Four Bridesmaids and a White Wedding: the laugh-out-loud romantic comedy of the year!

by Fiona Collins

  ‘You need to try and stay away from Steve,’ said Sal sternly. ‘You’ve made a really poor job of it tonight. And Frederick may have proposed after only six months, but you accepted!’

  ‘I accepted because he may never ask again!’ protested Wendy. ‘But now . . . now I don’t know . . .’

  ‘You need to get your head straight, Wendy!’ pleaded Sal. ‘If you don’t want to marry Frederick, honestly and truthfully, then think about it very, very carefully, but for God’s sake, don’t throw away your entire future because some loser from your past has shown up!’

  Wendy pouted. Sal sighed with exasperation; it was unlikely her words were having much of an effect, as Wendy looked moon-faced towards The Retreat again. Thankfully, Steve’s bum had long disappeared.

  There was a sudden ringing noise. Someone’s phone was going.

  ‘That’s me,’ said Sal, turning towards her bag which was slumped at the bottom of the mound, by her feet. To tell the truth, she was glad of the distraction as Wendy was just about driving her mad. She pulled her phone out from the bag.

  Niall.

  ‘Hello?’ Sal got up swiftly and walked to the edge of the lake.

  ‘Sal, how’re you doing?’

  ‘Good, thanks, you?’ Sal realised she’d never actually spoken to Niall on the phone before. She’d never had to. They’d arranged his interview by email and ever since he’d either been in the pub or in her bed. It was weird hearing his voice over the phone and she wondered how hers sounded. She also wondered why her heart was beating so fast; it must be the vodka and all the drama. ‘Everything OK with the pub?

  ‘Everything’s fine. I just wanted to see how you were.’

  ‘Well, I’m fine,’ she said, her mind racing. Why did he want to see how she was? Why did he want to talk to her?

  ‘You got that pink cowboy hat on yet?’

  She laughed. ‘No! No cowboy hats here, though I have had to wear a pair of pink gym knickers.’

  ‘Gym knickers, eh? Well, that I’d like to see!’

  She laughed again. ‘Saucy!’ Now her heart was going like the clappers and parts lower down were also jumping for joy and feeling a little overexcited. ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Just having a break. I’m on the back step having a cheeky beer and a smoke.’

  Sal normally hated smoking – she had ditched many a prospective suitor in recent years when she found out they indulged in the evil weed – but she found the way Niall smoked his roll-ups really rather sexy. ‘And you were missing me so you decided to call me.’

  Oh no! Why had she said that? He wasn’t missing her – they didn’t have that kind of relationship. They were pub workers with benefits, they didn’t do missing.

  ‘I guess I am.’

  She was so taken aback she nearly fell backwards into the lake.

  ‘Sal? Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m still here.’

  ‘Am I not allowed to say I’m missing you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly.

  ‘Well, I am,’ he said. ‘I’m missing you a lot. I can’t wait for you to get back.’

  ‘Oh right,’ she said. Wow, she wasn’t expecting this, not at all. When she saw his name on the display of her phone she thought the call would be about how many steaks to order or where was the key to the pantry and had she left it in a ridiculous place again.

  He laughed, his deep throaty laugh rumbling down the phone. ‘I’m throwing you, aren’t I? That’s OK. I just thought we should admit how we felt about each other – maybe. It’s . . . well, it’s something I want to do.’

  Oh God. Crunch time. She’d been avoiding this. Avoiding thinking about how she really felt about him because she was so terrified of getting hurt. She’d promised herself she would never feel the way she had after Guy died ever again. Enjoy men, but keep them at a safe distance, had been her motto so far and it had been so easy to find things wrong with anyone she’d begun to really like.

  The problem with Niall was that she hadn’t yet found anything.

  ‘You start,’ she said, causing him to laugh again, but she hoped he wouldn’t start. She was terrified of what he might say.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I really like you, Sal. How’s that for starters?’

  Sal felt faint; she wished there was a nearby bench or something she could sit on, but she just stood there on the path, at the edge of the lake, helpless.

