33. Carpenter-boy
Carpenter-boy
Vicky
“What are you doing?”
I looked up to see a furious Lucy standing in front of me with her arms crossed, and I frowned.
“I’m watching you rehearse for your wedding.”
What was I supposed to be doing?
“From the very back of the church?”
I glanced up to the altar where Felix, Lottie, Ollie, Mike, Margot, Hetty, Claire, Emily, Hayley and Florrie were all gathered.
“Lucy, I think you’d better get back to the wedding party.”
She blinked at me.
“Vicky,” she said slowly. “Why do you think I asked you to come here today?”
I bit my lip and then blew out a breath. “To be honest, I’m not sure. I’ve never been to a wedding rehearsal before.”
“Didn’t you go to Claire’s?” Lucy asked with a frown.
I looked down at my feet.
“I…”
“No, she didn’t, because I’m an over-sensitive cow.” Claire had walked over to us now and was standing next to Lucy.
I shrugged. “I said your wedding dress looked itchy. It was the incorrect response.”
“I still should have asked you to the rehearsal.” Claire shifted uncomfortably then. “I let you sit at the back of the church on the day, too.”
“It doesn’t mat?—”
“Yes, it does,” she said fiercely. “I told myself that you’d probably be happier there anyway, but if I’m honest, I was still being a petty bitch, angry that Dad had left Mum and had another kid; angry at you for being there.
Angry that I knew you’d be the most beautiful woman in the room, and nobody would be able to take their eyes off you when it was supposed to be my day.
But I shouldn’t have excluded you. You’re my sister. It was wrong, and it did matter. Okay?”
She was so fired up, her face and her eyes were flashing. I thought it best to agree with a small, “okay.”
It didn’t seem to make her any less angry.
Lucy’s impatient expression had softened. “Vics, you’re part of the wedding party, you silly goose. So you can’t sit at the back of the church.”
I blinked at her. “I-I don’t understand.”
I knew Ollie was Felix’s best man, and Mike was doubling up as his other best man and walking Lucy down the aisle. I wasn’t sure where I fit in.
“Emily, Lottie, Claire, Hayley, Florrie and you are my bridesmaids,” Lucy said patiently. “So, you need to get up off your butt and come stand at the front of the church. You agreed to it at the hen party. Remember?”
I blinked at her.
Lucy’s hen party had been the first time I’d really drank to excess. But I’d been sad about the carer thing and confused about Mike after Margot’s revelation—and, for the first time, I’d felt like I could trust the people around me enough to lose some control.
I had a vague memory of Ollie, Felix and Mike turning up towards the end, despite the fact it was meant to be just girls. But I wasn’t sure what exactly happened after that. All I knew was that I woke up in Buckingham Manor the next morning with a very sore head.
And I didn’t actually remember agreeing to be a bridesmaid, which was very disconcerting, because I always had almost perfect recall of everything I experienced. But, then again, I never usually drank that many shots of tequila.
What else didn’t I remember?
“Are you sure?” I asked, then lowered my voice to a whisper so that the others couldn’t hear me. “You don’t have to ask me.”
Lucy was frowning at me. “Why do you think I wouldn’t want to have you as a bridesmaid? You’re one of my best friends!”
I blinked at her. “I am?”
“Wow,” Lucy said. “Vics, I’m trying really hard not to take offence here. But yes, I think you’re one of my best friends.”
“Oh…”
“So you need to come up to the front of the church.”
I nodded and then followed her up to where everyone else was standing.
When the vicar started going through the ceremony and where we’d be positioned, I pulled my phone out and put it on the altar, switching it to record.
“Vics?” Lottie asked softly in my ear. “What are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m recording the information so that I can reference it later, and run through it in my mind with the audio queue.
I’ll be able to recall the words correctly without the recording, but there may be nuances I miss, which I can ask Abdul to interpret when I play it for him.
I’ll probably make a PowerPoint at home. ”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “I don’t want to get overwhelmed on the day. If I know what to expect, I won’t be startled. I don’t want to embarrass Lucy and Felix.”
“Okay, honey,” she said softly, giving my hand a very quick squeeze, which wasn’t one of our signals—I had come to understand it was how Lottie communicated affection.
Why me recording a vicar speaking should inspire her to feel affectionate towards me was a mystery.
But then, there were often aspects of human behaviour that I didn’t understand.
“It’s not an exam, hun,” said Lucy, frowning over at me. “You don’t have to stress out about it, okay?”
