Thank You, Next (The Kathryn Freeman Romcom Collection #9)

Chapter 34

It was the morning of her wedding. Holy shit.

Lying flat on her back in bed, Molly blinked up at the ceiling, willing her heart to stop racing.

A groan came from the body lying under the duvet beside her, and immediately she sat up, her pulse hammering … but then the body giggled. Not Ben then.

‘We’re getting married in the morning.’ The body began to sing, off-key, then started giggling again. ‘No, wait, we’re getting married … this morning. How the fuck did that happen?’

Molly was more interested in how the frigging heck Jasmine had ended up in her bed? As she tried to comb through the cobwebs in her brain, a voice came from the floor.

‘You’re having a wedding, Jas. I doubt you’re getting married.’ Maya, sensible, straightforward Maya, who was somehow lying on a mattress on the floor with…

‘She’s definitely not getting married.’ Chloe nodded over to Molly. ‘Duncan’s still into Molly.’

All eyes were on her. ‘Umm.’ Molly shifted uncomfortably before giving Jasmine an apologetic look. ‘He did offer to marry me.’

‘Oh my God.’ Chloe’s eyes boggled. ‘Did you say yes? Are you marrying him today, not Ben?’

Jasmine cleared her throat. ‘Hate to be the bearer of bad news, Moll, but Duncan is going to marry me. We agreed. That’s why he was adamant on what he wanted for the wedding. For us it’s going to be real.’

Whereas Ben hadn’t been bothered about the details at all. For him, the wedding had always been a sham. ‘I guess we’ll find out when you meet at the altar.’

‘Are you really planning to say “I do” to a guy who’s also toying with marrying someone else?’ Chloe asked Jasmine, her expression a mix of disgust and horror.

Jasmine pursed her lips and gave Molly a calculating look before turning back to Chloe. ‘I’ve only got her word for that. And the way I figure it, marriage is about trust, yes? So if Duncan’s there at the end of the altar, and prepared to look me in the eye when I stand next to him, then I’ll know my answer.’ She sat up, blonde hair in a mess, make-up smeared. ‘And anyway, whatever happens we’re still putting on dresses, getting our hair and make-up done, oh and our nails, and drinking loads of champagne.’

‘I second that.’ Molly flopped back on the bed. They were all so different, but last night, over cocktails and hours of dancing to nineties pop music, they’d somehow managed to bond. ‘Does anyone remember why we all ended up sleeping in my room?’

‘You started getting all whiny about wanting to find Ben,’ Jasmine replied, giving Molly’s ribs a quick prod.

‘We decided the only way to stop you making a tit of yourself and getting caught by the producers sneaking down the corridor to his room, was to lock you in yours,’ Chloe added.

‘And guard you,’ Jasmine added, then frowned. ‘Which somehow turned into us dragging Maya’s mattress in here.’

‘Yeah, because Maya then said she wanted to see Marcus,’ Chloe added. ‘So we told her she had to be under guard, too.’

‘I did not say that.’ Maya stuck out her chin defiantly until they all stared back at her. ‘Okay, maybe I said that once. Right at the end of the evening when I was tired and drunk and overly emotional.’

‘I’m sure I took a photo of you.’ Chloe grabbed at her phone, then winced. ‘Err, didn’t you say your family was turning up at nine o’clock, Jas?’

‘Oh, fuck.’ Jasmine pushed back the duvet and groaned as she attempted to stand. ‘Who said they wanted to drink loads of champagne today? I think I’m going to be sick.’

‘What time is your wedding?’ Molly asked Chloe as Jasmine staggered around, looking for her shoes.

‘Twelve o’clock.’ Chloe shrugged. ‘It’s not like me and Liam are headed for Mr and Mrs, but I can’t wait to see my mates, and my parents. Plus my kid sister is excited to be a bridesmaid, even though I told her this is just a practice for when I have a proper wedding with a guy I’m actually in love with.’

I’m in love. The words kept bouncing around Molly’s head. ‘What if that guy said he loved you, but he didn’t want to marry you?’

Chloe scrunched up her face. ‘Then I’d ditch him and find someone else who did. I mean, if he’s not prepared to compromise and give me something I really want, would I want to stick with him anyway? Does he actually love me at all?’

Molly’s stomach churned. Chloe was saying everything she’d thought. Yet had Chloe ever really been in love? I’d ditch him and find someone else who did was easy to say, but once the heart was fully entangled with someone, it seemed impossible to untangle it. Molly had found someone else prepared to marry her. Yet still her heart ached for Ben.

