Chapter 20
Three weeks later
There were flowers everywhere. Two milk churns overflowing with them at the entrance to the church car park.
A meandering path of delphiniums and eucalyptus standing to attention along the winding gravel pathway.
Ivy draped artfully over a rustic pallet sign that read Matt & Alyssa’s Wedding in careful, hand-painted script.
‘God, I love weddings,’ Jacob declared, taking a long breath in through his nose before bending to fix his tie in the reflection of a parked car.
‘I’ll see you in there, love, I’m going to try and find your brother before it all kicks off,’ Mum said, patting her intricate-looking updo with one hand before heading up the path towards the church.
I glanced around, marvelling at a woman tottering across the car park under the largest, most ridiculous hat that I had ever seen, complete with full-size peacock feathers.
A man was trailing behind her, one trouser leg tucked into his sock, a tatty, well-thumbed copy of Moby Dick sticking out of his jacket pocket.
‘Come on, Barry,’ snapped a familiar nasal voice. ‘Would it kill you to go any faster?’
‘Bet that’s not the only time she’s said that to him.
’ Jacob sniggered, winking mischievously at me in the reflection of the car window.
I rolled my eyes, throwing Kristina a little wave and poor Barry a consolatory smile as they passed us.
My heart bloomed as I spotted a head of unruly black hair just ahead of them, the half-inch of exposed skin just visible above the white shirt collar a familiar shade of olive.
But it withered again a second later when the stranger turned to greet Kristina, their face not the one I was hoping to see.
He wasn’t coming. Of course, he wasn’t coming. Yes, we’d made a stupid pact two months ago about him being my plus one, but that was before. It had been three weeks. Three long weeks since I’d last seen or spoken to Luca and still, I was no closer to forgetting about him.
‘You’re looking for him, aren’t you?’
I blinked, my shoes grinding against the gravel as I turned to see Jacob straightened up, tie knotted to perfection, face knotted with concern.
‘What? Of course not,’ I lied, shaking my head rather aggressively as though by doing so I might dispel any thoughts of Luca from either ear. ‘Besides,’ I continued, taking a deep breath, ‘I’ve already got two of the best dates anyone could wish for, you and—’
‘ I’m here! ’
We both turned to see Alice somehow simultaneously exiting an Uber, applying lipstick, and shimmying a pair of blue hospital scrubs off from underneath her dress.
She looked remarkable full stop, let alone for someone who’d just finished a twelve-hour shift.
Her hair was pinned neatly behind one ear, her green eyes shimmering beneath silver eyeshadow, the fringed hem of her flapper dress fanning dramatically outwards as she skipped lightly towards us.
‘Umm, I think you’ve forgotten something.’ Jacob looked physically ill staring at Alice’s feet, which were still encased in her hospital Reeboks.
‘Right, hold this.’ Alice shoved her Tesco’s carrier bag at Jacob, who balked at it with the same level of disdain Anna Wintour would grant an all-black outfit, as she kicked off her trainers, flung them into the bag and produced two gold slingbacks.
‘Happy?’
‘I’m wearing a ￡750 Hugo Boss suit and holding a Tesco bag that smells of egg mayo, what do you think?’
I smiled affectionately at my best friends as they bickered over who would hold the bag (Alice eventually relenting when Jacob threatened to dump it in a bush), looping one arm through each of theirs as we ascended the steps to the church.
‘There’s something kind of beautiful about having lifelong friends,’ I sighed gratefully. ‘You know, the ones that have witnessed every possible version of you and loved them all.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say I loved the whole “not washing for five days” version of you,’ Alice noted with a judgemental lift of her eyebrow. I nudged her in the ribs.
‘You know what I mean.’
Alice grinned up at me, resting her pixie crop on my shoulder.
‘I for one am very much here for the badass bitch version of you from last week who told Derek where he could shove his story about the man who got his Tesco Clubcard tattooed on his forearm because he kept forgetting it.’ Jacob chuckled before raising a finger sharply in the air.
‘Although I want it on the record that I still haven’t forgiven you for handing in your notice and abandoning me.
Who’s going to shamelessly mock our co-workers with me now? ’
I smiled up at him, giving his arm a reassuring squeeze. ‘Well, this whole being unemployed business is proving very hectic so far, but I’m sure I could move things around in my diary and meet you for lunch.’
