Chapter 18 #2
This is the first time I’ve seen a bride jilted at the altar.
And in front of all those cows.
* * *
Pearl and Geoff are with the bride and groom inside, each of them in separate rooms.
Geoff has announced to the guests that the wedding won’t proceed, so now they’re milling around drinking the free booze and talking animatedly because, why not?
The hotel staff are already dismantling the ceremony area and I’m aimlessly hanging around in the staff car park, wondering what to do with my day now that I have a rare summer Saturday back.
Mandy is on the phone to her wife and if my eavesdropping is accurate, she’s being talked into a day of shopping and cocktails. The shopping, I know, will be a blow for Mandy. Day drinking, less so.
Dave is also hovering near his van and sounds like he’s on the phone to his wife, too.
I’m leaning back against my car, face tilted towards the sun that’s dazzling in the cloudless sky, even through my sunglasses.
My things are already packed away and I’m ready to leave once I’ve said goodbye to Mandy.
‘You were great out there today,’ Guy says, his voice interrupting my moment of bliss.
I shift my attention to him. ‘He passed out; it was hardly brain surgery.’
Though the memory of the groom crashing down on top of me reminds me of the clatter of his head against my chest, and I rub the sore spot subconsciously.
Guy watches me. ‘Everyone else was up in arms. I was ready to ship the lad off to the morgue. But you were cool as cucumber.’
A family trait, I guess, though I decide to keep that to myself.
‘Is that all you have to say to me?’ My words drip with animosity.
He pushes his hands into the pockets of his trousers. The trousers he wore when he liquified my knickers on my parents’ doorstep. But his focus is on his feet as I watch him swallow hard. ‘You cut your hair,’ he says.
‘Top marks for observation,’ I say with a good helping of sarcasm. ‘I had a moment of playing the anti-bridesmaid in the hairdresser’s.’
It’s subtle but I see the corner of his lips twitch. ‘Are your family still on your back because you had a male gigolo in the house?’
Now it’s my turn to smirk. ‘Something like that.’
‘Can’t say I blame them.’
I can feel the resolve that I’ve built up over the last fortnight dissolving in his presence. I watch his gaze fall to the slither of skin that’s exposed between my cargo pants and my vest, and something about the way he looks has me hotter than the midday sun.
He swallows so deeply that I see the movement in the sinews of his neck. Whatever feelings I just caught, I think they registered with him too.
‘Do you always kiss a man the way you kissed me at that hen party, then walk off into the sunset never to see him again? Never even ask for his number?’
Me?! ‘That kiss was uninvited,’ I tell him, insinuating that the kiss we shared two weeks ago was very much mutual.
‘That doesn’t mean it wasn’t welcome.’
Now it’s my turn to swallow, staring at his lips, his hair, remembering the feel of his roots under my fingers as I tugged. Remembering with an ache between my legs the feel of his excitement pressed against me. God, I’m pathetic.
‘What about you? Do you always kiss a girl like you’re going to take her to bed, then disappear into the night?’
He opens his mouth and I can’t wait to see what cock and bull excuse he comes up with but?—
‘Guy, mate, ya need to head home and get yer swimmers because I’ve been roped into a beach barbeque with the missus and her friends.’ Dave’s words save me. ‘I’ve seen them all after a glass of wine and I refuse to be the only man there.’
He appears, as if popping up from nowhere, making sure I still don’t get a resolution to my question. Mandy is off the phone, too, and comes our way.
‘D’ya fancy it, lasses? A beach barbie?’ Dave asks. ‘The more the merrier.’
‘Sorry, I’m being roped into shopping and cocktails with Ginny. I don’t often get a weekend off in the sunshine,’ Mandy says.
In the background, a small group of wedding guests – two men sweating in suits, three women wearing fascinators, a flower girl and a page boy – approach Guy and ask for his autograph.
I notice his lack of hesitation, the way he signs their napkins and wedding invitations like it’s second nature to him.
I wish I had my own camera in my hands as he slips into photograph poses with the guests.
‘Would you like me to take a group picture?’ I ask, accepting a phone from one of the women who is literally swooning over the rock star. Yeah, I get it.
I’m also irrationally jealous for no good reason that Guy could choose any woman he wants.
As I take his picture, I know he’s watching me, rather than looking at the camera, and I try not to react but feel every cell in my brain exploding on the impact of his attention, remembering the feel of him, the touch of him.
‘How about it, Lyra? Will you come?’ Dave asks when we reform our group.
‘Ah, no, I have, erm, things?—’
‘Please?’ Guy asks, speaking only to me, surprising me with his lack of shits given in front of his friend.
I want to go. If nothing else, to indulge in that body wearing only swimmers on the hottest day of the year. I have to force myself not to see us frolicking in the sand when I next blink.
But he didn’t call and I’m not spending the next two weeks pining after him.
Not that anything would happen between us, I just mean— See! This! This ends now.
‘No.’ I direct my rejection to Guy. Flipping him the proverbial bird. Thinking, Enjoy it, the way I’ve enjoyed your brush off.
Then to Dave, I say, ‘Thanks for the offer, it sounds great but I’ve things I should be getting on with at home.’
I don’t bother launching into the story of moving house and for some reason failing to unpack after three months.
I don’t tell them that I’ll probably end up sitting in my small yard of empty plant pots, writing an article that no one will ever read about a man who loved his cows more than his bride. I already sound dull enough.
‘Have a good day, everyone,’ I tell them, scuttling away to my car before I change my mind.
Right before my car door closes, a large hand gets in the way, keeping it open.
Guy hangs over the top of the frame. ‘Did I blow it?’
I want desperately to say no but I’m not the kind of girl who’s going to fall for his charm. Or his voice. Or his frighteningly blue eyes and rugged dark features.
‘That implies there was something to blow, Guy.’ I peel his fingers from my door frame. ‘So, no, you didn’t blow it.’
His face twists into a grimace then his perfect teeth dig into his disastrously great-at-kissing-lips. ‘Burn.’
‘Now you know how it feels,’ I tell him, pulling my door shut and accelerating away harder than necessary, watching him through my rear-view mirror as dust kicks up from the car park in my wake.
Feeling bloody thankful that I pulled off that proverbial mic drop without stalling the car or running into a wedding guest.
Because I know the truth… There is something between us. Something I want more than I’ve wanted anything else in my life.