Chapter 18
Not My Era
Hayley
Lily is half-slouched against a table, barefoot and flushed, her hair falling loose like it gave up hours ago. When she spots me, her face lights up.
“There she is! Cheese Queen of the Realm!”
“I’d prefer Dairy Disaster Duchess, if we’re assigning titles.”
She grins and drags me into a quick, slightly sweaty hug, then half-leans on me like I’m structural support. “You okay?”
“Yep. Completely fine. Emotionally stable. Definitely not hiding behind period costume and booze.”
Lily snorts. “So, the usual?”
I smile. But she sees it, that edge under the laugh. Because of course she does. Lily’s been reading my face since year nine.
“I’m so sorry about earlier, Lily. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Err, I do. Tyler has that effect on most women.”
She says it lightly, but it lands like a sucker punch. My stomach dips, sudden and stupid, like I just lost a race I didn’t know I’d entered.
“Hayley,” she continues, tilting her head, her weight pressing into my shoulder. “What’s going on with you and Tyler?”
I hesitate. Then, because lying to Lily is like trying to bluff your way past a sniffer dog, I tell her. Quietly. About the garden. The kiss. The everything.
She raises an eyebrow. “You like him.”
“I don’t know him.”
“You don’t usually kiss strangers like that.”
I shrug, trying for casual. “It’s just a bit of wedding fever,” I lie, “and maybe some mead-fuelled poor judgement.”
Even I don’t believe that one. It sounds like something you’d print on a novelty tankard and sell in the gift shop.
Lily’s grin fades into something more measured, almost wary. “Yeah, well… impulse control isn’t exactly Tyler’s speciality either.”
She hesitates, then adds, “You know Helen’s still hovering, right? Tyler might ignore it, but if she snaps her fingers…”
The disappointment hits low and hard, a lead weight in my stomach. Because of course it’s Helen. Helen, with her shiny hair and perfect teeth and never-miss-a-beat confidence.
“Thanks for the heads-up,” I manage, my voice flatter than I mean it to be.
Because what else am I supposed to say? That I already know I’m not the kind of girl men pick over someone like Helen? That I’m already overthinking a kiss that probably didn’t mean half as much to him as it did to me?
Lily’s expression eases as she squeezes my arm. “I just don’t want you getting caught in something messy. You’re… you, Hales. Don’t forget that.”
I nod, forcing a smile. “I won’t.”
But the flicker’s already there, curling cold and familiar in my chest: maybe I’m the side character again. Maybe I always was.
I’m turning to head back towards the dance floor when a voice slithers in behind me, too close to be accidental.
“I wouldn’t get too comfortable in his arms, darling. Tyler and I are just… regrouping.”
I freeze. Exhale through my nose. Turn just enough to see the bitch ex, Helen, with her perfect hair, predatory smile, and the energy of a woman who monologues before pushing you off a cliff.
“Regrouping?” I echo, flat.
She steps closer, wine glass in hand like this is a toast rather than a confrontation. “We’re taking some space. That’s all. You know how these things go, long-term relationships hit pauses, not endings.”
Ah. So that’s the narrative she’s chosen to keep herself warm at night.
“Wow,” I say, arching a brow. “So, this whole weekend is your version of a romantic timeout? You and Tyler are… what, Ross and Rachel now?”
Her smile doesn’t falter, but something calculating flickers in her eyes.
“You think you’re on a break?” I add sweetly, sipping my drink. “Didn’t you finish years ago? Bit of a long timeout.”
Helen’s smile turns surgical. “Years? No, darling. Try six months ago.”
My stomach plummets. What the actual fuck?
Her voice is sugar and spite, each word dropped like a perfectly timed mic-drop. “I suppose he forgot to mention that. Tyler can be very… focused when he’s chasing his next distraction.”
I stiffen.
Helen’s eyes slide over me, appraising, like she’s wondering if I’d make a decent handbag.
“You’re charming, Hayley,” she says finally, the word charming sounding like a consolation prize. “In a chaotic, romcom-blooper-reel sort of way. But Tyler’s tastes usually run a little more… polished.”
Her smile settles into something worse, pity. “It’s brave to keep hoping at this stage, isn’t it?”
The pity lands like a slap.
She takes one step back, casual, sipping her drink like she hasn’t just filleted me with a few well-chosen words.
“Anyway, darling, you’re not really his type. And you don’t exactly have the casual physique.”
Fucking cow. If I had a sword, it’d be duel-at-dawn time.
My chest tightens. My throat burns. She tilts her head, glittering eyes raking me up and down with surgical precision, then glides away, leaving behind nothing but perfume and the echo of every insecurity I’ve ever had.
I stand frozen, heart pounding, swallowing the lump in my throat.
Six months.
Not several years. Not some distant ex filed under ‘ancient history.’
He didn’t tell me.
And despite every rational part of me screaming that I shouldn’t care, it sits deep. Heavy. Familiar in all the places I pretend don’t hurt.
Then…
A voice slices through the static in my head.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Peacock, pieced together, once again in full theatrical glory, appears at the edge of the room. “Our beloved couple, Lily and Ben, have requested a brief pause in tonight’s theatrics.”
