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by Dizzy Girl

  I went with a bottle of red and a bottle of white to be on the safe side, and picked up the two with the biggest half price stickers next to them. I added some flowers for my mum. I had a feeling that by the end of a night with my Uncle Ken I would owe her an apology or two. Might as well try and start off on her good side.

  I carted my basket to the till. “Buying another round then?” Charlie asked as she served me. “Didn’t get enough of that the other day?”

  “Just promise me that it won’t get mentioned in the speeches, please” I begged her as I paid.

  “Have fun” she said, “don’t forget to do a shop like this for me once I can drink again.” I picked up my bag, waved and walked back to the flat.

  Sunny had finished work half an hour before I did and was already showered, shaved and ready to go. I kissed him as I walked into the flat. He smelt delicious. I put my arms around him and kissed him again. “Can’t we just ring and cancel?” I asked. He put his hands on my shoulders and guided me into the bathroom.

  “Your mum scares me” he said. “We can’t cancel.”

  “She scares you? You? A police officer?” I said, following him back out the room.

  “We have twenty minutes before we have to leave. If we don’t get there I’ll tell your mum it was your fault.”

  “You play dirty” I said, taking my shirt off and throwing it at him as I walked back towards the shower. I saw him pick it up and fold it before placing it in the washing machine. I deliberately left my dirty clothes in a pile on the floor as I showered and went to get dressed again.

  Sunny walked around picking up after me. “What’s the problem?” he asked. “You love your parents, if you’re not here then you’re at their house. Why don’t you want to go now?”

  “If you think my mum is scary” I said, “you haven’t met her brother. He means well, but he makes my mum look laid back.” Sunny stopped folding, he was clearly getting nervous too. “Just remember, we love each other” I said, kissing him, “and one day, when we have kids, although they’ll be related genetically to Uncle Ken, they won’t necessarily take after him.”

  We let ourselves in at my parents’ house and I felt my boyfriend, who was trained to deal with violent offenders and unstable people, take my hand and stop talking. Dad walked into the hall, hugged me, shook Sunny’s hand and took the wine. “It’s every man for himself” he whispered, before Mum walked into the hall too. He stopped talking quickly, and she shot a look at him. Suspecting him of something but unable to catch him in the act of being rude, she had to settle for shooing him into the kitchen and giving him a list of jobs to do to get the dinner on the table.

  Dad had obviously been kept busy all afternoon too. There was a selection of melon slices, and a loaf of homemade bread. I reached out to slice some and Mum smacked my hand. “Wait til we sit down, honestly, did I not teach you any manners?” She was so busy telling me off she didn’t notice Uncle Ken until she saw him biting into a huge buttered slice himself. She sighed and sat down with a glass of wine. He grinned at her. Sunny started laughing until mum shot him a look too. He sat down meekly and waited didn’t take any of the bread until he’d seen my mum eating hers.

  The dinner was delicious. Sunny ate so much he pushed his chair out and leaned back in it. He rested his hand on my back, tracing lazy circles with his fingers. Uncle Ken sat back in his chair and belched, loudly. I thought I could smell the roast chicken again. Even Sunny stopped smiling. “So I hear you’re a Rozzer then, young man?” Uncle Ken said to Sunny. Then, just in case that hadn’t been blunt enough, “a copper?” That one as ok at least, until he oinked like a pig.

  Sunny took a deep, calming breath. “Yes, I’m a police officer. I work at the”… Uncle Ken interrupted him before he could finish.

  “Every arrested anyone for anything really dodgy?” he asked.

  “I arrest people quite often” Sunny replied.

  “But you know,” he kept trying, “for anything…” he searched for the word. “Untoward, unsavoury?”

  “I think Uncle Ken is asking if you’ve ever met any of his friends” I suggested. Mum kicked me under the table. Uncle Ken however was undeterred.

  “So you’re a pretty brave young man then” said Ken.

  “Well, I have had a lot of training” Sunny said.