‘I hate to break up this enlightening chat, but we need to get a move on,’ Maya interrupted. ‘By my reckoning, we have Chloe and Liam at twelve o’clock in the orangery, Duncan and Jasmine at three o’clock by the pool…

‘It sounds like some weird Cluedo game,’ Chloe interrupted, making them all laugh.

‘Let’s hope there won’t be any daggers,’ Maya added drolly. ‘Me and Marcus are at one o’clock, in the ballroom. When are you and Ben?’

‘Two.’ Molly placed a hand on her belly and felt the butterflies starting to flap. ‘Somewhere outside. I let Ben choose.’

Maya’s eyebrows flew up. ‘You didn’t want a say in where your wedding was going to take place?’

‘We’re calling it a ceremony.’ Yep, that silenced the butterflies. ‘And we’d had an argument at the time, so I kind of waltzed off and left him and Rachel to it.’

‘You two are pretty fiery together,’ Jasmine remarked. ‘Were you that way with Duncan?’

‘No,’ Molly admitted, thinking back to their time together. Were she and Duncan more compatible? Or… ‘I think maybe with Duncan I was trying to be what he wanted me to be. With Ben, I’m just myself.’ A fiery, spontaneous woman who talked a lot, and had zero filter, who liked to eat, to drink, and wasn’t overly bothered how skinny she looked in her leggings.

‘You should always be yourself.’ Jasmine flicked her hair back over her shoulders. ‘If the guy doesn’t like that, then tough.’

‘I heard you went white-water rafting for your last date with Duncan. Was that really what you wanted to do?’ Molly asked softly, watching as a flicker of uncertainty crossed Jasmine’s face. ‘You don’t need to answer that, but promise me you’ll think about it before you go down the aisle.’

Jasmine nodded, then picked up the tight sequined dress she’d worn last night and started wriggling into it. ‘Good luck girls. May the day end how you want it to.’

Maya and Chloe followed Jasmine out a few moments later and suddenly the room was quiet. As she lay back on the bed, Jasmine’s parting words hummed through Molly’s mind.

How did she want the day to end?

* * *

Ben glanced around the garage where Rachel had stored the things he’d requested for their ceremony this afternoon.

Would Molly see a thoughtful gesture, his attempt at making it clear how much he understood her, loved her. Or would she see a pile of crap?

‘Love you to bits, bro, but are you sure about this?’ Jack, long-time friend from school and acting today as best man and grumpy painter, threw down his brush. Then proceeded to wipe his paint-streaked hands across his shirt. ‘Most women want glamour at their wedding. Not junk.’

‘Hey, it’s artful junk.’ Sam, his other school mate, second best man and more genial painter, scowled over at Jack. ‘At least the stuff I’ve painted is.’

‘Isn’t there some saying about not being able to make fancy purses out of pigs ears?’ Jack pointed at the wooden ladders they’d just been painting green. ‘I reckon it would be easier than making a wedding arch out of fucking stepladders.’ He gave a despairing shake of his head. ‘What’s happened to you, man? Have you been taken over by aliens or something? First you agree to come on some reality dating show, now you’re painting crap for a wedding you don’t want to end in marriage but for a woman you do want to impress the hell out of even though you ditched her three years ago?’

Ben played the words back and realised it was all factually accurate, even though there were some subtle, yet important, additions. ‘I only agreed to come on the show to help my sister out. We’re not painting crap; we’re upcycling. And while you’re correct – we won’t be getting married – I do want her to leave today knowing that I love her.’

‘And rather than marry her, you’re going to do that by making her stand next to a couple of stepladders?’

‘Hey, you forgot the bit about her walking down to them on old rugs lined with jam jars,’ Sam added unhelpfully.

‘Jam jars containing tealights,’ he corrected. Then wondered if Jack was right, and he had been implanted with an alien brain a few months ago.

Feeling suddenly weary, he slumped onto one of the crates they were about to turn into seats. Or was it tables? Fuck, his head was swimming, and not just from the hangover after last night. Weddings that might or might not end in marriage, cameras, friends and families drifting into the house, flowers arriving by the lorry load… Was any of that why he was feeling so unbalanced today? Or was it that he’d not seen or spoken to Molly since he’d watched her and the rest of the women disappear off in a coach for their collective hen do yesterday?

What was she thinking now? Was she weighing up Duncan’s concrete offer to marry her, versus his dubious-sounding ceremony?

‘Hey.’ Sam gave his leg a kick. ‘There’s more painting to do. No shirking on the job.’

