Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
I gave a secret smile. ‘Artists do that,’ I said, enjoying the private joke that flew straight over Steve’s head.
‘Now the celebrations can get going properly,’ Steve declared, throwing a tea towel over one shoulder with more panache than accuracy. As he bent to pick it up off the floor, I turned my curious gaze to Mel.
‘What is it that we’re celebrating?’
Her eyes flickered for a moment. ‘Oh, nothing in particular,’ she said, and I caught a glimpse of the look she shot her husband. ‘Just having a party to celebrate summer, you know. Like you do.’
‘As long as we all don’t have to get naked and dance around some standing stones,’ said a voice that was always guaranteed to make me smile.
I leapt to my feet and quickly crossed the room to throw my arms around Jackson’s neck.
‘That only happens in September,’ Mel quipped, smiling at us both. ‘We’ve still got almost a week to go before then.’
‘Shame,’ Jackson said, releasing me just enough so that he could wind an arm around my waist. ‘I think that tall drink of water of a boyfriend you’ve snagged might look pretty good disrobed.’
‘Tall drink of water?’ I said, spluttering in the glass of Prosecco that Mel had just poured me. It didn’t surprise me at all that she was sticking to lemonade. ‘Just what era did you steal that one from? And as for how he looks disrobed, I really wouldn’t know.’
In a contest of whose eyebrows rose highest, I think it was a photo finish between Jackson and Steve.
‘Honestly, can we all stop thinking about my boyfriend being naked.’
‘I thought he wasn’t your boyfriend,’ all three of them chorused in perfect unison.
‘Oh, shut up,’ I said, laughing in a way that sounded giddy and light-headed and had absolutely nothing to do with the Prosecco.
‘Is my fiancé getting out of hand again?’ asked a deep, accented voice.
I looked up and met Lars’s amused face. He laid a hand on Jackson’s shoulder and my old friend, who had always been practically allergic to PDAs, brushed his cheek against his partner’s fingers.
My heart swelled at their happiness. I slipped out of Jackson’s arms so that Lars could take my place.
Picking up my glass of fizz, I headed towards the doors that led into the garden.
I paused before stepping onto the deck and saw Steve come up behind Mel and gently, as though acting with supreme caution, slide his arms around her waist.
I stepped out into the early evening sunshine with a feeling that maybe, just maybe, all of us might be about to get our happy ever after.
‘I can’t believe they’ve got you on chef duties,’ I said, slipping in beside Rhys at the now fully functioning barbecue. ‘How did that happen?’
He gave an easy-going, good-humoured shrug. ‘Not entirely sure. Steve was going inside to get the food and asked me to keep an eye on things . . . and here we are.’
Where we were certainly looked impressive, with plates of cooked sausages, drumsticks, and burgers piled up high.
‘Would you like me to take over?’ I offered.
‘Nah, don’t worry. I already smell of smoke and cooked pork,’ he joked.
‘Two of my favourite aromas,’ I said, which was meant to be a quip, but came out kind of sexier than I’d intended.
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
He patted the low garden wall beside him.
‘You can stay and keep me company though, if you like.’ I didn’t need asking twice and hopped up onto the sun-warmed bricks, feeling their heat beneath the lace of my red sundress.
It was a new purchase that had an elaborate cat’s cradle of shoestring straps that ran across my shoulders and back.
Doing it up was a nightmare, but it was super flattering, and I was defiantly disobeying the rule that redheads shouldn’t wear scarlet.
When the cooking was finally done and Mel and Steve had wheeled out half a dozen desserts, Rhys switched off the barbecue.
‘It was good of you to do this for them,’ I said, getting down from the wall and feeling the third glass of Prosecco affect my balance.
Rhys’s arm was there in an instant, his hand going to my waist to steady me.
‘I didn’t do it for them,’ he said, his voice low as he bent down, resting his forehead against mine. ‘I did it for you.’
I swallowed and licked my lips nervously. His eyes followed the passage of my tongue and suddenly it wasn’t just the wine making me feel unsteady.
Someone had brought out some speakers and hooked them up to a phone.
The garden was twinkling with fairy lights which Steve and his friends must have spent hours draping over every tree and bush.
It looked like Christmas but felt like summer, and now that the sun had finally slipped below the horizon, there was an air of magic in the garden that was almost palpable.
‘Will you dance with me?’ Rhys asked as the romantic strains of a popular love song filtered out from the speakers.
There were already a few couples on the lawn with a similar idea, but it wouldn’t have mattered if we were the only ones there.
It certainly felt as if we were when Rhys clasped my hand in his and drew me gently onto the lawn.
He was backlit by the moon, the stars, and about a thousand fairy lights as he stared down at me.
It was one of those moments that you know you’re going to remember forever, regardless of what might happen from this point onwards.
And as he pulled me against him and into his arms, that was good enough for now.