The truth was, I’d been waiting for the regret to hit from the second I’d waltzed up to Derek and handed in my notice last week.
That stomach-twisting fear at the realisation that I was an unemployed 30-year-old woman living in her mum’s spare room with zero plans for what I wanted to do with my life.
But actually, that wasn’t exactly true. I did know with 100% certainty that I did not want to spend the rest of my life reporting on phallic-shaped vegetables or delinquent seagulls.
And after everything that had happened this past year, I’d realised that turning 30, or any age really, meant nothing.
Yes, it’s a nice round number with a zero at the end and, sure, a certain finality to it – the end of another decade – but we often forget that it marks the beginning of something, too.
A new chapter. A chance to start over. And that was precisely what I was in the market for.
‘Your mum mentioned that you finally cashed Joe’s life insurance cheque,’ Alice noted, her head bobbing in approval.
‘Yeah, well, I thought it was probably time.’ I shrugged with a small smile. ‘Plus, Mum almost had a heart attack the other day when she sucked it up with the hoover, so it was more for her continued sanity than anything.’
‘And here I was about to take pity on the unemployed and offer to buy you lunch! The Tesco meal deals are most definitely on you next time, and fair warning, I’m going Tesco Finest.’ Jacob grinned, resting his head on my shoulder and giving me a tight squeeze.
I took a deep breath, wondering if I should tell them or not.
‘Actually, I might have already—’
But Jacob spun around sharply, the panicked expression on his face cutting me off.
‘ Shitballs! Pretend you’re talking to me,’ he barked.
‘We are talking to you.’ I frowned.
‘Unfortunately.’
Jacob ignored his sister’s sassy aside and sneaked a peek over his left shoulder. Alice followed his gaze, her eyes zeroing in on a man in a burgundy velvet jacket and black dress pants.
‘Isn’t that—?’
‘Yes!’ Jacob whimpered before Alice could finish her sentence.
‘Didn’t you and he—?’
‘Mhmm.’
‘In the bushes at Hove Park?’
‘It was actually under a very majestic elm tree at midnight,’ Jacob corrected her, lifting his chin a fraction higher but then immediately ducking back down to hide from view.
‘Oh, how romantic. You’re practically a modern-day Cinderella,’ Alice drawled, rolling her eyes at a crouching Jacob, who seemed to have forgotten he was wearing slip-on loafers and was busy pretending to tie some imaginary shoelaces.
‘You do know that with your record, it’s statistically very likely that one of your former lovers will be within 50 metres of you at all times?
I don’t know why it’s a surprise every time we bump into one. ’
‘It is not every time,’ Jacob pouted, grabbing an order of service from the stack by the door and holding it an inch from his face as we entered the church, much to mine and Alice’s amusement.
We found our seats in the second row from the front just before the music started, a single violinist playing Christina Perri’s ‘A Thousand Years’.
A hush fell over the room, a hundred heads turning to catch a first glimpse of Alyssa as she walked arm in arm down the aisle with her dad.
But I remained facing forwards. Not because I was sad or jealous, or wishing deep down that it was me in that white dress as my fingers circled the band of soft skin where my ring used to sit – the ring that was now safely tucked away in the shoebox under my bed along with a thousand other memories just waiting to be relived when the time was right – but because I was busy watching my brother.
There’s something magical about the moment a groom first sees his bride.
That wide-eyed look of pure adoration, head jerking backwards in disbelief as if he can’t believe his luck, that will make even the most cynical of unbelievers yearn for what he’s feeling in that exact moment.
True, complicated, worth-fighting-for love.
We walked the short distance from the church to the reception venue, a merry trail of fascinator-topped blowouts and rose petal-sprinkled shoulders snaking their way across the public footpath to Devils Dyke Farm, where a cavernous stretch tent sat overlooking the rolling fields, the sea a glistening strip of blue in the distance.
Delicate flowers in mismatched bud vases nodded in the warm afternoon breeze, arranged down the centre of three long rows of tables covered in white tablecloths.
A vast square of dance floor lay invitingly in front of the stage, where an acoustic guitar waited patiently in a metal stand.
That leather strap, the one you could tell was once a deep red but which was now more of a lifeless salmon colour, looked just like—