Chapter 20
20
A s Cassie approached the table, her friends, her dear, dear friends, broke into applause.
It wasn’t even sarcastic applause but very good-natured, very enthusiastic clapping accompanied by several wolf whistles.
Cassie was just going to have to style this out – but she’d reckoned without Anita grabbing hold of her wrist, her eyes and mouth three almost perfect circles. ‘You and Marc? You and Marc ?’
‘We were looking for the tartare sauce,’ Cassie insisted as everyone stared at her. She’d had stress dreams very similar to this, but then she’d been naked and at least this time no one was aware that she wasn’t wearing pants. Except Marc. He’d been very, very aware that Cassie wasn’t wearing any knickers.
As she sat down, her face was so hot with shame that it hurt, and still everyone was staring at her. Cassie put a hand to her hair, which was no longer in artful ringlets, and realised that she must look completely wrecked. Mostly from the crying, but they’d think it was because she’d very recently been in the throes of passion.
‘Tartare sauce,’ Marc said from behind her. He leaned across Cassie, his arm brushing hers and sending a crop of goosebumps in its wake, to place the jar on the table. It was all Cassie could do not to shiver.
‘Where was it then?’ Heather asked tartly. ‘Under Cassie’s dress? Because that’s where you were looking for it.’
‘He wasn’t …’ Cassie said, though resistance seemed utterly futile.
Marc sat down opposite Cassie and shrugged like this was all too boring for words. ‘You always did have an overactive imagination, Heather.’
Heather winked theatrically. ‘I saw what I saw.’
Then the teasing started.
‘You dirty so-and-sos!’
‘In the pantry? Isn’t that against health and safety guidelines?’
‘I’d say get a room but it sounds like you already did,’ Digby hooted. Cassie expected better from him.
Cassie steadfastly ate her chips, which had gone cold because just how bloody long had she been in the sodding pantry?
Across from her, Marc had that muscle banging in his cheek. But he was the one who’d started this. OK, maybe the kissing had been mutual but no one had asked him to get down on his knees and start eating her out. That had been entirely his own decision.
‘You are such a dark horse,’ murmured Kwame, who was sitting on Cassie’s other side. He shot her a reproachful look, eyes dancing. ‘I can’t believe you never said anything. We’re meant to be friends.’
‘Friends respect other friends’ right to privacy,’ Cassie muttered, risking a glance upwards to see if everyone was still staring at her.
Of course they were. Then, at the other end of the table, she saw Lucy and Russell clink glasses. Even that wasn’t enough for them. They looked over to Cassie and Marc, then they looked at each other and high-fived.
That shared delight, the clinking, the high five, their matching grins, pierced right through Cassie’s heart. She hadn’t seen either of them look that happy since they’d got here. Actually, it had been weeks – no, months – since either of them had been so carefree.
Cassie forced herself to raise her head and start looking people in the eye. ‘So, yeah. I guess the secret’s out. Me and Marc. We’re …’ She did a weak jazz-hands gesture. ‘We’re seeing each other. It’s not a big deal.’
‘Correction! It’s the hugest deal.’
‘This is major!’
‘Please define what seeing each other means.’
‘What the fuck?’ Marc mouthed at her from across the table.
Cassie decided that he was the one person she didn’t need to look in the eye. Besides, her confession had everyone clamouring for all the gory details. She stumbled through a brief explanation about them growing closer while they were organising the weekend, sure that no one would believe her. But it was all nods and smiles and Iris kept making the same ‘aw’ noise she made when she was looking at puppy memes. They believed her garbled and woefully inadequate version of events, because they wanted to believe it. ‘It’s really early days and we didn’t want to say anything because this weekend is meant to be about Lucy.’
‘I don’t mind at all!’ Lucy blew Cassie an extravagant kiss. ‘This is the best birthday present.’ She put a hand to her heart. ‘I always knew you two would get together.’
This was news to Cassie. And Marc too. ‘What was it that gave it away?’ he asked with an exquisitely ironic arch of one eyebrow. ‘All the arguing we do whenever we’re together?’
Nothing could dim Lucy’s smile. ‘Just the snapping of courtship. Obviously.’
Cassie had hoped that once she’d given the people what they wanted, her torment would be over. But no such luck. Now talk turned to why the hell Cassie was planning to sleep in a bunk bed. Apparently while Cassie had been gazing out to sea and having her scheduled daily existential crisis, there’d been a little tour to see her rooftop eyrie.
‘Now we all know that you were going to sneak to Marc’s room when everyone had gone to bed,’ Anita said, nudging Cassie. ‘So silly. You might as well move your stuff over.’
‘Then you won’t have to get up to no good in the pantry,’ Davy grinned. ‘I bet you’ve traumatised all the dried goods in there.’
The teasing was never going to stop and meanwhile Marc was glaring at her, Heather was smirking but Lucy and Russell still looked thrilled, so that made everything worth it.
Everyone was too full to even think about a pudding. It had been a long day and Cassie had packed the schedule for tomorrow so as soon as dinner was finished, people made noises about having an early night.
