by Annie Dyer
“Why? You didn’t need…” Vanessa stopped speaking and took a deep breath. “Thank you. It’s a lovely idea and we’ll really enjoy it.” Her eyes sparkled and Marie passed her what looked like a mimosa. Jackson had subtly furnished her with enough gifts in the past few months to stop the protesting at such gestures.
“Can I smell bacon?” Seph said, entering the kitchen and looking drenched. “Awesome. Let me have a bacon butty then I’ll get a shower and eat properly. Hiya, Jimmy, you okay?” He acknowledged the chef.
I realised he usually worked at the pub in the nearby village in their restaurant. Seph grabbed one of the pre-cut bread baps and proceeded to load it with bacon and ketchup.
“I’m not sure who taught you manners but it wasn’t from the same house as me,” I said to Seph. “Disappear. You’re dripping with sweat and you look disgusting.” Seph gave me a broad grin and exited sharp left, grabbing a sausage on the way.
Vanessa’s best friend, Sophie, sat down next to me, a mimosa in hand, her eyes fixed on the three men standing in the doorway, all shirtless and sweaty.
“Now that is a sight for sore eyes and should probably be illegal. Holy fuck. Sorry, Claire, I realise I’m objectifying your brothers into mere sexual objects.”
“Objectify away,” I said. “To me they are gross and disgusting brothers who wiped boogies on my clothes and put worms in my shoes.”
“They should be in magazines,” Vanessa said. “Or stuffed and mounted and placed in a museum.”
“I could go with the second. It’d be less trouble. Especially if you stuck Killian in with them,” I muttered. “I’m more than happy to help with the taxidermy.”
“Where is Killian?” Sophie said. “He’d have made a nice addition to the scene.”
“I think he was seeing his brother this morning,” I said, ignoring the stab of something at Sophie suggestion Killian was attractive. “Although you’re right; Killian would’ve been suited to the theatre of idiots.”
“Sometimes I think you protest too much,” Vanessa said. “I’ve heard you torment him, provoke him and generally be a bit of a bitch, but then I’ve seen him carry you upstairs to bed when you’ve had a few too many to drink one night and when he is in the same room as you, you’re like a fly around sugar with him.”
“Fly around shit,” I corrected. “I just find him annoying. I’ve known him since I was sixteen. He’s like another brother.”
“I wouldn’t be thinking of him as another brother,” Sophie said. “I’d be having a lot of unsisterly thoughts about what I’d do with him naked.”
“You don’t know what you’d catch,” I said, looking interested in the mimosa Vanessa had just passed to me.
“He seems like a decent bloke too,” Sophie continued. “I wouldn’t be too worried about where he’d been, just what he was able to demonstrate.”
I heard Vanessa laugh and felt her eyes on me. “Right,” I said. “Stop there. Where exactly is this conversation meant to be going.”
“Where would you like it to go?” Vanessa said. “Because we’ve got all day to discuss this, so don’t think you’re being saved by those three pilfering breakfast.” She gestured to where Jackson, Max and Callum were, her gaze fixing on Jackson. “If only I wasn’t dressed already.”
“Please remember that he is my brother and I really don’t need any information,” I said, chugging the mimosa. It was only ten-thirty but my psychic abilities told me that for today, alcohol would be an essential.
Sophie shook her head. “You just haven’t gotten any for a while. If you were getting it on the regular you wouldn’t care about the details.”
“How do you know I haven’t had sex for a while?” I said, frowning at her. I liked Sophie a lot and we regularly met with Vanessa to sample the treatments her chain of spas offered.
“The way you walk. It’s like your pussy’s seizing up,” Sophie said, her eyes still flickering between Callum and Max’s bare chests, having the decency to stay off Jackson’s. “I know you have this case going on, but that doesn’t mean you have to starve yourself of meat.”