  ‘That’s . . . a good start,’ she said. He liked her, he really liked her. Oh God.

  ‘Now your turn,’ he said.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Right.’ She realised she was pacing, the phone to her ear. She took a deep breath but it wasn’t enough to stop her feeling faint and light-headed. ‘Well, I really like you, too,’ she said, her voice only slightly above a whisper. She was wincing as she said those words, proper wincing. She hated laying her heart on the line like this.

  ‘Fantastic,’ Niall said. She could hear the smile in his voice. ‘May I say something else?’

  ‘Yes. If you must.’ She was beginning to shake. What now? What on earth was he going to say now?

  ‘I think I’m a little bit in love with you.’ Her heart stopped. Time stood still. A duck dawdling past looked up at her in wonderment and then did a giant quack. Now she couldn’t speak at all. Niall laughed again. ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ he said. ‘I’m just going to leave that with you. Bye, Sal. See you on Monday.’

  ‘Bye,’ Sal whispered and Niall was gone.

  ‘Everything all right?’ asked JoJo, as Sal walked back to her friends. They were standing up now, getting ready to go.

  ‘Fine,’ said Sal. She felt all wobbly; her mind was all over the place, but somehow she found herself grinning from ear to ear as they made their way back to The Retreat.

  Niall was a little bit in love with her.

  Chapter Ten

  Rose

  She’d done it. She’d told the others her suspicions about Jason having an affair, but from what Rose could remember – her head was a bit fuzzy this morning – they hadn’t really taken it all that seriously. Not as seriously as she did anyway. Her husband had booked a romantic hotel in Thailand and was taking someone else; how much more serious could it get? They’d said she may have got it wrong, that the trip may be for her, but she wasn’t buying that at all. Holidays with Jason were shouty camping trips in the pouring rain to Kent and the occasional stressy hired cottage in Cornwall, always with the girls. They didn’t do romantic holidays by themselves; they didn’t go to beautiful places like Phuket. It was Jason alone who took lovely long-haul flights and she who had tortured herself by visualising him on great big planes, settling in his seat before take-off. Putting magazines and a newspaper in the seat in front of him; examining that cute little bag with the miniature toothbrush and toothpaste in it; locating the little pillow and blanket, in their cellophane packets; looking forward to twelve hours of doing a blissful nothing. Exciting plane journeys like that weren’t for her. It was ridiculous to think she would ever be allowed that long to just sit and relax.

  Rose yanked those dreadful PE knickers up her thighs and knew the truth. Jason wasn’t taking her to that luxury hotel with the five swimming pools and the gorgeous, beachfront location. Their marriage was over and Jason had another woman. It was bloody obvious.

  The elastic round the top of her legs felt tighter. Rose turned and examined her rear view in the bathroom mirror. Yes, she definitely looked worse in them than she had yesterday; she wondered if the knickers had shrunk in the wash.

  The terrible pants and t-shirt combos had arrived back from housekeeping last night; the four friends had found them in neat cellophane packages outside their rooms when they’d returned, some of them a little worse for wear than others, from the lake. Rose had picked hers up and chucked it on the bed in disgust, then had flung herself after it, giggling. She was drunk and it felt amazing – she hadn’t been drunk fo
r months and it was the best thing ever. She’d also flirted with a really gorgeous man, who’d flirted back. It had been a great night and she had gone to bed with a smile on her face.

  What a shame, she thought now – well, it was more than that, really . . . bloody mortifying, more like! – that she would be appearing in this unfortunate get-up in front of that magnificent Paul this morning. What a shame he was going to be their yoga instructor! How could she maintain a flirty air of mystery when she had her huge bum shoved in his face, courtesy of a Downward Dog or something? She blushed at the mere thought of it. He was lovely, wasn’t he? Really amazing, in fact. And she deserved a good old flirt with a handsome hunk, considering what Jason was up to. Let him bonk his precious Susie over his desk in Hong Kong; let him whisk Susie away to Phuket for exotic, romantic evenings. She had a little love interest of her own, thank you very much.

