Chapter 6 Sam
SAM
I opt to make my way on foot to the estate rather than call for a ride or drag the bike out of the little shed out back. The weather is perfect right now, and I want to soak it up. The rest of the week could be shit, so taking advantage of the current situation is ideal.
What would be far more ideal is having food delivered right to my door, but I have to remind myself that I’m not here to escape.
I’m actually here to partake in a major life event of a friend, which means being as present as he wants me to be.
And the one truly annoying thing about Colin is that he always wants me to be.
When the estate comes into view as I crest the hill, I stop to take it in without Colin yammering in my ear.
It’s not the original estate, which lies two miles to the east and at the widest part of the loch, but it’s impressive all the same.
It’s large enough that I could have probably stayed in one of the rooms and had a decent amount of privacy.
But I would have to walk down several flights of stairs to have coffee in the garden, and in that garden there would probably be other people wanting to chat.
If there is one thing I like more than being alone in the middle of the Highlands, it’s being able to drink my first coffee of the day in peace.
There are several more cars parked in the driveway than had been there a few hours ago, which means most of the guests have arrived. I take a deep, calming breath and convince my feet to move. It’s time to put on my media face.
“Welcome back, sir,” Jimmy greets me at the door, opening it to let me through.
“Thank you, Jimmy.” I nod back.
The sound of conversation hits me the moment I’m over the threshold.
There are only fifty guests, including the wedding party, in attendance, but half the people here are from the rugby world, and it’s not a world known for silence.
The big personalities carry over into the volume at which they speak.
It’s what I miss least about my rugby days.
They’ve set up a cocktail reception in the great hall as a way to welcome everyone, and I enter as quietly as possible, skirting around the outside, eyes searching the room for one of my old teammates.
My efforts to remain out of the spotlight are squashed when I hear a thick French accent shout my name clear across the room, and I stop dead as the room goes silent. Fucking Pierre.
Sliding my hands into my pockets, I nod my apologies as I cut across the centre to where a group of the guys are standing. Some with partners, some alone.
“Trying to avoid us, Samuel?” Pierre asks, his hand grasping at his chest as if I’ve broken his heart.
“Nope. Just trying to stay under the radar,” I tell him, grabbing a glass of champagne as a waiter walks by. I don’t even like the stuff, but at least the glass will give me something to do with my hands.
“Well, no one cares about you.” Pierre chuckles, elbowing me hard enough that my drink sloshes over the edge of the glass and onto my hand.
“They’re here for them.” He lifts his drink and gestures over my left shoulder, and I turn to see Colin and Sarah talking with two people I don’t know.
Then Sarah disappears, the reason revealed when a couple people shift.
She’s squatting down talking to a little girl who has a stuffed Loch Ness Monster tucked under her arm.
That must have been the little girl I saw in the garden earlier.
I pull my attention back to our little group, where Dougie’s fiancée, Colleen, is telling a story about how she found him passed out, ass up, in a dry bathtub after this year’s league finals.
For such a big guy, Dougie famously cannot handle his liquor.
The term “lightweight” may as well have been coined for him.
Colleen, on the other hand, can drink every one of us under the table and wake up the next day at the crack of dawn, ready for a run on the beach.
“Fuckin’ fit,” Gerald hisses from my right, and I glance up to see him looking toward the entrance, a stupid lopsided grin on his face. I follow his line of sight and nearly drop my glass when I see her.
“That’s the widowed sister-in-law,” I hear Pierre tell the group, my mind snagging on the word widowed.
The woman from the plane walks into the room on the arm of the older man I recognize from the airport, a big smile on her face as she’s pulled into the arms of a woman closer to her age.
She laughs at whatever the woman says to her, the clear sound of it dancing across the room, and I don’t know whether to stay put or go to her.
Her laugh is like a fucking siren song, calling me forth.
She’s radiant. Although, if I’m being honest with myself, she was on the plane too. She just looks a bit more well-rested now. What the hell are the odds?
I wanted to talk to her more at the airport, but between her kid and the man, it felt a bit intrusive to try and flirt. And besides, what was I going to do? Ask her out? She has a kid, and at the time I didn’t know if she had someone at home waiting for her.
“You know her?” Gerald asks.
“Um, yes. No. Sort of,” I mumble, unable to look away.
The little girl standing beside Sarah jumps up and down as she approaches, wrapping her arms around her waist when she reaches her.
I watch as she does the same as Sarah, crouching down and leaning in, pressing her nose against her daughter’s.
When she pulls back, the little girl runs her finger over one of the giant red roses on her mother’s dress, a huge smile spreading across her face as she points to the flowers on her own.
“I thought you all didn’t know each other,” Pierre teases while my eyes are still glued to her, unable to look away as she stands to her full height again.
“What?”
“Canadians. I thought you didn’t all know each other, but you sort of know that one.”
Of course we don’t all know one another, but it is true that we tend to find each other abroad, which seems to lead to people assuming we all know so-and-so in Halifax or Toronto.
I don’t know Rosie, but as she turns her attention to Colin, smiling at whatever he is saying, I’m overwhelmed with the desire to get to know her.
The man from the airport holds out his hand to the little girl, and she grabs it, chatting animatedly as they walk to where a table with various hors d'oeuvres is set out, and before I realize what’s happening, I’m walking toward the woman in the rose covered dress, dropping my untouched drink onto a passing tray.
“Would you look at that? The only other Canuck in the place has been summoned.” Colin hollers before I arrive at their little group.
Rosie looks at me and smiles politely before blinking several times, her head tipping to the side as she studies me. “It’s you,” she says, the same smile she’d given to Colin aimed at me this time.
I spare Colin a quick glance before leaning closer to her. “This isn’t going to help convince them that we don’t all know each other,” I say conspiratorially.
“But I don’t know you.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know him,” she gestures toward me as she tells Colin, earning a confused look in return. “We…um, met?” she asks, her eyes narrowing at me. “Well, no, not really met. He helped me on the plane. Well, on and off.”
“Yeah, we skipped right over introductions,” I confirm.
Sarah gasps dramatically. “Oh, no, that won’t do.” She reaches between us and grabs both of our hands until Rosie’s hand is in mine and then steps back. “And go,” she says as if directing a scene.
Rosie laughs as her grip tightens. “I’m Blythe from near Toronto.” She beams at me.
Blythe, not Rosie. I wonder if I could call her Rosie, though, or maybe that would be weird. A throat clears, and I realize I haven’t responded. “Sam,” I stammer. “From inside of Vancouver.”
“It’s nice to meet you officially, Sam,” she says. That’s it—no one else is ever allowed to say my name again. Clearly no one has ever said it properly until her.
Goddamn, it’s a good thing I don’t hook up at weddings because I’d be fucked.