He spins on the spot, robes flaring like he’s Willy Wonka auditioning to play a young Henry Tudor (VII or VIII, I doubt even he cares). “They would like to have their first dance this evening. So, if you would all kindly make some room and find your partners…”
He winks.
“…we’ll be time-travelling all the way to…Taylor Swift.”
A ripple of laughter moves through the crowd as bodies shuffle politely towards the edge of the floor.
The opening chords of “Lover” float into the air, gentle and dreamlike. Taylor’s voice wraps around the room, unbearably tender.
The dance floor clears, and Lily appears, barefoot, glowing, tulle dress wrinkled and stained but somehow still perfect. Ben takes her hand, pulling her in like he still can’t believe he gets to.
And then they begin to dance, moving as if the rest of the room has fallen away. There’s an intimacy to it, a private world they’ve built in the middle of the room, and I almost feel like an intruder just standing here. Like I’ve stumbled into someone else’s dream and stayed too long.
I don’t realise my eyes are pooling until I blink and a tear slips free.
I’m stung, tired, fed up, a little drunk, and entirely unsure how I ended up watching someone else’s happy ending play out while mine feels permanently stuck on the loading screen.
I press my lips together, arms crossed, trying not to let it show.
Because what if I never get this?
What if love, security, someone choosing me, what if that just isn’t in the cards?
Lily laughs at something Ben whispers, the crowd sighs in collective adoration.
And just when I think I might lose it completely, a hand slips into mine.
Steady. Certain.
I look up and it’s Tyler.
No smirk. No clever line. He doesn’t ask. He just holds my hand and gently leads me onto the floor.
And for reasons I can’t name, I let him. Even with my heart full of doubt. Even knowing where this could lead. I follow anyway.
The dance is the kind that lives in muscle memory from school discos. A little unsure, pretending you know what you’re doing. His hands rest carefully on my waist. Mine settle around his neck. The silence stretches, but it isn’t awkward.
It’s… quiet. In the right way.
For a few stolen minutes, it’s just us.
No Lily. No Helen. No hedges or history or wedding drama or mascara threatening mutiny. Just Tyler. And me. And the sweep of strings.
When the song ends, his hand doesn’t drop straight away. And mine doesn’t pull back.
Not until we have to.
He looks down at me, eyes searching. I don’t know what he’s looking for, reassurance, an opening, a sign that I’m still here.
Still willing.
Still his, somehow.
And I want to be. God, I want to be. But Helen’s jabs coil in my head, tightening their grip.
Not really his type.
It stings. Even when I know it shouldn’t. Even when I know I’m more than that.
Tyler brushes a curl from my cheek and my breath catches. For a heartbeat, everything hushes, the music, the crowd, even the ache Helen left behind. It’s just him, just this, and it feels terrifyingly easy to fall into.
Then he says low against my ear, “Let’s get out of here.”
I nod. Because if I stay another second, I’ll drown in everything I’m pretending not to feel.
And maybe I shouldn’t follow him. Maybe I should say goodnight and retreat to my normal life, woolly socks, bad TV reruns, leftover pasta eaten straight from the pan, and the half-broken armour I keep duct-taping back together.
But I don’t.
Because despite every alarm bell in my chest, I want to know what happens next.
Even if it wrecks me. Even if it’s temporary. Even if I’m wrong.
I take his hand.
And I don’t let go.
The corridor hums with muffled giggles and shuffling footsteps. Doors click shut one by one, the kind of quiet that means everyone’s disappearing into rooms, and we all know what’s happening in them.
And here I am, playing chaperone to my own hormones.
We stop at my door. For a moment, neither of us moves.
I can feel him watching me. Not hungry. Not impatient. Just… steady. Like he’s giving me every chance to choose.
I turn, my fingers curling around the doorframe. “Well.”
His mouth tips into the ghost of a smile. “Well.”
The silence swells, thick with everything I could do right now.
I could kiss him again. Drag him inside. Press him against the wall until we’re both breathless and figure out whether that kiss was a promise or just foreplay.
I could let myself fall.
And every cell in me wants to.
But Lily’s voice echoes: Just be careful. Not all of them left smiling.
And then Helen’s: We’re regrouping.
And worse: You don’t exactly have the casual physique.
The words are still crawling under my skin, burrowing deep, and suddenly I’m hyper-aware of every inch of me, the way my dress pulls at my waist, how my thighs feel pressed together, how I probably don’t look like the kind of woman men risk their exes for.
My chest squeezes until it hurts.
Instead, I do the only thing that doesn’t break me wide open.
I smile. Not breezy. Not brave. Just enough to keep the cracks from showing.
“Thanks for the walk.” My throat’s too tight, so I add, after a beat: “And the dance.”
Something flickers in his eyes, hope, maybe, or disappointment, and it nearly undoes me.
“Anytime,” he murmurs.
He doesn’t step back. Neither do I. The moment holds until it’s almost too much. One more heartbeat and I’ll drag him inside and find out exactly how far this will go.
“Goodnight, Tyler,” I whisper, and close the door between us.
I stay there, forehead pressed against the wood, heart thundering like I just bolted from a burning building.
Because closing that door doesn’t feel like safety.
It feels like punishment.