  As she combed her hair and applied some light, no make-up make-up, Rose remembered what Paul had said to her last night. He’d said she was pretty; he’d said her dress was pretty and she looked pretty in it. Pretty! She hadn’t been called ‘pretty’ for about twenty years. It had been marvellous.

  ‘Ready?’ asked Sal as Rose came out of the bathroom.

  ‘Ready,’ said Rose. Sal barely was – she was sitting on her bed and frantically brushing her hair. Rose had struggled to get her up this morning; there had been an awful lot of groaning about a hangover when she’d hardly drunk anything and how that vodka may have been a bit iffy.

  Rose checked her bottom again, this time in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. It looked ridiculous, Paul was going to run a country mile at the sight of it, but there was nothing she could do but face the ignominy of an extremely hot man seeing her in such a horrific state. She could always stand at the back.

  They met the others in the corridor, who looked equally thrilled to be back in the awful gym gear, and made their way down to The Studio, a spacious room in the basement floor of The Retreat, with a shiny oak floor and mirrored walls. It was already incredibly hot in there and a stack of rolled-up orange gym mats awaited them in one corner, secured with black ties.

  ‘Do we put them out?’ asked Sal.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said JoJo.

  As they approached, Rose realised the ties were actually black, stretchy bands they could slide to the end of the mats, and they got to work unrolling and flopping mats down on the gleaming floor, making sure they spaced them far enough apart – no one wanted to accidently find someone’s unwanted foot in their nether regions during a sun salutation.

  Rose had trouble unrolling and flopping. She discovered she didn’t have a stretchy band on the mat she’d picked up; it was tied with a piece of black cord which had a knot on it so tight you’d need a knitting needle or six-inch nails to unpick it. She attempted to yank it down the rolled-up mat, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried again. Nope.

  ‘Are you all right, Rose?’ enquired JoJo, four feet away.

  ‘This cord’s stuck,’ said Rose. ‘Bloody thing.’ She yanked again. The room was so hot she was sweating like crazy already. She sighed. She yanked again. This tie was simply not moving; there was nothing for it but to use brute force. She propped one leg up on the mirrored wall next to her, balanced the rolled-up mat on her knee and pushed it forward until it was wedged between her chest and the wall, and then tugged at the black cord with all her might. Nothing. She simply couldn’t prise the damn thing up the rubber roll of orange. She raised her foot, stuck out her bottom and heaved once more.

  ‘Can I help you with that?’

  She froze, her leg on the wall, the rolled-up yoga mat shoved against her chest. Oh no. That was Paul, wasn’t it? She would recognise that gravelly, sexy voice anywhere. So much for standing at the back and keeping a low profile; her fear had been realised and she was already sticking her highly unsatisfactory butt in the man’s face!

  Rose removed her leg from the mirror, placed it on the floor and, with the sausage of captive mat in her arms, slowly pivoted round.

  ‘Yes, please,’ she said, not daring to catch sight of herself in the mirrored glass the other side of the room, for she knew her face would be bright red.

  Paul took the mat and expertly squeezed it in on itself until the black tie slipped off easily.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, with a wink and a smile.

  ‘Thanks.’ Rose took the mat from him and walked to the back of the room with it, desperately hoping Paul wasn’t checking out her bum – not that he hadn’t seen enough of it already – but knowing he was, as she could see him in the mirror. Damn! She plonked the mat on the shiny oak floor and stood on it, trying not to notice the grins and muffled giggles of her so-called friends.

  ‘All right?’ Sal grinned.

  ‘Fabulous,’ snarled Rose.

  When they were all in position, they turned to the front of the room where Paul was unzipping his tracksuit top to reveal a very sexy man-vest and a pair of tight-fitting yoga pants that left virtually nothing to the imagination. He laced his fingers together and stretched his arms out in front of him, showing off a nicely toned pair of shoulders and some impressive pecs. Then he grinned and gave Rose a little wink.

  ‘Welcome to Hot Yoga,’ said Paul.

