “Beefcake . . . here, kitty kitty.” Colton waved the cheese and approached slowly.

Beefcake sniffed the air, finally releasing his teeth from the Russian’s hand.

“That’s it. Good boy,” Noah crooned.

Colton held the cheese close to the animal’s face and then threw it into the hallway. Beefcake dropped to the ground and lumbered after it.

The Russian held his injured arm against his torso and stuck out his lower lip. “Kitty is mean.”

Noah ran his hand over his hair. “Kitty is hungry.”

“Why the hell does she keep a cat like that,” Colton grumbled, inspecting the Russian’s wounds.

“That’s just Alexis,” Noah said. “She has a soft spot for ugly and lonely creatures.”

“I guess that explains why she keeps you too.”

Noah flipped him off.

Colton tugged the Russian toward the sink. “We need to clean these scratches.”

“I’ll get the first aid stuff.” He went into the bathroom where Alexis had insisted he clean his own Beefcake wounds and grabbed the first aid kit under the sink. When he returned, the Russian was wincing as Colton dabbed a wet paper towel to the scratch on his hand.

“Almost done,” Colton said softly.

“Here,” Noah said, handing over the ointment that Alexis had used on him. “Rub this on it.”

“That’s what she said.”

The Russian giggled but quickly returned to pouting.

“We done yet?” Noah asked, cleaning up the wet paper towel. “I don’t have all day for this shit.”

* * *

* * *

By the time they walked into Mack’s club, he was waiting at a table with Sonia with an impatient scowl. “You’re late.”

“We had a little emergency,” Colton said.

“He had a run-in with Beefcake,” Noah explained, dropping into the open chair next to Sonia.

The Russian held up his arm. “Kitty is mean.”

“That cat is a menace,” Mack said.

For reasons he couldn’t identify, Noah felt obligated to defend Beefcake. “You have to be patient with him. It takes him a while to trust people. He lashes out when he’s scared.”

Mack spread out a drawing of the reception hall, ready to get started. At each table, names had been written and erased and written over. Clearly, Mack had been at this awhile. “We have to get this finished today so we can get the place cards printed on time.”

Noah shrugged. “Why not just let everyone pick their own seat?”

Mack and Colton looked at him like he’d just suggested serving baked chicken buffet-style for dinner. “Are you crazy?” Mack sputtered.

“What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that if you put the wrong person next to the wrong person, you might piss someone off. Or if you put someone at a seat too far back, they might get offended because they think it means they’re not very important. And don’t even get me started on what to do about Liv’s parents.”

Noah didn’t know a lot about Liv’s history, but he knew enough to at least understand why her parents would, indeed, pose a problem.

“There are politics here, Noah,” Mack continued. “This isn’t easy.”

Noah held up his hands in a truce, mainly because he didn’t actually care enough to fight about it.

“So, here’s what we have to figure out first,” Mack said, handing each man a pencil. “Since we’re not doing a head table, we need to divide the bridal party up among other tables.”

“That should be easy,” Noah said.

Sonia snorted.

“It’s not easy,” Mack said. “It’s an uneven number because not everyone has a significant other.”

This time Sonia rolled her eyes, she being among the unattached.

“I was going to put Colton and Sonia at a table together along with Del and his wife, Noah and Alexis, and the Russian and his wife, but—”

Colton turned toward the Russian so quickly that he nearly fell over in his chair. “Your wife is coming?”

The Russian stared at his hands, lower lip stuck out. “She can’t.”

Colton kicked Noah under the table. Noah kicked back.

“That’s too bad, man,” Noah said. “We were all looking forward to meeting her.”

“And it leaves us in a bind for the tables,” Mack whined. “Because now we’ll either have an open seat at that table, or I’ll have to move everyone around because the tables hold eight people. And I still have no idea where to put Gretchen.”

Noah cocked his head. “Gretchen? As in the woman you were dating before Liv?”

“Yes.”

“You’re inviting an ex-girlfriend to your wedding?”

“She and Liv are friends now, remember?”

Yeah, Noah knew that. Gretchen was also a friend of Alexis’s because Gretchen had offered pro bono legal services to Royce Preston’s victims. But still, she and Mack had dated. “I’m just saying it’s weird.”

Mack threw down his pencil. “You have no idea how stressful this shit is! I’ve got Liv’s mom up my ass about making sure she’s nowhere near Liv’s father and his new wife, which means they have to be at separate tables, but that means choosing which one gets to sit at the main table with Liv and me or booting them both to separate tables, which will be weird because I plan to have my mom and her boyfriend sit with us. How can I only have one set of parents at the main table with us? Oh, and then there’s the little problem of where to put Rosie and Hop.”

Rosie was the woman Liv had lived with for two years before moving in with Mack, and Hop was Rosie’s boyfriend. They were like grandparents to Liv.

“And don’t get me started on how pissed off people are that we’re planning to have kids’ tables in a separate room,” Mack added, “as if we’re banishing children to a deserted island or something.”

Sonia slapped a hand over Mack’s mouth as she glared at Noah. “Happy now? This is what I’ve been dealing with for a week. I just got him calmed down this morning.”

Noah leaned over the paper again and studied it. After a moment, he scratched his head. “Who is the Russian walking down the aisle with?”

Sonia lifted her hand from Mack’s mouth and raised it reluctantly in the air.

Noah went to work. “Put Sonia and the Russian together at this table,” he said, writing their names down. “Move Colton over here with Liv’s mom.”

Colton breathed an agonized noooo. “Can’t I sit with Gretchen?”

“She’s not part of the bridal party,” Mack snapped.

Noah scribbled some more names. “Put Liv’s father and his new wife at this table. Move Thea and Gavin and your brother and his wife to the main table with you and Liv, your mom and her boyfriend. Move your cousin and her wife over here with Rosie and Hop. No more open seats, and people who need to be separated are separated.”

Mack blinked rapidly. “How—How did you figure that out?”

Noah tapped the pencil against his temple. “I’m a genius, remember?”

“I’ve been staring at this damn drawing for a week,” Mack said, voice tight.

Noah patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t wait so long next time to ask for help, man.”

“Please don’t make me sit with Liv’s mom,” Colton begged. “I’ve heard stories. She’s horrible.”

“All you have to do is sit next to her during dinner,” Mack scowled.

“Bullshit. She’s going to be all over me. I know how this works. I’m the good-looking, rich celebrity, and she’s the lonely, bitter divorcée—”

“You have a super inflated sense of your own attractiveness, dude,” Noah said.

“I’m rich. Richer than all of you combined. I’ll be the richest man in the room, which automatically makes me the best-looking man in the room.”

“And you wonder why you don’t have a girlfriend,” Noah scoffed.

Colton crossed his arms and pouted. “Great. You’ve had a girlfriend for like two weeks, and suddenly you’re an expert?”

“That reminds me,” Noah said, dragging his backpack from the floor to his lap. He unzipped the front pocket, withdrew the book, and slid it to Mack. “Here.”

Mack grinned. “You finished it?”

“No. I don’t need it anymore.”

Mack tugged his eyebrows together. “What makes you think that?”

“Alexis and I are together.”

Mack snorted. “Rookie mistake, slapnuts. Your journey has only just begun.”

Annoyance flared his nostrils. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Mack slid the book back. “It means now is not the time to get cocky. Your relationship is new. There’s still a lot that could go wrong if you’re not careful.”