The Wedding Date

by Zara Stoneley

  I take a step. Good God, it’s fugging (as Sarah says when we’re in work) freezing and I’m only in up to my ankle bones. Maybe the whole water and swimming thing should be put off until I’m somewhere hot and sunny, maybe Scotland demands a different kind of challenge. I need to face a different fear. Like drinking too much whisky.

  ‘Stop! What the hell…’

  I’m grabbed from behind, Harry starts to bark, I lash out (like you do) and twist round. It’s Jake, and I might possibly have kneed him in the groin which could account for him stopping mid-sentence. And we’re staggering backwards off balance.

  Doesn’t he know I’ve changed my mind? I don’t want to go in the water, and I’ll ruin this dress, and…

  He’s got a proper grip on me now, and we seem to have stabilised.

  And before I can object he’s kissing me. Gently.

  ‘Stop.’ It’s bloody hard, but I can’t let him do this. I just can’t, it’s taking the whole pretence too far and I can’t let myself be used or lied to. I push as hard as I can against his chest and he stops. And we wobble. Mainly, I think, because I have lost all feeling in my feet, I no longer feel like I have feet. They are blocks of ice. ‘Move, quick.’ This time I pound on his chest, and he does move, so that we’re back standing safely on the edge of the water rather than in it. I lift up a foot, prod it with my finger. It is definitely still there, just numb.

  ‘Sam, what’s up?’

  ‘Cold feet!’

  ‘I don’t mean that, you know I don’t. Sam, look at me.’ He puts a finger under my chin so that I don’t have much choice. ‘I don’t understand what’s gone wrong, I thought…’

  He doesn’t say what he thought. But I don’t want him to. I don’t want to hear. I forget about my feet, it’s hard to think of anything but him when he’s staring into my eyes like that.

  ‘You’ve been avoiding me.’

  Full marks. But if I didn’t I might cry.

  ‘Did I cock up in some way?’

  Only in a minor you snogged me and now it’s all over kind of way. ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’ Gawd, can’t I come up with something more original than that? But it’s true.

  ‘Sam, for God’s sake, talk to me. Please.’

  I’ve never been good when people say please. But maybe now is the right time. I can’t spoil anything now, why wait until tomorrow? Deep breath time.

  Before we say goodbye forever, I’d like to know why this would never work, why he’ll not even give it a chance, but I don’t really know where to start. ‘You don’t have to act anymore, Jake. It’s nearly over.’ I shrug. ‘You can just go back to normal life tomorrow and forget all this.’

  ‘I’m not acting, Sam. This is me being me. And I’ll never forget all this, it’s been amazing. And so have you.’

  ‘You’ve been brilliant, I must say.’ I put my posh voice on, and sound like Mum, because otherwise I might cry. ‘Totally convinced even me.’ I blink to keep the dratted tears away.

  ‘Sam…’ He looks uncomfortable, and is messing his hair up. ‘We agreed what we were doing at the start. I thought we understood, that you were happy…’

  ‘I was happy, but I’m not now, and I don’t know if you’ve lied to me, or—’

  ‘I have never lied to you!’

  I know the baby isn’t what I really want to talk about, but it strikes me that it’s the thing that has hurt Jake most. This is why he needed a distraction. If I find out why, then maybe I find out if there will ever be the smallest inkling of hope that we could see each other again. ‘Well…’ I fumble about trying to unlock my phone. ‘What’s this then?’ I’m still fumbling, trying to find the message from Sarah. As confrontations go it’s losing impact a bit. ‘This!’

  I thrust the phone forward so forcibly he has to lean back so that his nose doesn’t get squashed.

  ‘Oh.’ He takes the phone out of my hand and even though I’m cross I can see that his fingers are trembling, and his voice has an unfamiliar edge to it. He’s trembling nearly as much as I am.

  He touches the picture with the tip of his finger as though he can’t help himself, and the tears well up in my eyes but I don’t know why. ‘Yes, that’s Laura’s baby. This is the first time I’ve seen this picture though.’ There’s a crack in his voice which brings a lump to my throat and I almost wish I hadn’t said anything. Almost.