‘If you told my younger self, who didn’t get to the clubs until after midnight, that twenty years on, being in bed by nine thirty was the dream, she’d have decided to die young and leave a beautiful corpse,’ Iris said with a dramatic swoon.
As people drifted off, Marc was waiting to corner Cassie as she walked to the kitchen with a stack of plates. ‘You and I will be having a talk,’ he said harshly. ‘Just as well we’re sharing a room, isn’t it?’
‘Look, about that …’ she began but he was already walking away with quick, angry strides.
‘Later,’ he threw over his shoulder.
Cassie decided later could be much later. So late in fact that everyone would be asleep and she could slip away by cover of darkness. She might never see her friends again, but that would be a small price to pay for not having to deal with Marc’s fury. Still, technically, he’d started it …
She lingered for a long time clearing the table but when she finally brought in a bin bag full of fish and chip wrappers and related debris, she found Azad and Bill already loading the dishwasher.
‘Oh, you don’t have to do that! There’s very specific instructions,’ Cassie said officiously.
Azad waved the information pack at her. ‘We’ll figure it out.’
‘We have a couple of degrees between us,’ Bill added.
Cassie was fully prepared to stand her ground until they got fed up and left her to it. She could easily spin out loading the dishwasher for half an hour but Lucy came up behind her and put her arms around her waist.
‘Come on, my lovely girl, let’s go and get your stuff,’ she said, her voice expectant. She clearly wanted all the gossip. As Cassie let herself be reluctantly led up the stairs, Lucy’s face was still wreathed in smiles.
‘I always hoped this day might come and now that it’s here, you know, it just makes sense,’ Lucy said, when actually none of it made sense.
‘It’s very early, very very early and who even knows if—’
‘Marc is good people,’ Lucy insisted. ‘You know that he’s paying for Russell to have these complementary therapies as part of his palliative care? Massage, acupressure, reiki, whatever we need. And yes, we might have got some of them on the NHS if we didn’t mind waiting for two years, or paid for it ourselves, but Marc has sorted it all and it’s one less thing to worry about.’
‘He is generous,’ Cassie agreed, their voices quieter as they came to the first floor where Anita and Iris, who were in rooms next to each other, had their doors open. ‘But it’s easy to be generous when you’re very rich.’
‘That’s not fair and it’s not strictly true,’ Lucy insisted. ‘Marc expresses his love through gifts, whereas you’re all about the acts of service.’
‘You’re not going on about love languages again , are you?’ Cassie groaned, because Lucy’s love language was physical touch – and banging on about the five different love languages.
Lucy refused to read the room. ‘They just sum people up so well and what’s really interesting is that words of affirmation are how you and Marc both receive love. Which is a really positive thing for your relationship. You both know how to validate each other.’
‘Calm down, Gwyneth Paltrow. No one’s talking about love. Again, for the hundredth time, it’s a very new thing.’
‘Is it, though?’ Lucy stopped halfway up to the second floor so Cassie would get the full force of her most sceptical look. ‘Me and Russell always thought something happened between you at our wedding.’
‘Nothing happened,’ Cassie said crisply as she started up the last flight of stairs. She didn’t even feel that bad for lying. ‘We were just two people meeting for the first time.’
‘Still, you’ve always had this weird tension together. I just never knew it was sexual tension. Sorry!’ Lucy added hastily, as Cassie gave her a glare that implied such lame jokes demeaned both of them. ‘I’m just glad that you’ve finally realised that his bark is worse than his bite.’
The biting, those marks that Marc had left on her the night of the wedding, hadn’t been so bad. It was the imminent barking Cassie was dreading. She opened the door of the infamous bunk-bed room.
Lucy shuddered. ‘To think you were going to sleep in here! Let’s get you packed and delivered to lover boy.’
Cassie stuffed her washbag into her holdall. ‘Please don’t call him that.’
It only took a minute to get her things together then there was no point in putting it off any longer, but as Cassie headed to the door, Lucy barred her way.
‘Joking aside, I need to say something to you,’ she said softly, taking hold of Cassie’s hand. ‘I love you very much.’
Cassie was sure she was all cried out but apparently not. ‘I love you too.’
‘You are such a good friend to the four of us,’ Lucy continued. ‘I worry sometimes that I don’t show up for you in the same way that you constantly show up for me. You always have done.’
‘It’s not a competition,’ Cassie told her gently. ‘Friendship isn’t transactional.’
‘I know that things have been quite hard for you these past few years and you haven’t been that happy, but if Marc can make you happy, then I want you to really go for it. You deserve to be happy,’ Lucy persisted. ‘So please, don’t overthink things.’
‘But surely happiness should come from within rather than relying on another person for it?’ Cassie pondered.
‘Did you just hear me tell you not to overthink things?’
‘Also, what happened to only having conversations that pass the Bechdel test?’ Cassie grumbled but she pulled Lucy in for a quick, heartfelt hug.
Cassie could have done without Lucy knocking quite so loudly on Marc’s door. When he opened it, she shoved Cassie at him, so he had to put his hands out – on her. ‘Please guys, do everything that I wouldn’t do!’ Lucy practically chortled as Cassie shut the door behind her.