Chapter 24
‘You’re getting on okay with Ginny, then?’ Andreas asked, just when Rhys was beginning to hope the conversation had moved on from him.
He hesitated over his answer, earning a sidelong look from his friend. ‘We’re both adults,’ he eventually settled on, but he wanted to pull out his tongue when he realised the double meaning of what he’d said. ‘As well as can be expected.’
Ginny was so still, he suspected she’d heard.
‘As well as can be expected with the wedding fairy,’ Andreas added, dipping his head and speaking under his breath. ‘But she showed her true colours today.’
‘Mm hmm,’ he agreed, sneaking a glance at her.
‘I appreciate you putting up with all this. I hope today was some kind of respite.’
Rhys responded with another non-verbal humph.
‘I hate to say, “You’re quiet,”’ Andreas continued, ‘but… you’re quiet. This hasn’t been a problem, so many people?’
No, a crowd of people wasn’t a problem when he could see only one. ‘Don’t worry about me. It’s your wedding.’
‘As everyone keeps reminding me. As if I’ve ever forgotten, even for a single second.’
Rhys wondered if all weddings were as strange as the two he’d attended as a photographer. ‘Ginny said weddings mess with your head,’ he commented. ‘I think that might be true.’
‘Love messes with your head – it messes with your life.’
Rhys stared into his beer, wishing he could un-hear those words. ‘I know,’ he said eventually, when Andreas seemed to be waiting for a response.
‘Ah, verdammt, I forgot,’ Andreas muttered. ‘Even when I thought Sophie had ignored me on purpose, what Annie did is ten times worse.’
Rhys shook his head. ‘I thought you’d understand, it’s never one person’s fault.’
Andreas’s laugh was bitter. ‘I do know that. Who was it who said, “Love is foolishness committed in pairs”?’
‘Andreas!’ Ginny interrupted them. ‘Your friends have shared enough of these horrible sayings. I hope there aren’t going to be any in the speeches.’
‘Calm down, Ginny,’ Andreas said, making her bristle and sit up straight.
Even Rhys knew not to tell Ginny to calm down.
‘I’m saying it because I love Sophie – and everyone knows how much I love her.
I’m saying it because that’s not in question, because making a joke is the only way I know how to deal with how much I love her. ’
‘Bravo!’ called Will, holding up his beer.
‘Bravo!’ Kira copied him, slowly followed by the rest of the group around the table. Ginny sagged into her chair, eventually raising her mug of hot chocolate to tentatively clink with Kira’s beer.
Rhys tapped his beer with Andreas’s, then hesitated, his gaze sneaking back to Ginny. He held his glass out in her direction. After a lift of her brow, she clinked her mug against it with a faint smile. When he found Andreas watching him curiously, he regretted reaching out to her.
After the sun had well and truly disappeared behind the mountains, the temperature began to drop in earnest and they all stood to go. When Ginny ducked inside for the bathroom, Rhys made a vague excuse and followed, catching her on her way out.
‘I wanted to tell you,’ he blurted out, cutting her off when she’d been about to say something. But when he realised he had to finish that sentence, he hesitated for long enough that she lifted a prompting brow. ‘You… earned a lot of respect today.’
‘From the Great Heart guys and gals?’
‘Yes.’ He hesitated. ‘And me. Not that I didn’t already respect you – a lot.’
Her smile was small. ‘I know you respect me.’
He glanced away so he could gather himself to say something more meaningful. ‘Well, maybe I… Anyway, you were amazing up there and I hope you enjoyed it on some level.’
Her hair was caught at the top of her ear again, where she wore a sparkling stone in the high piercing, and he smoothed it back without thought, before dropping his hand again when voices reached them from outside.
She peered around him to check that the others weren’t watching, before stepping close and giving him a gentle shove in the chest. ‘What were you doing, feeding me in front of everyone?’
‘I thought you’d take the fork from me, not let me feed you!’ he replied, dipping his head to speak furtively.
She didn’t quite manage to take her hand from his chest and he gave it a squeeze and left it where it was.
‘Ah,’ was her only reply at first as a glow showed up on her cheeks. ‘I don’t know what they’re going to think.’
He gave half a shrug. ‘Well, there’s… nothing to think, is there? Nothing to suspect except that—’ He didn’t want to finish that sentence. He’d meant to reassure her, but the statement struck him somewhere uncomfortable. He swallowed to clear his throat. ‘Can I come to your room again tonight?’
He held his breath, wishing they could have a normal conversation, instead of this heart-pounding nonsense that strung him tight.
Then a smile spread over her face – and kept going, brightening, lifting her whole body, and it might have been the best thing he’d done all day, asking if he could sleep with her again.
Then her shoulders dropped. ‘We’re having a working bee to do the wedding favours tonight. I stupidly suggested we could do it together in my room with wine. I don’t know how long the others are going to be there.’
‘I don’t have a clue what any of that means, but… you could knock on my door afterwards.’
‘See if the old man is still awake?’
‘Exactly,’ he said drily. ‘But if you’re drunk, we just sleep.’
‘Well, that’s a reason not to drink too much.’
He answered with only a shrug, disturbed that he didn’t mind the idea of just lying next to her while she slept off an evening of wine with the girls. It was probably because they didn’t have long.
When his thoughts flashed with the question of whether they’d see each other again back in England before he left, he quickly batted it away again.
Distracted, he didn’t appreciate the significance when she stretched onto her toes and lifted her chin and before he realised what was happening, she’d pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek.
His face flamed. A kiss on the cheek wasn’t supposed to light up his nervous system like a bonfire.
‘What if the others see?’ he said – a panic reaction to get her to move away before he kissed her properly, here and now.
‘Then at least they might stop asking you if I’m torturing you with wedding stuff. I’m not asking you to help with the favours.’
‘No, you’re torturing me in other ways,’ he mumbled, gripping her waist for the briefest moment. Her gleeful laugh at that comment made him glad he’d risked saying it. ‘At least they aren’t calling you a walking red flag.’
‘When you don’t commit and you don’t communicate and you leave for months at a time – those are a lot of red flags. But I’m kind of enjoying walking on the wild side for a few days.’
A few days… She’d said it.
‘You do take beautiful photos. That’s got to be a big green flag. I think you could even take beautiful photos of people, if you believed you could.’
Only if they’re all photos of you…
‘Ginny? Oh, there you two are. Are you coming?’
He was startled to see Kira standing in the doorway. Surely she’d seen enough to prompt some questions. He hoped Ginny didn’t face any unpleasant advice this evening while they did whatever it was they had to do with favours.
But Kira’s expression was smooth and she turned away again without waiting for them to follow.
Ginny’s hand gave his a squeeze, her body language light and playful while his chest was heavy. ‘I’ll see you later. I’ll have to check out the condom machine.’ With a wink, she brushed past him and headed for the doors.