  He thrusts the phone back in my direction, face down, closes his eyes briefly, then runs his fingers through his hair again and looks up, over the top of my head. Not meeting my eye. He’s gone pale.

  ‘What do you mean the first time? It’s you! It’s your…’

  ‘It is me.’ He’s ignoring the ‘your’ bit. ‘But I didn’t realise anybody had taken a photo, let alone passed it round. Where did you get this?’

  ‘Facebook.’ I feel a bit guilty saying it, like I’ve been snooping.

  ‘Oh God, I am such an idiot, I should have known she was up to something. Sorry, it was just a shock, seeing…’ He takes a deep breath then seems to refocus. On me. ‘Hang on, you still think this is my baby, don’t you?’ He’s staring at me, and it isn’t in a nice way. The short laugh isn’t particularly jolly either. ‘I thought I explained…’

  ‘No, not really.’ I do believe him, deep down. He’s never given me a reason to doubt him. ‘But it says Proud Daddy moment.’ With exclamation marks. I point out the obvious. ‘You said she was your ex and that you just shared a dog, and it wasn’t your baby.’ I’ve lost my posh voice.

  ‘She is my ex, and it’s not my baby.’ His own voice is soft. Hurt.

  ‘But you’re not over her, are you, there are pictures of you together, and even if you’re not the biological…’ I need to know, even if it kills me inside.

  ‘Sam.’ He doesn’t seem upset now, more like frustrated. In fact he sounds a bit like my maths teacher did when he said that of course I could solve simultaneous equations (I couldn’t). It makes me even angrier.

  I wave the phone about speechlessly, and tap the display even though it’s black now and there’s nothing to see. ‘You said it still twinges, but it’s more than a twinge, isn’t it? It’s full blown toothache.’

  ‘It’s not more than a twinge, Sam.’ He pauses. ‘More like an aching loss, after the extraction.’ His voice sounds hollow, empty. Defeated, which makes me feel horrible and empty inside.

  Oh God, an aching loss, that is worse.

  ‘But it’s not what you think.’ His tone is gentle now. ‘This is not because of Laura.’ He raises an eyebrow, but there’s the hint of a smile on his face. ‘I miss the baby, Bella. Annabelle. Not Laura.’

  ‘But she isn’t…’

  ‘Bella isn’t mine, no. She’s Mark’s.’

  ‘Mark’s?’ Who the hell is Mark?

  ‘Mark is Laura’s fiancé, they had a big party to celebrate their engagement on Friday, they’re getting married in September.’

  ‘Married? But you, she, the photo … it says…’

  ‘That photo is more than a year old, I don’t know why it was on Facebook.’

  ‘Sarah spotted it.’

  ‘I won’t ask why.’ I haven’t asked her either, that bit kind of escaped me. But I make a mental note to. It could be quite innocent, she could have just been looking at Amy’s profile. Or she could have been in full-on investigative mode. She gets bored at work, especially if I’m not there. ‘I honestly didn’t know Laura had taken it, let alone posted it. She knew I’d say no if she asked.’

  ‘But it says…’

  ‘I know what it says, Sam! I could strangle her. I reckon she did that to make Mark jealous. Okay.’ There’s a long pause as though he’s planning his speech. ‘We split up a couple of years ago because she had a fling.’

  ‘A couple of years ago?’ This sounds more positive.

  ‘A couple of years ago.’ He nods. ‘She’d got pregnant.’ He stares at me and waits for it to sink in. ‘I know how it feels Sam, I knew how you felt which was partly why I wanted to he
lp you.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Mark was engaged to somebody else at the time, and refused to end it. Then just before she had the baby, me and Laura bumped into each other. To be honest I thought it was pure coincidence but I reckon she had it all planned out. She said she’d made a massive mistake, she still loved me, she wanted to try again.’

  ‘Try again?’ This is sounding bad.

  ‘Try again.’ Another nod. ‘So we did.’

  ‘You did?’ Oh shit, this is very bad.

  ‘We had a brief reconciliation and I was around when Bella was born. But…’

  ‘But?’ Please make this the bad for them, but good for me bit.

