I haven’t shared the strange encounter in Jack’s room because I’d rather not admit to myself I’m a weak, pathetic woman who falls to pieces at the sight of hot cock.
Besides, Kate has the subtlety of a rhinoceros, her sister Becky will skin me alive, and Nisha will demand granular details that I don’t trust myself to disclose without soaking my underwear.
Again.
“Can’t you put your foot on the gas,” Kate says with an edge to her voice that I never hear.
We’ve spent the day in the chapel, practising our walk, faffing about with flowers—moving them then moving them back again—and generally trying to stop Kate from having a bridal breakdown.
All day, she has alternated between panic attacks and apologising to me for putting me in such a painful situation.
After my decoupled status went public, she’d asked if I still wanted to be her bridesmaid.
Blindsided is not a strong enough word to describe my reaction when Max informed me that his preference was ‘I don’t’ rather than ‘I do.’ To be honest, I don’t want to attend a wedding for a good decade, but Kate has been with me longer than Max.
No way was I going to cancel.
The four of us are crammed into my car on the way to the castle, two miles from the chapel. A bridesmaid’s life is not easy. I’m exhausted.
“Can you drive quieter, please? That noise is so loud,” Nisha says, moaning. “Make it stop.” She’s slumped, eyes closed, mouth open, head pressed against the headrest. I’m the smug friend that is glad I went to bed early last night.
“It’s the engine. Unless I fly through the air like Mary Poppins, you’ll just have to tolerate it. Ten minutes and we’ll be back.”
“You better not be bloody hungover for my wedding tomorrow,” Kate scolds from behind me.
I roll down the window. “Let’s get some fresh air in. That’ll help you, Nish. It’s nice to be out of London for a change. This countryside is amazing.”
Nisha grunts. “Take a picture of it. I’ll look at it later.”
“You shouldn’t have inhaled all the tequila,” I chide.
Her lips quiver, but her eyes remain closed. “Don’t say that word.”
Becky tuts from the backseat. “Good one, Nisha, I was planning to get Jack drunk and seduce him, but you cleaned us out.”
“You didn’t get lucky with him last night?” Kate asks.
Becky sighs. “No, but I’m slowly chipping away. The weekend is still young. If only we could swap groomsmen, Bonnie.”
I shift uncomfortably in my seat. If only we could.
Nisha is now open-eyed and smirking at me. “Bonnie had a private trip to Jack’s bedroom yesterday.”
Damn you, Nisha.
The minute she saw me yesterday, she knew I was holding something back from her.
“You’ve been very quiet about it,” she adds. “Too quiet, if you ask me.”
“No. Bonnie, you can’t.” Becky leans forward in the backseat to peer in at me. “I’m having him at this wedding.”
“You’re safe,” I tell her. “Believe me, I would never go there. He’s all yours.”
“Oh, please,” she scoffs. “You have eyes.”
I laugh loudly. Too loudly. “He knows Max and is one of our largest paying clients. I’m about to do a project that could advance my career.” And he turfed my dad out on his ass like a piece of shit.
She nods feverishly. “I agree. Terrible idea. Career-destroying.”
“I wouldn’t worry. Bonnie has taken a vow of celibacy,” Nisha says dryly.
Ouch. “It’s not like I don’t have my reasons.”
“You don’t have your reasons. Not anymore. Especially now we know Max is dating.”
The car falls silent.
“Nisha’s right,” Kate says softly. “It’s time you started having fun again.”
Nodding, I sigh. “Fine. I’ll join one of the dating apps.” It’s probably healthier than trying to be a cyber detective to find out who Danielle is.
“I’ll need to train you up first,” Nisha says beside me. “You’re too green. It’s like sending Bambi out into a field of wolves. As far as online dating goes, you might as well have been born yesterday.”
Kate leans forward to give Nisha a look. “Oh, Nish, stop being so overdramatic. We’ll go and watch the rugby in a pub and talk to some nice men.”
Nisha snorts. “For God’s sake, Kate, you are in no position to give dating advice. Meeting IRL is an extinct concept.”
“Meeting who?” I ask, putting my indicators on to turn into the manor’s driveway.
“In real life,” Nisha explains. “There’s a brutal dating world out there that you’ve not been privy to. I’ve been around the dating block for a few years. These days, you don’t sit in a pub looking pretty and wait for nice men to approach you.” She rolls her eyes in disgust. “People are disposable. Too much choice. When you go on a date, you might think it went great, but you need to remember that you are on a conveyor belt of vaginas and there’s a good chance you’ll get ghosted.”