  “I meant to put up with this young thing” nodding at me, “and having her for a mother in law.” Ken pointed at my mum, then winced. I assumed mum must have kicked him too. “I’m sorry,” Ken corrected, “mother out of law. So are your intentions towards my niece honourable, or is she giving away the milk but going to be unable to sell the cow later?”

  I tried to kick him, but Uncle Ken had got wise and pulled his legs back under his seat where I couldn’t reach. Dad had been sitting back quietly watching, leaving us to it, and I could see himself sipping his wine and watching the show. Uncle Ken was much funnier when you weren’t in his cross hairs.

  Sunny looked at both my parents. They both looked at him. I guess they’d been wondering the same, but had just been too polite to ask. Sunny sipped his glass of juice. Most people would have thought that he was calm, but I could see that he was stalling. He ran his hands through his hair, and that was a clear tell to me that he was feeling the pressure. I should probably have stepped in at that point and answered for him, but I didn’t. It was cowardly, but where Uncle Ken was concerned it was every person for themselves.

  I think it was the longest any of us had gone without speaking all night. Finally, my dad took pity on him and cleared his throat, about to speak. But Sunny beat him to it. “I’m not sure what to say about that. I’ve never thought Amy would ever be or could ever be bought, she is too strong and independent for that.” He stopped to take a breath and Mum smiled at him. “But she is, and always has been, the love of my life. We have a lot of time to make up for, but we’re working on it. I’d never think that I could speak on Amy’s behalf, but on my part, if Amy were to want to, er, sell her cow, well, I’d be first in the queue to buy it. If she was willing to sell it to me, that is.”

  Dad smiled at him, but Uncle Ken looked bored already with the serious turn that the conversation had taken. He was only interested when he thought he was stirring up trouble. He looked from one of us to the next, as if trying to work out who was the weakest and easiest target. He was obviously braver than the rest of us because he didn’t make the same choice I would have. “Did I ever tell you about the time your mum got so drunk we had to carry her home from the pub?” he said.

  “You didn’t tell me you were buying double measures” she responded.

  “I was trying to be generous to my little sister. I didn’t realise you were such a lightweight” he said.

  “I was seventeen and shouldn’t really have been drinking in a pub to start with. Did you not think it was dangerous to get a kid so drunk?”

  “I stopped when you threw up” he said, as if that made it better.

  “Yes, all over the hall way at home. You didn’t own up for getting me that drunk for three years. You certainly didn’t help me clean it. I was banned from going out for six months for that.” Mum took a gulp of her wine.

  “It didn’t teach you to watch your drinking though did it?” Uncle Ken said. Mum picked up a tomato from her salad and threw it at him. It hit his head, bounced off and landed in the water jug. Dad got up and started clearing the table. Sunny and I got up to help to. I saw Ken stick his tongue out at Mum, and heard her mutter something about telling us his nickname from school. He hurriedly muttered an apology.

  Dad offered us a cup of tea, but it was getting late and we both had work in the morning so we said our goodbyes and left. Sunny didn’t say a word the whole way home, but given that that was only a few roads, it was still a companionable journey, as we walked arm in arm. We got in and he walked into the kitchen and started making a cup of peppermint tea.

  “You did warn me” he said.

  “I did,” I agreed.

&n
bsp; “So your mum got into trouble with her parents for underage drinking. Who would have guessed.”

  I nodded. He handed me a mug of tea, I blew, and sipped it as I wandered into the bathroom and started getting ready for bed. As I brushed my teeth Sunny stood behind me in the bathroom. He dropped a kiss on the back of my neck.

  “If you were thinking of giving it away for free, would you fancy giving some away tonight?”

  I reached behind me with my free hand and grabbed his bottom. “I think I might like to do that.”

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Sunny kept his alarm clock on the other side of the bedroom so that he had to get up to switch it off. It was his trick to make sure that he didn’t over sleep. I decided to help him out by pushing him out of bed until he got up and switched it off.

  “I see you looking” he said.

  “You are naked. Of course I’m looking.”