  ‘But I realised it was hopeless. We didn’t love each other, she was just desperate. I won’t say she was using me—’ I might, but that would be uncharitable and nasty ‘—but I think she panicked over the whole single mother bit, she wanted the perfect family and she’d blown it.’ He shrugs. ‘So we split. The final split, over, completely.’ He waits again until I nod, and show I understand. ‘But Bella is lovely, I used to see her when I went to pick Harry up.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘She’s cute, Sam.’ He grins. ‘Like you.’ The grin drops. ‘We’ve kept it pretty amicable, then about six months ago, Mark got in touch with Laura. He’d split up with his fiancée, said he’d made a massive mistake. I reckon she’d been dropping hints all over the place that I was bringing Bella up, and it hit a nerve.’ He grimaces. ‘She’d just been using me, and that photo is probably part of it. Anyhow, he proposed, so everything in the garden is rosy.’

  ‘Except you’re not.’

  ‘I’m feeling a bit … I don’t really know what the right word is.’ He frowns.

  ‘Bereft?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t miss Laura, Sam, and I haven’t loved her for a long time, but this is like the final cut. Her getting married means I’ve lost Bella.’

  ‘But surely you can see her? I mean, Laura can’t be that mean, she lets you see Harry.’

  ‘It’s not Laura that’s made the decision, it’s me. It wouldn’t be fair on any of us, it would be a bit weird and confusing for Bella. It’s time to move on, Sam.’

  ‘Which is why you came here. You needed a distraction.’

  He gives a wry smile. ‘So Amy says. But that wasn’t really why I said yes, it was you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You. Haven’t I told you I fancied you the moment I saw Tank dragging you through the mud towards me? You were so gutsy, and so funny, and so generous doing all this so you wouldn’t let Jess down.’

  As moments go to tell the grandkids about, if we ever have them (I’m jumping ahead a bit here), and if they ever ask how we met, it’s unusual – I’ll give it that.

  ‘I have to admit you were a bit prickly at first—’

  ‘I was not!’

  ‘Like a porcupine, and so bossy.’

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘All those rules.’

  ‘There was only really one, the no sex one.’

  ‘True, and that’s a bloody frustrating one, I’ll have you know.’ He turns serious again. ‘The more I got to know you the more I realised that there was a pre-Liam version, the real, funny Sam, waiting to explode into the world. The one with dreams, and funny dances. And when I found out about what he’d done to you, it gave me a reason to say yes.’ He pauses. ‘Because I couldn’t admit to myself that I just wanted to get to know you better, not at the start, not when I’d told myself I didn’t do relationships anymore.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the baby?’ This is important. There have been too many secrets, from Liam, from Laura, from me.

  ‘It didn’t seem important. Well, it’s not important. Laura is just an ex.’ Just an ex, I like the sound of that.

  ‘You weren’t married?’

  ‘Nope, we weren’t married. What about Liam, is there anything you’ve not said?’

  ‘Liam is just an ex.’

  ‘Just? You seemed pretty wound up back there.’

  ‘Because he’s a jerk, a selfish jerk. Not because I still like him.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘It took me a while to realise, because I’ve not had that many proper, serious boyfriends. Liam was my first proper boyfriend.’ And so I believed him, believed in him. You do, don’t you?

  ‘Maybe I can be your last.’ He seems to have somehow snuck even closer so that I can literally feel his body heat, and the warmth of his breath against my neck.

  ‘Nobody can hear, you don’t have to say that.’ My voice seems to have developed a wobble.

  ‘But I want to say it.’

  It has to be nerves that are making my legs shake, not the fact that he’s just rested his warm hand in the small of my back.

  ‘Cold?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ It comes out as a squeak. I’m indecently red hot if he must know. His hand brushes my cheek, then he tucks my hair back behind my ear and I’ve got a new set of goose bumps. God, he is good at this. I’d give him an Oscar any day.

  ‘I mean it Sam. I could be your last. If you wanted me to be?’

  ‘We hardly know each other.’ I mean we’ve spent nearly a week in bed together, and acted like we know each other. But that doesn’t count.

  ‘Well, maybe it’s time to remedy that.’

  He’s hard and firm, and that’s just his lips, not to mention all his other bodily parts that are pressed against me. And it is bloody amazing. Jake Porter is kissing me in a teasing, gentle way, and he doesn’t have a baby, or a wife. Just half a dog.

