Chapter 14
Rhys waited in the lobby the following morning with his nerves strung tight.
If he’d had any other way to get to the church, he would have taken it.
He’d even woken up this morning and considered wandering down the road to thumb a lift into Bruneck – just so he could avoid sitting in a car with Ginny.
Thank God she couldn’t read minds, because if she knew how much he was dreading this, she’d feel terrible and that was the perfect illustration of how bad he was for her.
The reasons he needed to stay away from her stacked up in a teetering pile, and yet his mind kept returning to last night, her arm resting on his.
The number of times he would have kissed her, in other circumstances – full on the mouth, not that kiss to her knuckles that never should have happened.
It had become an uncomfortable background hum, the desire to kiss Ginny, all because of the simple piercing that made her easy to identify.
The numerous little rejections she’d delivered to him without realising it stung, even though he’d taken them on the chin as punishment for his inappropriate fantasies – fantasies like losing his fingers in her hair.
He should be fantasising about Canada, the Columbia River and Uto Peak, great stretches of isolation and his dream job, to capture it all on camera. He just needed to get through this wedding.
There were footsteps on the stairs, but he quickly realised it wasn’t Ginny and then a short, familiar figure wearing running gear appeared around the door.
If he hadn’t already recognised her straight shoulders and the stubborn lift of her chin, the blue hair would have given her away in an instant.
‘Hey,’ Kira said when she noticed him on her way to the doors. She glanced at the camera bags at his feet. ‘You going somewhere?’
He nodded. ‘To check out the church and the reception venue.’
‘With Ginny?’
Surely he was imagining her wary tone.
She came closer with a gulp. ‘It was nice of you to dance with her. It was a plot twist I wasn’t expecting. She has chronic bad luck with partners.’
‘Mmm,’ was all he said in reply, hoping his flaming cheeks didn’t give anything away.
‘I kind of feel sorry for her because she’s been planning her own wedding for years, in six thousand different ways, and she wants thirteen kids or something.’
Trust Kira to kick him in the stomach with the truth.
‘You should see your face,’ she said with a chuckle, slapping him on the shoulder, but then she froze, her expression slipping. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘Fuck off, Kira,’ he said fondly. ‘You’re allowed to make a face joke.’
‘Right,’ she said, more apologetically than he would have expected. Seeing Kira develop empathy was some kind of miracle that Mattia could probably take credit for. ‘I do know you better than that.’
Perhaps that was why he was escaping to Canada.
She sighed, grimacing as she thought about something that mustn’t have been very pleasant. ‘Just be nice to Ginny. She’s so desperate to be in love with someone, I… I worry about her sometimes.’
‘Kira, concerned with someone’s feelings?’ he joked.
She gave him a friendly shove and he retaliated with his elbow like a second grader.
‘Am I interrupting something?’
He straightened and whirled to face Ginny.
Distracted by the tussle with Kira, he’d forgotten to brace himself and he sucked in an audible breath.
Her hair was down around her shoulders, but he’d recognise the rich reddish brown anywhere now.
She had a hoop through the piercing, curling over her bottom lip.
She was wearing lipstick, but it was the twist of a smile, the way she moved her lips self-consciously – probably because of the piercing – that set off the familiar chain reaction in his stomach.
With her pale, wide-leg jeans and her white sweater cropped an inch too high, she was clearly far too young for him. One hand on her hip, eyebrows up, he could see even from her posture that she was teasing.
‘I don’t think the hotel has a boxing ring for overgrown children.’
‘Hey, you. What’s with the outfit?’ Kira asked.
‘Hmm?’ Ginny’s jaw stiffened.
‘You just look like off-duty Ginny, not wedding-planner Ginny.’ Kira looked at him. ‘Maybe Rhys won’t recognise you.’
‘She looks pretty with her hair down and I can still recognise her. Besides, she’s the only member of Gen Z for miles.’ He gestured to her outfit.
‘She looks pretty?’ Kira repeated, as though the compliment were the last thing she’d expected Rhys to say.
Leaning closer to Kira, he dropped his voice. ‘You told me to be nice to Ginny.’
‘You don’t have to flirt,’ Kira insisted.
Ginny straightened in horror. ‘Oh, I’m sure he’s not—’
‘All right, all right,’ Kira said with a dismissive wave.
‘Just be careful. You’re pretty much the only singles here and weddings mess with your head – or your sex drive or something.
I don’t think Ginny is grown-up enough for casual and I don’t want to deal with both of you if you burst her balloon, Rhys. We’re all a team.’
He should have told Kira he was going to Canada. At least then she would never have got it into her head that he and Ginny might cross some professional lines.
‘It’s a team I’m not sure I want to be on,’ Ginny grumbled. ‘You all seem to think that friendship means tongue-in-cheek insults and derogatory jokes, not to mention very hypocritical relationship advice. I’m not much younger than you and if I want Rhys to burst my balloon, that’s my business.’
He snorted in shock, choking on air, and Kira thumped him on the back in concern.
‘She’s joking,’ Kira reassured him, which possibly should have been Ginny’s line.
But Ginny just gave him a brassy smile. ‘Let’s go, hmm? We’ve got a date with a priest.’
‘One dance and all your friends think we’re sleeping together?’
He should have guessed Ginny would want to talk about this the instant they got into the car. He gave a shrug in reply. Saying anything else would be a mistake.
Her sigh was long. ‘Back to communicating with grunts and body language instead of actual words? Perhaps I use too many, but you don’t need to compensate by using none at all.’
She reversed the little powder-pink Fiat 500 carefully out of its parking space and headed for the road.
‘I should warn you, I don’t like hire cars,’ she said, a deep crease on her brow as she eyeballed the road ahead. ‘I’m not used to mountain roads either, so no comments about me driving like Grandma.’
