Chapter 29
It took just seconds for Hannah’s relief to be swallowed by rage at how badly Ed had scared her.
He was right there on the empty rugby pitch, repeatedly kicking a ball as if it had personally wronged him and scoring faux drop goals from distances that – under different circumstances – would definitely have impressed her.
‘Edward James Matthews!’ she bellowed. ‘Get your sorry arse up here RIGHT NOW!’
Ed flinched, turned and cringed as she stared at him.
‘I said NOW,’ Hannah shouted.
‘Easy, Hannah,’ Jude said. ‘I thought we were here to talk him down from the ledge – not push him over it.’
She threw him a resentful look that meant, I have every right to be angry, and simultaneously, Screw you for having a point.
‘You might have to do the talking then,’ she said. ‘I’m almost too irate to function, now I know he’s OK.’
Ed, sensing it would be unwise to test Hannah’s patience further, had started walking towards them.
When he reached them at their position in the first row of the old wooden stand, he hung his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘When I first left the room, I just . . . wanted to run a bit. Try and sweat off some frustration, some stress. And then I found myself here, totally by chance, and the team’s playing away today, and .
. . it felt good. The rugby pitch is, like, a safe place for me, you know? ’
‘I love you, Ed, but that’s horseshit,’ Hannah said. ‘You’ve had more rugby injuries than most people have had chip butties. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that time Louie Brooks broke your elbow. Your arm was in a sling for six weeks.’
‘That’s not the kind of safe I meant,’ Ed argued sullenly.
‘She knows it isn’t,’ Jude put in. ‘But can we be serious for a minute? There isn’t time to argue. You have a decision to make, Ed. You either come back with us now or the wedding isn’t going to happen.’
‘Fuck,’ Ed said, collapsing into one of the cheap plastic flip seats in the stand.
‘It’s just . . . I’m scared. Look at how massive this day has become – how many people are invested in it.
Joe’s thriving on it, it makes him happy, and I—’ He paused, and Hannah understood that, whatever was coming next, he was scared witless to say it out loud.
‘I don’t know if I can live a life big enough for Joe,’ Ed went on.
‘Be visible, in the ways I think he wants us to be visible. And I want him to have everything he wants, all the time – not feel he has to say no to things because I don’t want them, because they make me uncomfortable.
I don’t think I can do this, be with him, if it means I’ll—’ His voice broke.
‘Limit him,’ Hannah finished. ‘Hold him back.’ God. She understood her twin’s feelings perfectly – felt the silver thread that connected them tighten as their gazes met in sympathy.
‘Exactly,’ Ed agreed.
Jude sighed heavily. ‘Ed, please listen to me. And trust me, because I know what I’m talking about.
Joe loves you. He also loves himself, and attention, which is why it maybe seems he’s forgotten that nothing – no level of public adulation, no career trajectory, no job, no kind of success – will ever mean more to him than being with you. ’
Hannah felt Jude’s eyes on her and dared herself to look at him as he spoke. Dared to hope this speech was as much for her as it was her brother.
‘No opportunity that ever comes Joe’s way will be as important as the chance he has now to commit to you,’ Jude continued, ‘to promise he’ll spend the rest of his life taking care of you, striving to make you happy.
If you doubt that, it’s because he’s made an error, or hasn’t been paying attention – not because it isn’t true.
You don’t have to be the same, or want all the same things, for your relationship to work.
Making a life together means building something that works for both of you.
Joe knows that.’ He glanced at Hannah. ‘I know that.’
Hannah felt her eyes go glossy with tears and said, ‘It’s also worth remembering that, although it might feel like it sometimes, Joe isn’t actually a mind-reader.
You didn’t let him know how you were feeling, Ed.
’ Her brother nodded reluctant acceptance of this, so she went on: ‘You told me this was rich last time I said it, and you weren’t wrong .
. . But it’s not fair to assume Joe can’t, or won’t, give you what you need if you’re not prepared to ask for it.
Don’t say you’re refusing to hold him back if what you actually mean is you’re not being honest. That’s just limiting him in a different way – not giving him the chance to choose you, because deep down you’re terrified he won’t.
’ She shook as she said this, her whole body quivering like she’d just exorcised a demon.
‘I believe that’s what the kids call a GPWM. Good point, well made,’ came a voice from behind them. Joe’s. He was standing several rows back, arms crossed, nothing short of resplendent in his wedding suit.
Ed looked up at him, regret and guilt and gratitude shining in his hazel eyes. ‘Actually,’ he said with a sniff, ‘I think only old people say that these days. You look . . .’
‘Oh, I know,’ Joe said, smiling in satisfaction.
‘You three, on the other hand . . .’ He gestured at the state of them: Ed, sweaty and tear-stained; Hannah, flushed and emotional; Jude, unkempt and still unshowered.
He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s almost one,’ he said, ‘so we probably need to decide if we’re doing this, or sacking off Renfrew and hopping on the next plane to Vegas.
I don’t care either way, to be clear, Ed, as long as you still marry me. ’
‘Really?’ Ed said.
‘Really. You know I have a soft spot for Caesar’s Palace.’
Ed began cry-laughing, and Joe said: ‘Come here, you idiot.’
They hugged and kissed, and Hannah abruptly felt that she and Jude probably shouldn’t be there. This was too important, too intimate a moment for them to witness.
‘Let’s go,’ Ed said, seemingly to everyone.
‘Not to Vegas. Back to Renfrew. It is my dream venue, after all, and I need to get ready. Can’t be photographed next to him looking this good if I haven’t even washed my hair.
’ He turned to Joe, who’d taken his hand and was holding it tightly.