  In fact, it’s so amazing we seem to be staggering back towards the water.

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ The loud shriek startles both of us, and Harry. He leaps at us, barking like a mad dog. We lose our footing, stagger back and end up both sat in the shallow water. ‘Another Mr Darcy moment! He’s rescued you again, how wonderful!’ Mother is leaping about and clutching her hands together as though she’s won the lottery. Her enormous hat is bobbling about on her head, but she’s oblivious.

  ‘Go away!’ We shout it more or less in unison, and miraculously she does, which is a total first.

  Chapter 26

  There is a heavy weight across my legs. A slightly furry heavy weight. And it is not Harry, because he is licking my nose.

  Which means … I dare to open one eye and glance to my right. Jake has one eye open too, and he’s looking straight at me.

  I close the eye and re-open it. He’s still there. There are no cushions down the middle of the bed. Which means it wasn’t a dream. It happened. I have had wild sex with Jake Porter in a four poster bed!

  ‘Breakfast in bed?’

  ‘Sure.’ The sheet is pulled up to my chin on my side, so that saves the embarrassment of floppy boobs. Mine always look much better in a bra, and when I am stood up. Once I lie down they migrate to opposite sides of my body as though they want to hide under my armpits.

  ‘I’ll go and get it.’ He flings the sheet back on his side and I know I should close my eyes with girly embarrassment, but I can’t. Well, I pretend to, then peek. I need to remember this, it will be part of my ‘I can do it’ mantra when I get home. I should probably capture the moment on my mobile, because my memory isn’t that good, but that might seem a bit forward. And Jake might not understand, he might think that I am like Laura and will be posting the picture on Facebook with ‘Proud shag moment!!’ as a caption.

  ‘The full works?’

  ‘Yes please!’ I might have said that a bit eagerly, and feel myself go red, but he just laughs. Then winks. Which makes me blush even more.

  ‘We can do that after breakfast.’

  I didn’t know your toes could actually curl during sex. I also didn’t know tongues were that long, or strong. I didn’t know that giggling just before an orgasm made it better. And I didn’t know that falling asleep in a man’s arms could make you feel the safest you’d ever felt.

  I also didn’t know that toast crumbs in bed and dri
ppy butter on boobs are a good thing. Which I discover when he comes back with a tray of toast and coffee. He’s actually licking said butter up when he drops the bombshell. Between slurps.

  ‘I got a text from my agent when I was collecting breakfast.’

  ‘Mmm, that’s nice.’ I’m actually talking about what he’s doing – it’s very nice, so nice that I’m not really capable of registering what he’s saying. This bed really is the biggest, softest bed I have ever been in. And it smells nice.

  ‘I’ve got to go to Greece tomorrow morning for two months’ filming.’

  He says it like I’d say, hang on: I need to get that pizza out of the oven.

  My dreamy, sexy state has a bucket of cold water thrown over it. ‘Oh, that’s nice.’ Nice is sometimes the only word. When what you really mean is horrible. Cruel. Totally unexpected. Not nice at all. Not remotely. My after-sex glow fizzles out like a cheap sparkler. ‘Tomorrow morning? But we’re in Scotland!’ I sit up abruptly, and might well have given him a black eye. And just like that I know this is over. We’re heading back to reality. Normal life.

  Jake is off to do his jet-setting, glamorous acting thing, I am going to the travel agency on the high street.

  My dreams of romantic dinners, lazy Sunday mornings and walks along the river pop, like giant bubbles, splattering the world with damp unpleasantness.

  ‘He sent it the other day, but I’ve not been checking my phone. I switched it off. I kind of cut myself off from the real world.’ He shrugs.

  That’s what I had done as well, and it had been lovely. Apart from the Liam and Stella bit. And the shock of his baby-that-wasn’t bit.

  ‘Two months?’

  He nods. ‘At least.’

  ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ He’s cuddling Harry now, glancing out of the window, not really giving me the full-on attention that I’ve become used to. I’ve got an empty feeling of dread that has nothing to do with going home.

  ‘Laura.’

  ‘Laura?’ This is not sounding like the happy-ever-after that I’d thought might go with waking up in a four-poster bed in his arms.