“Says she who had a month of self-imposed abstinence and ended up putting on a stone,” I said quietly as Jackson had come over to us and was trying to wipe sweat on Vanessa. I figured we needed a bet on how long it would take for the two of them to meet up in Oxford and find a relatively clean bathroom to fornicate in.
“It taught me the importance regular sex has on mental health. And that it acts in same way a diet would do,” she said, placing a hand on her flat stomach.
“So who has helped you shed that stone?” I asked, trying to divert Sophie’s attention from my desert-like vagina.
She shook her head and mooched over to the chef, pointing out a few items that would need some burning off later.
“What’s your caffeine level up to?” Callum said as he approached. “Are you at ‘everyone die’ level or just ‘everyone fuck off’?”
I glared at him, knowing that I hadn’t had enough of anything to help me tolerate his ability to irritate the complete fuck out of me. Although Seph was the youngest boy and definitely was teased as such, Callum was the baby. The year between mum dying and dad bringing Marie home had been a difficult one that I didn’t really remember, or I tried not to. What I did recall was how the three of us, me, Max and Jackson, tried our best to look after Cal. By the time the twins and Ava were born we were adept at looking after a small child, but we weren’t responsible for them full time, whereas with Cal, we had been to a certain degree. The day mum had died the cleaning lady hadn’t turned up as her daughter had been taken in to hospital. She’d text mum, but by that time it was too late and the three of us spent the morning playing and looking after Callum as mum’s room was locked, which hadn’t been that unusual, unfortunately.
“I’m at ‘Callum fuck off’ level but can manage to be civil to everyone else,” I snarked. “How’s the job?”
He sat down next to me and nodded. I inched away, in no hurry to get any of his sweat on me. “It’s good. I’m working with some interesting people and it’s a challenge. In a different way to being abroad.”
“Are you stopping long term?” Callum had travelled extensively since graduating as a vet, picking up jobs for various animal charities or projects abroad and documenting them on his YouTube channel and via social media. I’d hated him being away, still nursing the instinct to look after him even though he was now thirty.
“I think so. I can do work oversees for the zoo, but there’s opportunities here that I can explore as well,” he said, smiling slightly. “It’s nice to be back. I’m glad I’m not missing the build-up to the wedding and I give it a year after that before we have a nephew or a niece, tops.”
“You give any thought to buying a property yet?” I asked, still nervous that he was take off to Borneo or somewhere else equally far. When he bought somewhere I would feel more confident that he was actually staying and the wanderlust was at bay.
He shrugged. “I’ve started to look. I’d like somewhere near to Jackson and Max. I like the idea of being near everyone.”
“Let me know if you want me to look at any properties with you,” I said, finishing the mimosa and debating a coffee, a good strong one that would assist with helping me deal with the wedding and sex-drought bullshit that was bound to come my way. “I’ll stop you getting ripped off.”
“Callum, go and get a shower before you get sweat everywhere. I swear to the saints in heaven you boys were brought up in a barn!” Marie swiftly clocked him across the head with a tea towel and he got up sharpish, rubbing his ear.
“Yeah, sis, it’s good to be home,” he said, following Max and Jackson out of the kitchen towards the bedrooms.
Half past eleven saw Vanessa, Sophie, Amelie and myself strolling into the limo dad had arranged. We looked put together and controlled with no issues walking in heels. All would be very different for the return trip, I knew.
“So,” Sophie said, poppin
g open a bottle of chilled champagne when we were settled in the car. “When’s the last time you had sex, Claire?”
“Why are we doing this?” I asked, gratefully accepting a glass. “It doesn’t matter when the last time I had sex was. What matters is getting a good idea for what colour Vanessa wants her wedding to be themed around and having a good time today. How’s the business plan for the man spa coming along?”
Sophie smiled knowingly. “It’s in action. Van’s team are sorting the marketing with the grand opening in September. But it takes a lot more to distract me than that.”