  *

  Rose had hoped to God Paul wasn’t going to be one of those walkabout instructors who comes round prodding and correcting things: lifting a foot here, extending an arm there, noticing a damp gusset when said gusset really needed to be hidden under several layers of heavy-duty denim and, preferably, a long wax jacket . . . She was sweating like a pig; it must be at least a hundred degrees in here. Hot yoga, no kidding! Everything was pretty much drenched in sweat, particularly her gusset area, which was currently pivoted in the direction of the mirror in front of them.

  She was in a position known as the Big Toe – some excruciating invention where the unfortunate yoga victim lifts one foot in the air, grabs their big toe between index finger and thumb and extends their leg as far as they can. Whoever had come up with it was definitely laughing very hard somewhere, decided Rose. Lifting the leg was difficult enough, grabbing the toe was a challenge too far, and as for extending the leg . . . well, that was nigh-on impossible. Rose was currently hopping violently on one leg whilst the other stayed stubbornly at a very non-straight angle, and her big toe kept slipping out of her grasp.

  She looked around her. Everyone seemed to be struggling with this one; there were lots of shaking limbs and gurning faces. Sal looked fit to burst, if fit was entirely the right word. Wendy was in near convulsions. JoJo was concentrating so hard on her balance it looked like she might blow a gasket. And Rose caught Tamsin’s eye and received a conspiratorial wink above wobbling shoulders; the woman looked like she was thoroughly enjoying herself.

  They’d done loads of moves already – to the background of some awful, hippy-ish music Paul had put on (all synthesised whale calling and pan pipes) – most memorably the Cobra, the Puppy and the Triangle. Rose had not been much cop at any of them. The Cobra wasn’t too bad – lying on the floor and pushing off bent elbows to stretch your protesting upper torso backwards in an arc – if not slightly painful. The Puppy was lying flat on your front, arms outstretched, and then thrusting your bottom up to the sky, like a dog sleeping in front of an open fire – marginally humiliating. The Triangle was standing with legs apart, and leaning over to touch one hand to an ankle, the other reaching up to the ceiling. That one wasn’t too bad. It didn’t make you feel death by exertion was imminent; it didn’t make too many rivulets of sweat dribble down your cleavage. Plus, they’d done several sun salutations, which involved a theatrical swan dive to the floor they all seemed to quite enjoy, and lots of other complicated positions Rose couldn’t remember the names of or how on earth she had got in and out of them. Rose felt like she wasn’t really getting each move; it was like a freestyle game of solitaire Twister, without the spinny thing, so nobody knew which body part th
ey were supposed to be using.

  Her close proximity to Paul was hardly helping and unfortunately he was a walkabout instructor. He paced about slowly, making encouraging noises, offering help and, yes, adjusting the odd limb, in a supportive and totally non-pervy manner, probably to most people’s disappointment. He was approaching now, wearing that slightly cheesy, soothing smile so beloved of instructors of any kind; if he wasn’t so good-looking and so all-round charming, she would have stuck out that uncooperative leg and tripped him up.

  Sal suddenly hissed at her, from her right. ‘I think I’m going to sneeze’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I can’t sneeze in this position! My pelvic floor is already compromised!’

  ‘You’re just standing with your leg in the air. How is it affecting your pelvic floor?’

  ‘It’s extremely sensitive. I’m old!’

  Rose started chuckling. Her leg was wobbling more than ever. They were supposed to hold each of these poses for fifteen seconds – fat chance! ‘Just try not to sneeze then. And stay calm. Paul says it’s all in the breathing.’

  He had. He hadn’t stopped banging on about it. ‘Hold on the inhale, exert on the exhale’ or something like that. Rose wasn’t really sure of the exact details; she’d been too busy staring at his mouth as he talked.

  Oh God, he was coming their way. His arrival caused Sal to abandon her convoluted pose and collapse to her mat in fits of giggles.

  ‘All right there?’ he enquired, peering down at her.

  ‘Yeah,’ Sal said. ‘Thanks. Just having a quick breather.’

  ‘Good stuff,’ said Paul. ‘Take your time. Resume the pose when you feel able.’ He was next to Rose now, a bit too close. The soggy patch between her boobs was spreading by the second.