  He climbed back into bed and pulled me into him. I kissed him, and felt him respond. I turned my back on him and tried to go back to sleep. He was cute, but it was much too early in the morning for me. He kissed me again. I pulled a pillow over my head. Sunny laughed and got out of bed.

  I’m not sure how long I slept, but when I woke up again I had only twenty minutes left to get ready for work. Sunny was sat on the side of the bed, fully dressed. He handed me a coffee, kissed me once more and stood up.

  “I’m meeting Charlie after work” I said. “I’ve got to go and try on the bridesmaid dress.”

  “What time are you home?” Sunny asked. “I’ll make the tea.”

  “I should be back by about seven I think.”

  “Have you seen the dresses yet?” he asked.

  “Only online. I hope they’re ok, we don’t have much time if they’re wrong.”

  Sunny crossed his fingers for luck, blew me a kiss and left for work. My bed was so warm and cosy, it was so hard to make myself get up, but team meetings wait for no man, or woman, so reluctantly I dragged myself to work.

  I was just congratulating myself on being only ten minutes late for work when my boss called me aside. “Pauline can’t make it today so we decided that the last person in this morning could take the minutes.”

  I sighed, “but I’ve got the mid term monitoring reports to sort through later.”

  “Luckily you didn’t feel under so much pressure with work that you’ve had to come in early to get started then” Sharon replied. “If you could send the minutes round before you go home today that would be great, thanks.” She waved and was off before I could say another word.

  I made myself another coffee to take into the meeting and grabbed my laptop. Maybe if I typed notes straight onto that it could save me time later. The conference room we used for team meetings was long and narrow, there was just about room for the dozen seats around it. A whiteboard which doubled as a projector screen covered one end of the room, and a flip chart pad was set up at the other. It was well equipped for teamwork, and I hated it. It had no natural daylight, and being located upstairs from the canteen, a strong whiff of cabbage seemed to be permeating upstairs today. Shame the smell never seemed to wander up when they baked cakes. Sharon sat at the head of the table and started passing around agendas. I sat next to her and started up a blank word document, ready to type.

  “Ok team” Sharon said. “Good morning and welcome to the team meeting. We’ve got a lot to get through this month so I’ll be brief but do chip in as we get to the elements that you’ve been leading on.” She glanced at her agenda. “Steph, let’s start with your community event in the park last week.”

  Steph pushed her glasses up with one finger and tucked her long hair behind her ear, knocking three more strands out of place as she did. “We held a very successful session, police offered bike marking and advice on…”

  My laptop pinged, loudly. Everyone stopped to look at me. “Sorry” I muttered, “email coming in. I’ll try and turn the sound off.”

  Steph finished her report and Phil started to feedback about some concerns that had come in over the previous week about fly tipping. He was explaining his suggestions when my mobile started vibrating. It’s amazing how loud it sounded inside the otherwise quiet room. I apologised again, but this time I heard a couple of my colleagues muttering to themselves as we re-started.

  Finally Sharon worked her way through towards the bottom of the agenda and handed over to me to report back on my networking event. I decided to try and regain some semblance of professionalism by plugging my laptop into the projector and giving everyone a brief review of my presentation. I was feeling pretty confident as I clicked through the slides introducing the groups I’d been working with. I was just running them through the key points that had come out of the discussion session when a new email pinged into my account and the preview screen displayed, for the entire team to see, the subject line. “You’ll make a cute bridesmaid.” From Sunny.

  I tried quickly to close the preview screen, but managed instead to click on the link and open it. It was a screen shot of Rachel from Friends in the pepto-Bismol bridesmaids dress tucked up and showing her pants. My cheeks were scarlet, and I was nervous that I was going to get a bollocking after the meeting. I tried to click it off but missed again and managed to load the next email as well.

  A giant picture of Pippa Middleton loaded up, with a caption across the bottom saying “But I think you have a cuter bottom.”

  I reached out to grab the cable that disconnected my laptop from the screen but everyone groaned. “Come on” called Steph, “show us what else you have.”