‘How did you know I’d be here? If you don’t want us thinking you actually are telepathic, you’d best explain. ’
‘I know you,’ Joe said simply. ‘Something felt off after Jude left The Purefoy, so I called Livi, who said she knew nothing about any crisis. I figured then you were having some kind of meltdown, and I knew what you’d do about it.
Then all it took to find you was a quick google and a fifteen-quid cab ride. ’
‘Bloody hell,’ Hannah complained, ‘we looked in about ten places before we came here.’ It warmed her heart, though, that Joe understood her brother so well. Even better than she did, it seemed.
They began walking the short distance back to the White Rose.
Relieved as she was that the wedding wasn’t off, Hannah gloomily figured the ‘getting ready time’ she’d be left with would not allow for the film-star makeup look she’d planned.
She texted Livi to apologise for being AWOL during her slot with Cheryl, the hair and makeup artist they had booked for the day, and explained that, now she’d averted a last-minute crisis, she’d appreciate anything that could be done for her within the next hour.
Joe unexpectedly fell into step beside her, slowing his pace so they walked a little behind Ed and Jude. ‘All right?’ she asked him.
‘Yes,’ Joe said. ‘I just wanted to thank you for finding him.’
‘It’s pretty clear you could have done that on your own,’ Hannah answered with a laugh.
‘True. But it means a lot to me that you trust me enough with him to want us to get married today. To have tried to save this for us.’
This was probably the most straightforwardly sincere thing Joe had ever said to her, and Hannah felt a sudden rush of affection for him.
She’d spent many years thinking of him as an honorary brother, and today it would become true.
‘Of course I’d want to save your big day,’ she joked, ‘my professional reputation’s riding on it. Also, he adores you. He always has.’
‘You know, I noticed Ed back then, too. Felt something for him far longer ago than I let on.’
‘Oh?’ If she sounded sceptical, she couldn’t help it. The way she remembered it, Joe had spent his teens and early twenties fending off every eligible gay or bisexual man – and some decidedly ineligible ones – within a forty-mile radius.
‘Yes,’ Joe assured her. ‘Pretty much from the moment I realised there was any chance he could be interested.’
‘Seriously?’ Hannah was unable to hide her shock. Ed had come out at eighteen – a whole decade ago.
‘Why are you surprised?’ Joe asked. ‘Surely you of all people understand that not wearing your heart on your sleeve doesn’t mean you’re heartless.’ She nodded, feeling very seen indeed.
‘Ed was still figuring himself out then,’ Joe went on, ‘and I was basically a mess. D’you remember I came back to the village from uni, the day you all got your A level results? I didn’t stay, but I wanted to be there just in case.’
He didn’t say ‘in case Jude didn’t get his grades and Mum lost her shit’, but it was heavily implied.
Hannah felt that glow of love for him again – for how hard he’d worked to stay close to his brother, to take care of him, in unbelievably difficult circumstances.
It was what she’d have done in his place.
‘A level results day? Yes, I remember it,’ she said with a snort. ‘I have tried to forget, though. I didn’t do great.’
‘And yet, you did,’ Joe said, arch as ever, meaning her business rather than her exam results.
‘Anyway. I saw Ed only briefly – he went off somewhere with his friends. But I remember thinking he was the most beautiful boy – young man? – I’d ever seen.
I already knew he was open, funny, good-hearted .
. . so lovely it almost hurt, as well as insanely handsome. ’
‘You know he had the biggest crush on you at that point, right?’ Hannah said, incredulous. ‘He’d have fallen at your feet.’
‘You’re missing the point.’ Joe shook his head. ‘I wasn’t worthy of him then. I hadn’t “done the work”, as people in my line sometimes say. I needed to sort through my own shit so I could make sure I never put it on anybody else. The timing wasn’t right.’
‘I still don’t know what you mean,’ Hannah said. They were almost back at the inn now, and she wanted to understand.
‘I mean that he’s changed, Hannah. He’s made sense of some pretty important stuff, lately. You have, too, based on what I just overheard.’ They were no longer talking about Ed, or Joe’s historic mooning over him, she realised.
‘I don’t think—’ Hannah started to protest, but Joe stopped her.
‘When I met Ed again as an adult – bumped into him in a tiki bar holding a rum cocktail the size of his own head – I took my chance. No way was I letting him go. He probably hasn’t told you this, but he was on a first date with some guy he’d met on an app.
I third-wheeled until the other bloke stomped off in a huff. Then I took Ed out for dinner.’
‘Oh my god,’ Hannah groaned. ‘That is so obnoxious it sounds made up, but I one hundred per cent believe you.’
Joe smirked, then turned serious again. ‘I know Jude did some stupid things when you were together, but I’m willing to bet you made mistakes, too. It was the wrong time, not the wrong relationship. And if you’re both willing to try, you might still put it right.’
Hannah opened her mouth, not sure whether she intended to argue or agree with him. They were back at the White Rose, and Jude and Ed were standing a little way off, gesturing wildly at her to hurry up from the doorway of the inn.
‘To be entirely clear,’ Joe said, ‘these past few months have been your tiki bar moment, Hannah, and lord knows I’ve done my bit to spin it out. But it’s almost over, and it’s up to you, now – so slay your demons. Shoot your shot. Bully the other guy out of the bar, if you have to.’
He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. ‘I say now,’ he muttered, correcting himself. ‘I mean after the wedding. You have . . .’ he glanced at his wrist, ‘about forty-five minutes until you need to make your way to the manor.’
‘Marvellous,’ Hannah sighed mournfully, already making peace with the fact that there wouldn’t be time for the updo she’d envisaged. ‘I’ll see you there.’