Heaving out a sigh, he climbed to his feet. ‘You guys aren’t operating under a hangover,’ he muttered as he bent to pick up his brush. Was green the right colour? It wasn’t even her favourite. He’d thought it would match the outdoors, and fine, her eyes too but that sounded like something his alien counterpart might think. Now he looked at it though, white was surely the colour that said wedding. Or, wait, she was having red roses, so should they paint some of this stuff red? No, he had cushions in red. That was enough wasn’t it? Or maybe it was too much, and she’d only want the flowers to be red…

‘So what was the stag do like, then?’ Jack asked, thankfully curtailing his spiralling colour doubts.

‘Not what I’d have chosen.’ Ben was a ‘drink down the pub with a few close friends’ sort of guy. No fuss, no bother. Nightclubs with weird cocktail combinations, being forced to either dance or stare at people dancing because it was too damn loud to hold a conversation… It wasn’t him.

‘That’s because we weren’t there,’ Sam said smugly.

He couldn’t deny it. He liked Marcus, had grown to tolerate James. But it took more than a few weeks for him to feel comfortable enough around someone to want to spend time with them.

Except for Molly. From that moment she’d nearly tumbled into his lap, he’d wanted to be with her, even though he’d known it wasn’t a good idea.

They finished painting the two stepladders and then started on the other single ladder he’d planned to place over the top of the other two to create the arch.

The one Molly would join him in front of.

‘Have I mentioned how weird this feels, going to a wedding where I know the bride and groom aren’t going to actually get married?’ Jack said, breaking what had been, up till then, a productive silence.

‘As best men, maybe we should do something when you say no to getting married?’ Sam added. ‘Like apologise to the guests?’

‘There’ll be nothing to apologise for. We’ll both give our answer at the same time, so it will be clear it’s a joint decision. Nobody is getting humiliated,’ he added, just to hammer the point home.

‘Right, so you both say no. Then what?’ Jack prompted.

‘Then I’m going to make it clear that while it’s a no to marriage, it’s not a no to Molly. I’m going to admit how I feel about her, and formally tell her I want to continue our relationship away from the TV cameras.’ He hadn’t finessed the words yet, which had caused knots in his stomach all morning.

‘So what, like a declaration of love?’ Sam asked.

‘Yes.’

Jack, the bastard, burst out laughing. ‘Ever thought you could do that by agreeing to actually marry her?’

Ben exhaled in frustration. ‘Come on, you know why I can’t do that.’

Jack stared back at him. ‘Can’t, or won’t? Because from where I’m standing, there’s no legal reason why you can’t. The only thing stopping you is some crap hang-up from the past that it’s high time you cast off.’

Put like that, it made him sound selfish. He could marry her, but he wouldn’t because … because? The reasons began to blur as he recalled the conversation with Rachel. Molly didn’t need him to fix her. Hell, Molly didn’t need fixing at all. She was perfect as she was. And more than capable of living her life without him, building her business, gaining even more confidence. Moving on from both him and Duncan.

‘Okay, so instead of showing her you love her by marrying her, you’re doing it by … this.’ Sam waved his brush towards the stepladder, splattering paint everywhere. ‘You’d better pray she likes it.’

The knots in Ben’s stomach tightened.

‘And pray the frigging ladders don’t fall on her as she walks through the arch,’ Jack added, giving them a look of distaste.

Ben was about to point out she’d be standing in front of the arch, not walking through it, when Rachel popped her head round the door. ‘You guys need to up the pace. It’s nearly lunchtime and I want you finished by 1pm to give us chance to set it all up.’ Her gaze fell on the stepladders, and then down to the rugs which now weren’t just old and threadbare, they were decorated with paint spatters. ‘Somehow I imagined you creating a ceremony with less junk and more…Wow.’

If the knots in his stomach tightened any further, he’d not be able to eat the bloody cake he’d spent half an hour choosing. ‘That would have been a helpful discussion to have yesterday.’

Rachel gave him an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry. I’m sure she’ll love it. I mean upcycling is her thing, yes?’

She was passionate about upcycling clothes, but had he taken that too far? Given her a ceremony that was tatty?

Fuck, what message did that send her? ‘Let’s forget this. It was shit idea. We’ll have whatever arch they used this morning…’

Rachel strolled over to him and put her hands on his face. ‘Stop. She’s going to love the fact you put some effort into this, even if she doesn’t actually love … this. Besides, it’s too late to change your mind now. All the weddings need to be different and this is very … err … different.’

She gave him a bright smile, one clearly meant to convey everything was going to be okay but actually, because it looked forced, conveyed the opposite. Then she turned heel and disappeared, leaving him with his half painted junk. And two mates trying not to laugh, but failing miserably.