Chapter 23
Thank U, Next
Tyler
The bathroom is mercifully empty.
I brace my hands against the cool porcelain sink, head bowed, water dripping down my face. My reflection stares back at me, rumpled shirt, tie hanging loose, jaw tight like I’ve just gone ten rounds with myself.
I haven’t seen Hayley since the ceremony. Not properly. We were at the same table, sure, but parked at opposite ends, and she spent most of dinner laughing with Ben or chatting to Lily. Every time I looked up, she was looking anywhere but at me.
And now she’s gone. Vanished.
She ran off the second the dancing started, and I haven’t seen her since.
I told her finally, about Ben’s party, about how long I’ve known her, about why I was so desperate to be here in the first place.
She didn’t say a word. Not about the kiss. Not about me. Nothing.
Maybe she believes I really am the cliché. The smug bastard with a reputation. The guy who lets women paw at him like he’s part of the entertainment and never bothers to push them away.
And yet this morning, for one fleeting second, I thought we’d turned a corner. She looked at me like maybe, just maybe, she really saw me. Wanted me helping. Wanted me.
But now? She’s avoiding me.
I grab a paper towel, scrub the water off my face, and straighten my tie. No use brooding in here.
The corridor is quiet, tucked away from the main flow of guests. The second I step out, someone grabs my arm.
“Tyler,” Helen purrs, too close, the gold on her fingers flashes under the corridor lights, a warning before she even speaks.
Her perfume hits first, too floral, too sweet, and it makes me nauseous. I can’t believe I ever thought that smell was attractive. She’s tipsy, I can smell the booze on her breath, and her free hand is already skating across my chest like she has a right to touch me.
“Helen.” I step back just enough to break her grip. “You’ve had a few drinks. Maybe you should…”
“Oh, relax.” She laughs, too loud for the corridor. “You don’t have to do the whole chivalrous act with me. I know you, remember?”
She steps closer, fingers trailing up my arm like it’s supposed to mean something.
“You don’t have to pretend you’ve gone all… noble,” she murmurs, leaning in, her lips almost brushing my ear. “We’re good together, Tyler. Always have been. You just need reminding.”
I catch her wrist before her hand can go any higher. “Helen.” My voice is firmer this time.
She tilts her head, smiling in that smug way she does when she thinks she’s winning. “What? Afraid your little bridesmaid will see?”
I grit my teeth, the words barely more than a mutter. “This isn’t happening.”
“Oh, come on.” Her laugh is syrupy, almost mocking now. “It’s a wedding. You can play knight in shining armour with her tomorrow. Tonight, you can…”
She slides her other hand toward my waistband, uninvited.
“I said no.”
That wipes the smirk off her face.
Helen blinks, then recovers fast, smile turning razor sharp.
“Oh, please,” she sneers. “You’re really going to throw away everything we had for her? The jester? She’s a mess, Tyler. She’s embarrassing. Always putting on some big show like she’s the main event, when everyone knows she’s just there for comedy value.”
Something hot and immediate flares in my chest.
“Enough.”
She startles at my tone, but I’m past polite now.
Helen’s smile tightens. “You’ve known her for, what, five minutes? This isn’t about her, is it? This is about you being bored.”
I let out a short, humourless laugh.
“She makes me smile, Helen. She makes me laugh. Do you know how rare that is for me? You barely made me twitch a muscle in my face.”
Helen’s eyes flash and she steps closer, voice dropping into something silkier, nastier.
“Oh, I made you twitch, darling,” she sneers. “Plenty of times. Just not the muscle in your face.”
I almost laugh, but it’s not amused, and I’m done being polite.
“That’s a bodily function, Helen. Get over it.”
Her mouth falls open, the realisation hitting like a sucker punch. Then she laughs, brittle, the sound of someone trying to hold the upper hand even as it slips through their fingers.
“What, so you’re…” She waves a hand, too casual, like she’s swatting away a fly, “…you’re in love with her or something?”
I don’t say a word.
Her smile falters.
“Jesus Christ, Tyler,” she hisses, the bite creeping back into her voice. “You’re in love with the jester.”
I let the words hang there. Don’t deny them. Don’t flinch.
Helen searches my face, waiting for me to laugh, to tell her she’s wrong, to give her something.
I give her nothing.
When I finally speak, my voice is calm. Steady.
“We’re over, Helen. Goodbye.”
I turn to head down the corridor, pushing through the quiet, to find an exit.
And stop.
There’s a man leaning casually against the wall just a few feet away, taking up more space than he needs to. Blond hair catching the light, annoyingly so. Karl, I realise after a beat. The guy who danced with Hayley yesterday.
His expression is unreadable.
No way he missed that little performance, and I can already hear the commentary in his head. Better than anything on Eastenders.