“Okay,” I said, as casually as I could muster. “It was about six months ago with a guy called Lee who works for another law firm and we had a one-night stand after a few drinks.”
“How was the sex?” Amelie asked. “Did he deserve a replay or was it a case of rain stopped play indefinitely?”
“The second. It scratched an itch, mainly because his dick was warmer than my vibrator, but it wasn’t worth seconds. I’m sure he felt the same. There was no chemistry; it was just convenient,” I said, narrowing my eyes at Amelie. “How’s your sex life?”
She smiled. “Sugar, you don’t want to know.”
“No, really, we do.” Anything to get the spotlight off mine would be the ideal.
“Long and complicated and probably dead to be honest,” Amelie said. “Let me have another couple of these and I’ll fill you in.” She rolled her eyes.
I listened as Sophie described the latest in the love lives of two of her beauticians, spending time on the details of one impossibly large penis. My phone vibrated with a text and I tried for a few minutes to ignore then gave in. I glanced at the screen and saw Killian’s name, my heart feeling larger in my chest. I hated the effect he still had on me and I was trying my best to not think about Oxford and the memories I had of being there with him. It was like opening a closet to some beautiful dresses that no longer fit.
Killian: We’re starting at The Angel. Remember when we spent all day there?
I did. I remembered going there for breakfast, both of us bringing the reading we had to do for our courses. We kept talking to each other, about what we were studying, about the people coming and going, about random things that just occurred to us. Then breakfast turned into lunch and into dinner with wine and each other. Maxwell was away so I stayed with Killian and we spent the night looking at erotic photos and trying to recreate them. I started to respond to his text, telling him that I could remember a little but it was so long ago. Then I stopped, a chip in the wall I had built occurring.
Me: Yes. Avoid the coffee – it was terrible!
Killian: They’ll have a new machine, I suspect. It was a long time ago. But I remember.
Me: Think of me then. Especially if you can grab the seats by the window.
Killian: I never stopped thinking of you.
I slid my phone back into my handbag and focused on Sophie now leading a discussion on honeymoons and post–wedding sex, trying not think of what Killian meant. It had been three years since he’d been back from serving the country in the marines. We’d seen each other regularly and we’d bantered, or rather I’d provoked him and he’d sparred back. But he’d still been tender towards me, covering me with blankets when I’d fallen asleep on sofas at my brother’s, walking me home after nights out, sending texts to check I was okay. It’d felt like he wanted to be another big brother, oblivious to our past which he never mentioned and for which I was grateful. I didn’t want to discuss the past. I wanted to protect him from a decision I had made. One that had been the hardest of my life.
The first shop offered us prosecco as soon as we walked in and I realised the sense behind Marie’s words. Both us and the men were going to end up as drunken fools by the end of the day. Dresses hung like headless brides throughout the rooms, gauzy material full of beads and diamantes, silk that was too white and too clean.
Vanessa sat down and laughed. “None of this is me,” she said. “I’m not a princess dress, with added details and intricacies.”
“I hope you can’t say the word intricacies by the end of the afternoon,” Sophie said. “Otherwise we haven’t done our job as bridesmaids.”
The sales girl smiled, opening another bottle of prosecco. She clearly knew her audience.
“We could just go abroad. Have something quick and easy and without any fanfare,” Vanessa said, looking overwhelmed. “On a beach.”
I shook my head. “No. You’re not allowed. Jackson’s the first to get married out of all of us and we deserve the whole party. Every. Little. Bit.”
“In that case you can start to look happy about being here,” she grinned at me. I wondered if I’d been had. “Let’s have a look round. Bring what you think, whether it be a bridesmaid dress that will look horrific on Payton or something I could wear while still looking like me.”
We mooched about the shop, hanging dresses on a rack, prosecco in hand, until the shop assistant called us in. She was a petite woman in her forties, quietly formidable and clearly used to dealing with a group of fussy thirty-somethings.
