‘You take the front seat,’ Evie said.
‘No, you take it.’
‘I’ll feel guilty. Your legs are longer.’
‘Evie, just bloody get in the back and close the door so that we don’t all freeze,’ Max said. Evie laughed and bundled in with Max and Greggy.
‘So it’s a big day for the three of you tomorrow,’ Greggy said. ‘Bridesmaid, walking the bride down the aisle, and doing the reading. There’s a lot of responsibility there.’
‘Way to make us all nervous,’ Evie said. ‘Honestly.’
They all laughed and joshed each other all the way back to the village. Dan was genuinely looking forward to the wedding now. There was something about having Evie and Greggy there that made things easier between Dan and Max.
Twenty-Four
Then – July 2021
Evie
‘Are you joking?’ said Evie. ‘After months and months of only being able to see people outside, you want to have a picnic? Why can’t we go to the pub for lunch?’
‘We’ve been able to go inside a pub for two months now. You should be used to it.’ Sasha stuffed Evie’s picnic blanket into a beach bag. She was staying with Evie for the weekend, without Angus, who was away on a stag.
‘You couldn’t get a table for the first few weeks and I’m stillovermeeting outside,’ grumbled Evie.
‘It’ll be really nice.’ Sasha grappled with the Amazon parcel she’d had delivered to Evie’s flat that morning and then triumphantly held up an orange circle. ‘The boys will like it.’ They were meeting Dan and Max and Greggy.
‘Is that a frisbee? You had a frisbee ordered to my flat?’
‘Yep. If you’re going to do a picnic, do it properly. The food should be here in a minute.’
‘You’re having food delivered to my flat?’
‘Picnic food. Because if I hadn’t, you’d have wriggled out of it. I thought it would be nice.’
‘It’s freezing for July.’
‘Wear a jumper.’
* * *
Two hours later, they were wearing jumpers, and jackets, sitting on the picnic blanket in the middle of London’s Richmond Park, next to Max and Greggy, who were sitting on their own picnic rug.
‘The deer are amazing.’ Sasha angled her phone and took more snaps of the herd grazing only a couple of hundred metres away. ‘Soooo gorgeous.’
‘You know they cull them every year?’ Max said.
Greggy nudged him in the ribs and Sasha told him to shut up. ‘Bloody brothers,’ she said.
‘Speaking of whom,’ Greggy said, ‘there’s Dan.’
Sasha sat up straight and waved her arms above her head, and Dan, in the distance, waved back.
Evie felt her heart quicken. She hadn’t seen him for eighteen months since the car journey back to the Cotswolds that they’d shared the Christmas before lockdown. He was getting closer and she could see him better now. He was dressed in beige cargo shorts, a navy jumper and Adidas shoes, gorgeously, reliably conservative, just, so,Dan-like.
‘Hey.’ He’d wound up in front of them and was grinning down at them all. Evie felt her stomach dip as his grin widened. ‘I would say sorry I’m late, but, bloody hell, theroadworks.’
‘OMG,’ Evie said, ‘I know.’
