‘I know. Sorry. But like you said, you’re never going to see any of these people again, at least for another ten years, so it’s not like we have to carry on this pretence. And in ten years’ time most of them will be divorced and on their second marriage, and you can be divorced too. You can all bitch about your ex-husbands together. You can tell them all how awful I was.’
‘I doubt they’ll believe me. You seemed to have charmed them all.’
‘And did you see how jealous Meg looked when I told her how I proposed? I could see her side-eyeing her fiancé, as if his bended knee at their favorite restaurant paled in comparison to my mid-air declaration.’
I smiled to myself. The smile grew and I put my hands on my cheeks. They felt warmer. ‘Okay, I admit it, that did feel good.’ I giggled to myself and finally understood what he’d meant about the satisfaction I was deriving from making them all a little jealous with my gorgeous, romantic fake fiancé. It was also a little exhilarating, this lie. Delicious and naughty and so not something I would normally do and, until now, not something I’d ever thought I would have enjoyed. Did that say something about my character? I wasn’t sure. And I wasn’t sure whether that was something I could google.
Andrew walked up to me. ‘Is this your old desk?’
‘This was my science class.’
‘I bet you were good at science,’ he said, sitting down in the chair next to me, the chair that Katie used to sit in.
‘I was. I bet you were too.’
He smiled. ‘I was. What was your mark for matric?’ He folded his arms and looked at me.
‘Ninety-two. You?’
‘Shit! Eighty-seven. You beat me.’
‘You really are competitive.’
‘Sometimes it’s an asset, sometimes not so much.’
‘Mmm,’ I mumbled in agreement.
‘So . . . shall we go out there and make some more of them jealous?’
I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘But no more glass-bottomed boats and coral reefs.’
‘So I shouldn’t tell them that after the wedding ceremony we are both skydiving from a plane together to seal our love at altitude.’
‘Definitely not!’
‘And I shouldn’t tell them that a specially trained dolphin is going to preside over our wedding service?’
‘No! Absolutely not!’ I stood up and wrestled with my defiant, leg-creeping dress. ‘We only have another hour to go of keeping this up.’
‘We should make it count then,’ he said.
I looked down at my hand, thought for a moment and then held it out for him. ‘You may hold my hand for the rest of the evening,’ I said. ‘But only if your palms do not get sweaty and moist.’
Andrew took it tentatively. ‘My palms never sweat.’
‘Fine. And . . .’ I paused. I could not believe I was about to say this. ‘And once,only once, and only if it is absolutely necessary, you may kiss me with closed mouth on the cheek or the lips. But briefly. No lingering and absolutely no tongue.’
Andrew looked like he was trying not to smile. ‘Got it. Only once. No lingering tongue and only when necessary.’
I nodded and he tightened his grip around my hand. ‘I don’t like my hand to be held with so much pressure. Less pressure, please.’
He was no longer holding back his smile. ‘Sure.’ His hand loosened around mine and it didn’t feel as awful as I thought it would. ‘This okay?’
‘I don’t hate it as much as I thought I would.’
‘Wow, between our mediocre sex life, the no-tongue kisses and the fact you only just don’t hate holding my hand, it’s a miracle we’ve made it this long.’
‘I did say the sex was improving,’ I said, playing along, because I liked the way it felt to joke around with him. ‘But only marginally,’ I added, and dragged him towards the door.