I give him a curt nod, all I can manage, and push through the door into the night.
Cool air hits my face, crisp enough to clear the suffocating floral cloud of Helen’s perfume.
I keep walking. No plan. No destination. Just anywhere that isn’t here.
Away from Helen.
Away from the castle corridors, the music, the picture-perfect happiness spilling from every doorway.
Away from everything that feels too loud, too staged, too much.
I need space.
Clarity.
I need to find someone who makes sense.
Hayley
I burst back into the reception like a woman on a life-or-death mission, or at least a very dramatic side quest that could make or break the entire weekend.
The music, the chatter, the clink of glasses all hit me at once. I make a beeline for the nearest table, grab a half-full flute of Prosecco that definitely isn’t mine, and down it in one go.
Karl appears out of nowhere, hands in his pockets, grin firmly in place.
“Easy, Cinderella,” he drawls. “You’ll end up kissing a frog if you keep downing random drinks at midnight.”
I glare at him over the rim of the empty glass. “Not helpful.”
Karl raises an eyebrow, completely unbothered by my glare.
“Relax, I’m just trying to work out if you’re drinking to celebrate or commiserate. I’ve got a tenner riding on it with myself.”
I roll my eyes. “Very funny.”
He leans a hip against the table, annoyingly casual. “So, you gonna keep sprinting around the castle all night, or are you going to tell me what’s got you flustered like you’ve just been caught skinny-dipping in the moat during a ‘ye olde’ boot camp?”
“I’m fine.”
“Sure.” He grins, clearly not believing me for a second. “Funny, because your ‘fine’ looks exactly like the face you made last night, when Peacock suggested a group interpretive dance before dessert.”
I snort despite myself. “That was a traumatic experience.”
“Exactly. Which means something’s up. Spill.”
I set the glass down a little harder than necessary. “Nothing’s up. I just… needed air.”
“Funny, your earl just ran out of here to do exactly the same thing.”
My head whips up. “Tyler?”
He grins. “Knew that would get your attention.”
“Karl?”
“Alright, alright…” He holds up his hands, mock defensive. “Since I’m clearly not the leading man in this story, I’ll spill. I may or may not have just heard him kick my lovely little partner to the kerb for good.”
My brows shoot up. “Helen?”
“Yes, Nancy Drew, Helen.” He smirks. “I may or may not have been eavesdropping on Little Miss Mix-a-Lot trying it on with your man, and he may or may not have…”
“What, Karl?”
He grins, relishing every second of my wide-eyed panic. “Basically, declared his love for you.”
I freeze. My stomach drops through the floor. Love? He said love? He used the L-word?
“Yep. My thoughts exactly.” He mimes dropping a mic, then jerks his chin toward the garden. “Now go. Before he broods himself into a full-on Tudor tragedy.”
My legs are already moving before my brain catches up.
“Attagirl!” Karl calls out. “Try not to trip over your dignity!”
Too late, pretty sure that went flying somewhere back at the welcome drinks. My skirt is hiked to an entirely indecent level, satin swishing around my knees as I sprint across the lawn like I’m being chased by an overenthusiastic wedding planner.
The night air hits me like a slap, cool and bracing, but I run faster.
Said wedding planner is halfway across the terrace, leading a conga line that snakes between the tables.
Right as I pass, Peacock stops dead, causing a pile-up of tipsy dancers who crash into him like human dominoes.
He doesn’t seem to care, just watches me for a beat, eyes glittering, smug and knowing.
I slow just enough to catch his look.
He lifts two fingers to his temple in a perfectly exaggerated salute, deliberate, like he’s sending me off to battle.
For a split second, the man behind the feathers is back, open, oddly sincere, and I see him.
Then he breaks it with a wicked grin, spins on his heel, and grabs the nearest lady’s bottom to restart the conga line.
She squeals. The line erupts in laughter. Someone yells, “Peacock!” in delighted outrage.
And just like that, the party swallows him whole again.
I keep running, skirts tangling around my legs, no doubt giving the castle CCTV operator a full floorshow.
I have to stop for half a second to extract a wedgie, because of course romance comes with ridiculous underwear, then take off again, dignity now trailing somewhere behind me with my left shoe.
In the back of my mind, I wonder if this is how Disney princesses handled their love lives.
Mulan, maybe, she was badass.
“Not the time, Hayley!” I hiss at myself, shaking the thought away as I vault over a stray lantern.
I swerve around a kissing couple and nearly collide with a particularly lumpy bush, Derek’s cousin, obviously, which I glare at mid-stride.
“Don’t you start, you smug little hedge. I’m doing something about it, alright?”
Silence. Naturally.
Lantern light flickers ahead, turning the path into something secret and endless. My pulse is in my ears. I take a breath, grip my skirts tighter, and keep running.