Kate replies, “I hardly think—”
“She’s right,” Becky cuts in. “Last year, I dated a guy for three months. I was gonna introduce him to you, Kate. Remember lanky dentist Tom? Then he ghosted me. Three months! The only decent explanation I would have accepted was if he had passed away. Then I saw him on another dating app! People today can’t even be bothered to send a simple message saying, ‘I’m not interested anymore.’”
Kate’s quiet for a moment. “That was very rude of the dentist.”
I frown. “You guys aren’t exactly selling dating apps.”
“It’s fine.” Nisha shrugs. “You’ll develop thick skin after the first few dates.”
“I don’t want to develop thick skin. Is there any way I can stay away from the nasties? What do I need to look out for?”
She thinks for a moment. “Men who don’t transition online to offline. They get their kicks chatting. Gaslighting. Love bombing. Catfishing. Those types of things.”
Becky leans forward from the back seat. “Men who tell you you’re amazing, then you never hear from them again. Amazing spicy banter one minute, then radio silence the next. Men who straight up tell you they don’t find you attractive within the first few minutes of a date. That can hurt.”
“One guy I dated wanted me to lick his perineum on the third date,” Nisha casually tells us.
My mouth hangs open. “That seems very intimate. It’s so close to the ass. What’s even down there?” I’ve never investigated that wasteland.
“I never checked. I ghosted him.”
“Sounds like I’d be better off writing to a death row inmate,” I mutter.
“Married men,” Becky adds, “that’s a bummer. Or just men with girlfriends.”
“Men with multiple girlfriends,” Nisha chimes in. “Guys shorter than their profile claims.”
“Guys older than their profile claims,” Becky counters in this weird ping-pong.
“Men who live with their mums,” Nisha adds, groaning. “That’s my showstopper.”
I tilt my head to give her a double take. “What, but everything else you listed is fine?”
Kate and I exchange looks in the mirror. “Here I was thinking that the only ones to avoid were those posing in the gym. This all sounds very draining.” I sigh. “I guess I was spoiled with Max. He always treated me well.”
Nisha mutters something inaudible.
I blow out a breath. “Maybe I’ll stick with my werewolf book-boyfriends.”
“Werewolves!” Nisha tuts. “Reverse harem. Other technical things I can’t remember. How is anyone supposed to live up to that?”
“That’s like gang-bangs?” Becky asks excitedly. “Having sex with loads of men at the same time? Yeah, you need a specialised dating app for that. I never thought you had it in you, Bonnie.”
“What? No,” I snap. “Look, it’s just fiction. If you read horror, do you spend Halloween in a crazed clown mask, living in gutters, and killing people in small towns? No. I only read about it. I don’t do any of the things I read about.”
God, I sound like a loser.
Nisha shakes her head. “It’s time, though. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up seventy and surrounded by vibrators and cats. You need to get your head out of those books and deal with real men again. Farts and all.”
I chew on my lips.
I think of my battery-operated gentle lovers who treat me so well and don’t have the capacity to gaslight, love bomb or catfish me. Their only purpose in life is to serve me pleasure.
Then a visual of a naked Jack Knight flashes before me.
I bet even his perineum wasteland is hot.
“Okay.” I grin at Nisha. “I’ll do it. I’ll set up a profile.”
Satisfied, she rolls her head on the seat and massages her forehead. “That’s good. We’ll have you addicted in no time.”
“In your new dating profile, are you going to tell them you want a group of men?” Kate pipes up from the back.
I ignore her.
We drive up to find a sausage fest on the lawn, everyone drinking beers and bantering loudly.
“Is that all he’s going to fucking do?” Kate shrieks as Sean appears on the lawn with more beers. “Does he think this is some type of holiday?”
Probably. I made that mistake too.
“Kate,” Sean shouts as we get out of the car. “Love of my life, come join us.”
She glares incredulously at him. “Are you drunk? You do realise that we’re getting married tomorrow?”
He saunters over and wraps his arm around her, ignoring her scowl. “Don’t worry, love. All the hard work will pay off and soon we’ll be relaxing on our honeymoon, doing sweet FA.”