  “Nothing” I said, that was all of them. And then, right on cue, my phone buzzed once more.

  I moved to close my laptop lid, but at least they were all smiling at me and even Sharon looked like amused. I glanced at her again and she nodded at me. I figured I’d better play this one through to the end. So I opened the email, and there displayed for everyone to see was a picture of me as a toddler dressed up in an old wedding dress. This one must have come from my mum’s own personal collection of embarrassing photos. I had no idea when or how Sunny had got his hands on this one.

  Thankfully within about ten minutes everyone had stopped laughing, and we finally managed to finish the meeting. Sharon concluded by saying “Thank you to Amy for stepping in and taking the minutes for today. I think we can safely say that it was the most amusing team meeting we’ve had for a while, but I think perhaps Phil, you can take the minutes next time.” She picked up her folders and left the room.

  Phil followed her out with a “Cheers Amy” and a squeeze of my shoulder to show that he was joking. Tom tried to high five me, but my response was pretty half hearted. Cheryl winked at me, after which I put my head in my hands and tried to hold it all together until they left.

  Sunny was going to pay for this. But how? Shaving foam on his car next time he washed it? Rearranging his CDs out of alphabetical order perhaps. Luckily for Sunny, Steph distracted me before I could work out exactly what I would do.

  “Come on” she said. “I’m taking you out for lunch, my shout. I’m getting married next year and you can talk me through the best places to look for bridesmaids dresses.”

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Steph was good company, she made me laugh with stories of how she’d got stuck in a wedding dress that was too small, and how grumpy the shop assistant had been when she’d had to ask for help getting unzipped. She said she’d not had a bra on underneath because it had a boned corset, and the lady had had to pull the curtain back to get near enough to unzip her because the skirt was so big that two people couldn’t easily fit inside the changing room. Steph revealed that she had ended up flashing the entire shop. I snorted lemonade out of my nose laughing at that one.

  We walked back to work, giggling, and as Steph walked back to her desk, she paused to remind me that Sunny hadn’t realised that the whole team would see the photos, that he’d just meant them as a joke for me. And she was right, but I still thought that he d
eserved some payback.

  The party was in full swing at Charlie’s by the time I got there at six. Jason answered the door and I could hear laughing in the background. Charlie called out “we’re in the living room.” I walked in to find Charlie stood in the middle of the room in just her pants with her arms up in the air. Her mum, Myrtle, and Tonia were trying to ease her wedding dress over her baby bump. Inch by inch, they slid it on. Charlie pulled down at the hem, and stepped back to look in the mirror. She was beautiful.

  Her mum wiped a tear from her eye and said “It’s a good job it’s only a week to the wedding. I’m going to bring a needle and thread on the day though in case we have to sew you back in.” I laughed, but then realised that she wasn’t joking. “Right” said Myrtle again, “now we know it fits let’s get it off and keep it wrapped up safe until next week.”

  “Five more minutes mum” Charlie begged, “it’s so lovely.”

  “Ok” her mum agreed, “five minutes, but no eating or drinking anything in here. This was the last dress they had that would fit you, so I’m not taking any chances with it.”

  Tonia started sorting through the hangers that were looped over the door. She picked one out, unzipped the covering bag and took out a deep red coloured dress. It had ruffles around the neck, and was about three feet shorter than I was expecting for a bridesmaids dress. It certainly wasn’t the one I had seen online, and I was starting to get nervous about just how short it was. Tonia took her t-shirt off, dropped it behind her onto a chair and slipped the dress over her head. She shucked her jeans off underneath, and stood there so that we could see it.

  It fitted her perfectly. Her legs looked tanned and long, and her boobs peeked out over the ruffles, just enough to show they were there but not so much that she looked like she might be in danger of popping out if she sneezed. Charlie hugged her and then handed the next bag to me. I took it, trying hard to look brave as I imagined how I’d look stood next to Tonia, with neither the long legs or boobs to match. Charlie smiled at me, and I decided I’d do my best to make her happy, even if I looked like a kid playing dress up next to her big sister.