‘My nan was notorious for getting speeding tickets on the Cardiff road.’
That made her smile. He stared into his lap until it passed.
After a moment of silence where Ginny sighed at least three times, she said, ‘I meant to say, thank you – for last night. It was kind of you. I wanted to disappear when Petra said we needed to find a partner.’
‘I’m… you deserved a better partner.’ And I shouldn’t have kissed your hand.
‘Oh, trust me, any partner was preferable to standing there like a fool.’
He aimed for a bland smile. She couldn’t be clearer and it was for the best, but her words still pinched. ‘I don’t know why Kira thought what she thought.’
Ginny’s laugh was forced. She must have been horrified about the inference that they might be interested in each other. ‘You do believe I was joking, right? About the… balloon bursting.’
‘Yes,’ he replied firmly.
‘I’m sorry Kira felt the need to give you a warning over nothing. Although it’s kind of true that weddings mess with your head, we both see she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’
He licked his lips, his mind racing to find a casual lie. He should have predicted that if he waited long enough, she’d fill the silence anyway.
‘I mean, we’re not exactly fated mates and I’m on my dating ban anyway. It could be me who bursts your balloon!’
He wanted to hold his head in his hands and laugh and weep at the same time. She had no idea – and he had to keep it that way. It was exhausting when he was with her, the hair on the back of his neck constantly on end.
She had her dating ban and he hadn’t been on a date in six years and didn’t want to now. If they went out together, they’d sit opposite each other, breathing in the same air and being deeply uncomfortable. It might be enough to turn her off dating altogether.
‘You’re still doing the dating ban thing?’ he asked, remembering her saying it sounded like a driving ban back in Bath.
‘Did you think I’d crack and reinstall Hinge?’
‘What’s Hinge?’
‘Never mind,’ she said drily. ‘Wait, could you use a dating app? Can you tell enough from their face in a profile picture?’
‘I couldn’t tell you what makes a face conventionally attractive. I just notice if they have a big nose or a high forehead.’
‘Or big ears?’ she prompted, giving hers a tweak.
‘Yours aren’t big, they’re just…’
‘They stick out, I know.’ She was sensitive about it, deep down. He should have realised.
‘I like that I can remember your ears – as your ears,’ he admitted.
She was silent for a moment. ‘Wow, I think I like that better than “pretty”.’
‘I meant that too.’
Her throat bobbed and colour rose to her cheeks. ‘What does that mean, though? You like specific features or can you find someone attractive as a whole?’
I find you attractive. Not the right answer. ‘You’re asking me what I find attractive in other people? Will you go first?’
A T-intersection seemed to come out of nowhere and she had to brake hard so she could observe the stop sign. Rhys shot out a hand for the dashboard, clutching his camera bag in the other one, and Ginny stifled a grimace.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. Accelerating with a jerk to take the turn onto the main road, she continued, ‘That was a nosy question, right?’ For a moment, he thought she would leave it there, but he’d underestimated her again. ‘Honestly, I find almost everyone attractive.’
He did laugh at that. She kept surprising him.
‘I’m serious,’ she insisted. ‘At first glance, I could pick one face over another for attractiveness, but I wouldn’t rule someone out because of how they look. If we click in person, then I’ll be attracted to them.’
Rhys gazed ruefully out of the window as they passed a pink baroque chapel with a bauble on the spire. A set of craggy summits rose behind, dusted with icing-sugar snow. He couldn’t say what he was thinking: I was attracted to you from almost the first moment, but we’ve never clicked.
‘Now it’s your turn,’ she said. ‘Do big noses and high foreheads do it for you? Or bodies?’ She seemed to choke on her own words. ‘I mean… Well, you don’t…’
‘Are you trying to say their face doesn’t matter so much in a casual relationship?’
She showed her teeth in a rather dramatic grimace. Despite all his discomfort, it was strangely addictive being able to read her so well. ‘Kira said you’re away a lot and that…’
Kira had a lot to answer for.
He gathered himself and answered her original question. ‘I do find some faces attractive, in a way, often if they have a dominant feature,’ he said. ‘But usually familiarity with the rest of the person makes more of a difference to whether I want to…’
‘Burst their balloon?’ she quipped.
‘That’s a terrible metaphor that doesn’t bear repeating.’
She replied with a provoking glance.
‘But you’re not too different from me,’ she said. ‘Familiarity and feeling comfortable with someone are more important than their actual features.’
‘Do… people usually find you attractive?’
When the car juddered as she took her foot off the accelerator in surprise, he regretted his question. Actually, he’d regretted the question as soon as it had popped into his head.
‘Uh,’ she began, ‘that’s a good question. I suppose so. I mean, I get a lot of matches with conventionally attractive people.’
He wasn’t surprised.
‘Why are you nodding?’ she asked.
‘Well, you…’ He licked his lips. ‘People respond to you – positively.’
Her smile this time was tight. ‘Except you,’ she joked.
‘Ginny…’ he groaned.
‘I know. “It’s not that I don’t like you, but…” I forget what comes after the “but”, because what you mean is that you think I talk too much and value superficial things and I’m a bit of a loser to be chasing after love.’
Rhys wasn’t sure what he could say to that. He did think those things, although he wouldn’t use the word ‘loser’.
She laughed, scrunching up her nose. ‘I’m so right. You are an open book.’
He certainly hoped he wasn’t.
‘But it doesn’t matter,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Since you take beautiful photos. You can think what you l—Yikes!’
She yanked on the wheel and haphazardly merged left to avoid taking an off-ramp.
‘Perhaps we shouldn’t talk?’ he suggested gently.
‘For once, I agree with you.’