That’s the wrong answer for Kate. “You’ve been doing sweet FA since we got here.”
Becky and I exchange glances.
“He’s right, Kate. Relax,” I say. “Everything’s ready for tomorrow. It’ll be a fabulous day, then you have your honeymoon in a few weeks.”
“We’ll likely sit beside the pool in the hotel drinking like he’s doing now.” She crosses her arms. “While Sean works on his beer belly.”
He laughs. “That’s the best kind of holiday. You can work on your tan, love, and I’ll work on my beer belly.”
“Uh, do not think we are turning into that married couple.”
“There are plenty of mountains to hike in the Canary Islands. Make sure you keep Sean busy, Kate.”
I turn to see Jack grinning at us.
“No fucking chance.” Sean groans. “Jack’s idea of a relaxing holiday is free climbing over a mountain with wild bears for company.”
Jack chuckles. “I highly recommend it. Me, a tent, the mountains, that’s all I need for a successful holiday.”
“Sounds amazing,” I mutter. “My type of holiday.”
Jack looks at me. “Do you climb, Bonnie?”
“Uh, no. I just meant I like the sound of getting away from people.” I need more hobbies. “I went on a running holiday once.” It’s the most interesting thing I can conjure up.
“That’s right, Sean told me you were a runner. You’re doing the London Marathon this year? I’m doing it too.”
I nod, visualising those two hard mounds. My training tactic is to find a good ass and chase it.
“Maybe we should train together, go for a few runs around the old haunts in East London,” he says casually. “I used to run past your house when I lived in the area.”
My body goes rigid. Does he mean the house I grew up in that got repossessed? “Do you mean Brook Close?”
He looks at me funny. “Yeah, of course.”
I relax a fraction. He isn’t such a sicko to suggest running past the house ripped out from under us. Brook Close is where Mum and I moved in with Phil, my stepdad.
Kate and I grew up within a one-mile radius of the Knights which in London is probably a million people, but in that area, it still feels like a small town.
“Sorry, I’m already part of a running club.”
“Okay.” He shrugs, unfazed. “The offer’s always open.”
Kate saves me. “Come help me, will you, Bonnie?”
***
“There she is,” Kate says between gritted teeth as we enter the wedding reception marquee.
Kate’s soon-to-be mother-in-law is deep in conversation with a pursed-lipped wedding planner, jabbing fingers at walls and tables. Mrs. Knight rules the wedding like a benevolent dictator. Kate is allowed some liberty on matters of lesser importance, such as underwear, but Mrs. Knight has absolute authority.
Thanks to her, my new name has stuck, and I am now referred to as “the other bridesmaid” by the entire wedding crew.
“What the fuck is she saying to my wedding planner? She’s got her nose in everything. I need to separate them. Go put these on the top table, will you?”
I take the wreaths of greenery from her and head off.
The marquee could host a small rock concert. Kate and I didn’t talk about finances, but I have a feeling that Jack is bankrolling the entire event.
I glance up at the tent wall, confused.
“Excuse me.” I stop a girl affixing ribbons on seats. “Do you know where the mosaic went?”
“The what?”
“The large collage of the bride and groom? It was hung up there.”
“Oh. Mrs. Knight had it taken down.”
“Why?”
She shrugs, bored. “I dunno. She said something about it being out of place. Distasteful? Maybe ask her.”
I go completely still. Sean’s mum said it was distasteful?
I spent hours after work every night for weeks collecting pictures throughout every year that they were together to create that mosaic. I wanted to get them something unique and personal. Kate had wanted it mounted for the wedding reception.
The girl looks at me strangely and I return a strained smile before chucking the rest of the wreaths onto the top table.
Was Kate lying when she said she loved it? Maybe she was just being nice. Like with the fake tan, she couldn’t say no.
I won’t push it. It’s Kate and Sean’s day, it’s about what makes them happy, and Kate is too stressed right now to mention it.
I message Kate and tell her I’ll be back in forty-five. I need to be alone.
A familiar voice right outside the tent stops me in my tracks.
“I’ll get there on time,” Max says. “I’ll leave early and avoid the traffic.”
My pulse quickens as I eavesdrop.
“No, stop worrying, my angel. I’ll be there.”
I can’t breathe.
I used to be his angel. It seems heaven is pretty full.
Couldn’t you have found a new nickname for Danielle?
Today is too bloody hard.
