‘Why don’t I ask Sasha’s brother Dan?’ she said. ‘He’s an A&E doctor.’
‘Thankyou,’ Euan said. ‘I’ll wait here. I can’t go outside looking like this.’
* * *
Dan – apparently without the girlfriend Sasha had thought would be coming – had just finished doing family photos and was talking to some people who Evie thought she recognised as his aunts and uncles.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’
‘Hey, Evie. How are you?’
‘Hi, Dan. Good thank you. How are you? Your sister’s a married woman!’
‘I know. Very grown-up.’
‘I have a question for you.’
‘Oh-kay? I’m intrigued.’ Dan’s smile made Evie want to smile too.
Evie suddenly remembered their pact – weddings, marriage, word association – and shoved the thought away.
She started talking rapidly. ‘Basically, during the service, I headbutted my boyfriend Euan, by mistake,obviously, and there’s lots of blood and his tooth’s loose. I think he might need a stitch in his lip or his tongue or both, and I’m not sure where I should take him to get his tooth seen. Do we take him to A&E?’
‘Where is he? He’ll need to get his tooth seen by an emergency dentist rather than A&E. Why don’t I take a look to see if I think he needs any stitches?’ There was something very sexy about how Dan had just flipped straight into doctor mode.
It was difficult not to compare Dan and Euan while Dan checked out Euan’s mouth. Obviously she shouldn’t be comparing anyone with anyone.But.Dan was slightly shorter and quite a lot wider and a lot more fun to be with. Euan was more kind of classically handsome, but – to quote Sasha – in quite a boring way. Euan’s smile – when he was smiling, which he certainly wasn’t this afternoon, understandably, of course – was not infectious.
Dan was speaking right now and, totally inappropriately for the situation, Evie now wanted to smile too. ‘I think you’ll be okay without stitches but you do need to get your tooth seen. Don’t go to A&E because you’ll be wasting your time – you’ll have to wait and then they’ll send you to a dentist anyway. I’m sure you’ll find one that’s open on a Saturday afternoon.’
‘Thank you so much,’ said Evie. ‘I’m so sorry that we’ve dragged you away from Lucie’s reception. I’m sure we can sort things from here.’
‘Do you know of a dentist?’ Euan said.
Dan took his phone out of his pocket. ‘I’m sure I can call a couple of people.’
‘No, honestly, we’ve already taken up a lot of your time and you need to get back to the wedding party. I’m sure we can find somewhere.’ Evie took her own phone out of her clutch.
‘It would be great if you could give us a couple of names,’ Euan said to Dan.
Dan knew a lot of people, via his father’s GP surgery, and after three calls had found a dentist who could see Euan within the hour.
‘Right,’ Euan said, ‘we’d better get going.’
‘Thank you so, so much for all your help,’ said Evie. Was it bad to find your boyfriend embarrassing? Obviously it was awful to have a loose tooth,reallyawful, so it wastotallyunderstandable that he wouldn’t be that effusive with his thanks, but equally Dan had definitely gone above and beyond and it wasn’thardto say a proper thank you.
* * *
Ten minutes into their – silent until then – journey in the back of the cab to the dentist in Cheltenham, Euan sneezed three times in a row.
‘Bless you,’ Evie said.
‘There must have been a cat somewhere.’ Euan looked around him, like one might be clinging to the taxi upholstery.
‘Oh dear,’ said Evie, horrified that her lips were twitching a bit. It wasawfulto be tempted to laugh, but Euan had been a county-level athlete when he was younger and he always put his speed and jumping ability to good use whenever they were within about a hundred metres of a cat, and now every time he mentioned the allergies Evie struggled not to snigger at memories of him vaulting fences and sprintingmilesif he suspected a feline presence. Even though Evie had twice witnessed him unknowingly being in the same garden as a cat and completely unaffected by it.
If she married him, she was going to have to live forever with his – possibly imaginary – cat allergy. What if he developed new imaginary allergies? What if he developedrealallergies? How would he behave if somethinggenuinelyaffected him?
Euan harumphed and they spent the rest of the journey alternating between looking out of the windows on their sides of the taxi and at their phones.