I shifted on my feet, feeling uncomfortable with everyone’s attention on me. I was ruining this already. “I know… I just?—”
“Leave her be,” snapped Mike. “Let’s get on with this horse-and-pony show.”
Lucy glowered at her brother, her hands going to her hips. “This is my wedding, you big oaf. Not a horse-and-pony-show.”
Mike rolled his eyes as Hayley said quietly, “Can we have ponies?”
“Oh yes!” shouted Florrie. “Legolas would make a great ring bearer!”
“That pony is not becoming a part of my wedding,” Felix said through gritted teeth, and honestly, I felt the man’s pain. He’d taken a lot of abuse from the Mayweather animals during his courtship of Lucy.
When I looked at Mike, he gave me a small smile and a wink.
We weren’t even together anymore, and he was still looking after me. He’d taken the focus away from me when he could see I was uncomfortable, and he did it without even thinking.
I blinked and looked away.
He looked particularly amazing today. His long-sleeved shirt was rolled up to reveal his muscular forearms, his hair just a little too long, so that it brushed his collar, and his beard was a few days past needing a trim.
My hands itched from the need to sink my fingers into his hair.
I clenched them into fists and squared my shoulders.
It didn’t matter how delicious Mike looked; I wasn’t going to drag him back into the role of carer.
So I spent the rest of the rehearsal ignoring him.
I assumed that once we’d finished, I could just shoot off back to London.
What I didn’t factor into the equation was my interfering stepmother.
“Right, darlings,” Margot said as we walked out of the church. “As we’re all here, we can sort out the outfits in one fell swoop. So I’ve arranged for us all to have the fittings now.”
Before I knew it, all the cars had filled up with people, and the only space left for me was with Mike, who looked unreasonably smug about this turn of events. It was only when he noticed my hands shaking as we drove away from the church that his smile dropped.
“Vicky, love,” he said softly, his voice full of concern. “If it’s too much for you, I can drop you at Buckingham Manor. You don’t have to?—”
“S-stop looking after me, Mike Mayweather,” I snapped.
He let out an actual growl of frustration as his jaw clenched and his knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.
“What if I want to look after you?”
I shook my head. “You should find an appropriate woman who does not require that,” I told him.
“I could bloody well murder that mother and sister of yours,” Mike said in a furious voice, and I frowned in confusion.
“What have they got to do with this?”
“Everything,” he said. “They’ve got everything to do with it, and you’re too brainwashed to see it.”
“I am not brainwashed,” I said, totally affronted. “I always approach everything with rationality and reason.”
“Not us, you don’t,” he said darkly. “When it comes to us, you’re the most illogical woman I’ve ever known.”
With that cryptic statement, Mike parallel-parked us outside the shop, stormed around to my side to open my door, and then ushered me inside with his hand on the base of my spine whilst I tried not to cry at how much I’d missed that.
To my relief, the men were sent to one section of the shop, and the women to another.
When Lucy tried her dress on for us, I kept my mouth firmly shut. I did not want a repeat of what happened at Claire’s wedding dress fitting, when the only thing I could come up with about the dress was that it looked itchy.
But it had looked itchy! It was pure lace. I hadn’t been able to see anything else about the dress other than the itchy factor.
But, to my surprise, this time, it was very different. This time, when I saw the lace trim on Lucy’s dress and could think of nothing else, Claire had come up to me and given me a firm side hug.
Lucy noticed and got off the pedestal arrangement they’d set up for her to stand on to come over to me.
“I know it looks itchy, but the lace is actually really soft.” She paused. “Want to try feeling it?”
Slowly, bracing for the scratchiness, I ran my finger over her collar and blinked. It was surprisingly soft. I smiled at Lucy.
“You do look beautiful,” I said in a quiet voice. “And you know that’s the truth, because I never lie.”
“Thanks, hun.” She beamed at me. “Now it’s your turn.”
When the shop assistant wheeled in a rack of bridesmaid’s dresses, I started to feel sick. They all had labels, there was tulle and lace, and all manner of scratchy materials.
I took a step back but ran into what felt like a brick wall.
“No lace, no seams, no labels, none of that floaty stuff,” snapped Mike from behind me, and my eyebrows went up as I jumped forward, away from him.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped at him.
“I won’t have you being uncomfortable,” Mike told me, then his gaze went over my head to the shop assistant. “She’s not trying on anything that makes her feel uncomfortable.”
“Stand down, big guy,” Lottie said with a smile.
In fact, they were all smiling.