It was the first dress that Vanessa picked up that shortened the trip, a fitted fishtail affair in ivory. She tried it on and came out smiling. “This is it. The hunt is over.” And then began the carnage as Amelie and Sophie started to model bridesmaids’ dresses, sucking in their cheeks and trying to blue steel for the camera. I tried on a couple, an ache in my stomach something other than physical, and attempted to keep my head in the shop rather than where Killian was and what he was thinking.
“The blue,” Vanessa said, pointing at the dress I had on. “That’s the colour. Let me get a pic and send it Jackson as he’ll have to organise ties to match.” She brandished her phone and I just about remembered to hold my stomach in and push my chest out before she snapped and then sent it. “What other styles do you have in this colour?”
Seven dresses were brought out in varying lengths and styles; Sophie leapt on a fitted number that would give a boost to her boobs while Amelie opted for a long Grecian style dress that suited her personality, although it would need shortening considerably. I stuck with the one I had on originally, a long halter neck that exposed most of my back. It was comfortable and I liked the backless detail. My phone vibrated next to me, Killian’s name flashing up on the screen.
“If you don’t get along then why is he texting you?” Vanessa said quietly. “That’s at least the second time today.”
I slid the phone underneath the material of the dress. “It’s just banter,” I said. “We’ve always been like this.”
Vanessa looked at my slyly. “I don’t believe you. Jackson said that in your first year at university you and Killian were really good friends and hung out loads, then all of a sudden you ignored him. Apparently, Killian was gutted. Care to explain before I draw my own conclusions?”
I picked my phone up and checked the message, making sure she couldn’t see it.
Killian: You look beautiful in that dress.
My heart hammered in my throat. There was no reason for his words to affect me so. Yes, he was my ex; yes, he was gorgeous but we had been there a long, long time ago and there was no need to go back, even though we could never repeat history. I made a promise to myself that once Katie’s case was over I would look at meeting someone seriously, not just a hook up or a booty call. I wanted what Jackson and Vanessa had, the whole wedding and kid’s thing and I didn’t want to be the last of my siblings to find it.
Me: Thank you. It’s a colour that should suit us all.
Killian: That’s irrelevant. You look beautiful in it.
Vanessa looked at me, her expression suggesting she was about to take no bullshit. “Spill.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s… It’s not a thing.”
“Have you slept with him?”
I was a lawyer but I couldn’t tell a bare faced lie, so I said nothing and considered how to deflect the question.
“I haven’t slept with anybody in a long time. When this case is over I need a decent fling.”
“Have you ever had sex with Killian?” She kept her voice low, making sure that Sophie and Amelie wouldn’t overhear. They were, to be fair, too busy looking through accessories and drinking more champagne. “Okay, get changed and let’s a get a drink.” She used a finger to push me towards the changing room.
“Aren’t we going to the other shop?” I said, nearly teetering over in the heels I’d put on to go with the dress.
“No point. We’ve found what we wanted. You pick styles. I order them. We come back and try on in six months,” she said. “After which nobody gains or loses any weight.”
Amelie held out a dress to Sophie and they both started to giggle. I took a step towards them, hoping they’d be distracted then I could avoid the conversation with Vanessa, but she stuck out a hand and grabbed my shoulder.
“I need to speak to my soon-to-be-sister-in-law,” she said loudly. “We’ll meet you in The Star.” She directed me in to the changing room, telling me to hurry up and I wondered at what point Vanessa had become so bossy.
Ten minutes later I had a large glass of red wine and a bar stool positioned exactly so I could see Vanessa’s expression morph into that of someone who worked in the interrogation unit of a spying agency.
“Have you slept with Killian?’
“What’s lead you to think that?”
“You have chemistry; I saw him carry you to bed a few months ago when we were all at your parents; the way you bicker and most of all, the way you look at him.”
“How do I look at him?” There was no point in denying the accusations yet. I needed to work out my defence before creating a scenario that Vanessa would be able to see straight through.