AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We’d better get going,” Ant says. “We’ve got a table booked at Hanley Hall. We’re going to sit at the barstools we first met on, and I’m going to treat my incredible fiancée to a bottle of De Chante, just like I did on night one. I’ve even booked the same hotel room.”
“Enjoy,” I reply, knowing full well they will do.
“Since you’re back on Monday, maybe later next week for a celebration meal with Janie?” Cass asks.
“Sounds great. Whenever works.”
She claps her hands, and I see her ring sparkle. “Brilliant. I’ll get on with organising it. Hopefully Janie will have a promotion to celebrate, too! Double cheers to us!”
“Hopefully?”
She nods. “Yeah, hopefully head office will promote her to my position. She’d do great, and she deserves it.”
I shouldn’t push, but I do.
“Have they offered her the role?”
Again, she drops her eyes from mine.
“Not yet, no. I resigned by email. I did recommend her strongly, though. I’ll be giving her the best reference in the world.”
“She must be crazy excited herself at the thought.”
She doesn’t look back at me, stumbling for words.
Again, Ant steps in.
“I’m sure she’ll get the promotion, Ger. Head office aren’t stupid. They’ll know she’s bloody brilliant.”
No. Head office won’t be stupid. But neither am I.
Janie doesn’t know Cass has resigned yet.
“Anyway, catch you later,” Ant says, clearly keen to get going.
“Catch you later.”
The team are celebrating hard when I get back inside. The girls are straight up to me, letting out another cheers and a hip, hip hooray at the thought of me being best man.
I drink more champagne as they talk about Ant’s engagement, trying to lose myself in the energy of everyone else. Vickie and Georgina are speculating on dresses, and the guys are laughing about how their who’s gonna fuck Cass first if they split up bet seems null and void. Even hearing them talk about her in that way gives me a horrible taste of disgust, but I swig back another glass of champagne, since now really isn’t the time to get into a bust up over it. I’ve had plenty of run ins with them before over their bullshit language, so dampening the celebrations by launching another attack on their crap isn’t worth the fallout. Not tonight.
Vickie reads me like a book.
“They are joking,” she says.
“I know that,” I reply.
“Cass wouldn’t have fucked any of them anyway. She’s way too into Ant for that. Plus, I can’t imagine for a second she’s a casual kind of woman. She really doesn’t give off that vibe.”
“What do you mean?” I ask her, curious.
“Just don’t think she would. Nothing wrong with being casual, it’s cool, and plenty of girls are.” She shoots a grin at Georgina, then shrugs, back on topic. “I just don’t think Cass is like that. Dunno why. Just don’t.”
“Me neither.” Georgina laughs, squeezing my arm. “If anything, Cass would’ve been dating you next. You could have proposed in your fancy prince costume, since you seem more up her street than any of these pricks.”
I wonder how seriously she means that sentiment. I get a sledgehammer in the ribs as I picture Cass’s smile in the living room while I was dressed up in my fancy prince costume.
Her words are etched into my mind for all time.
God, Gerwyn, if I wasn’t with Ant, I’d happily marry you myself!
I down another glass of champagne and do my best to focus on my happiness, not my sadness. There is nothing to be sad about. Ant and Cass are happy and will make an incredible couple. Their children will be a treasure, and their life will be beautiful, and I’ll be right there alongside them. Maybe their kids will even call me Uncle Gerwyn.
Maybe one day I’ll have children of my own and a wife by my side, and Ant and Cass will be auntie and uncle in return. I try to cling onto the notion, but it’s bullshit. The last thing I can imagine right now is a bride on my arm.
I need to shove all that away. I need to share Ant and Cass’s happiness with them in person, and my own feelings can get stuffed – selfish and stupid. Ant booked my flight early on Monday so we could be doing our monthly catch up together, but I wanted more time with them than that, so I’ve booked an earlier flight myself. I’m going to set the house up with some mini celebrations of my own, ready to pop the cork when they walk through the door on their return from Bucklebury.
I take another look at the picture of Cass together with her wedding ring on show, looking up at Ant like he’s her everything.
In another dimension, in another universe, maybe I’d have been the one on the barstool at Hanley Hall, but I wasn’t.
