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Polly pushed back her chair. “Well, I’ve got no annual leave left and this conversation is making me very jealous.” Draining her glass, she jumped to her feet. “So I’m going to love you and leave you.”
“Where are you off to?” Alice asked.
“To meet Solo. He’s been on call for the last three nights.” Polly’s face softened as soon as she mentioned her boyfriend. And suddenly, there was another side to Polly, a side that wasn’t loud and sassy, but warm and loving and gooey as marshmallow.
Felicity swallowed a small sigh. She hadn’t missed having a partner, but right now there was so much love in the air it was palpable. Judith and Carts sat practically joined at the hip and she noticed how tenderly he stroked the back of Judith’s hand. Aaron had his arm around Alice and her hand, with its sparkly sapphire engagement ring, toyed with her glass of champagne.
Which left Dan, grinning at her like a dog waiting to be thrown a stick.
For some reason Felicity found herself wondering what Oliver was doing and why he hadn’t joined them.
Not that she wasinterestedor anything.
Just curious…
* * *
Oliver was attemptingto write his MC notes for the wedding. He’d thought being the MC would be easy enough; keep up a lively discourse, do the intros then stand back and let Carts and Henry make the speeches. The father of the bride being a literature professor at Cambridge was bound to make for a great speech.
Even so, being MC meant he’d have to be witty, funny, charming. On the ball from start to finish. But everything he’d written sounded more like he was overseeing a funeral than a wedding.
He’d never been good at cracking jokes, never had Aaron’s easy sense of fun and knack for cheeky off-the-cuff remarks. He had to work hard at charm. From being a chubby shy kid with a tendency to cram carbs into his mouth, by fifteen Oliver had gotten so good looking he honestly had no idea what to do with himself. It was like he’d been gifted a prize he didn’t deserve. He’d trained himself to deserve it by reading books on emotional intelligence and social skills as light relief from studying calculus and economics.
And then, just as he thought he was getting the hang of it, Mum had died. He’d been sixteen when the police arrived on the doorstep to inform them of the fatal car crash. Standing stiff against the wall, numb with disbelief, he’d watched his strong, confident father crumple like a pack of cards. And somewhere inside him Oliver had buried his own grief. For the next two years he’d carried Dad through deep depression and helped him to keep his business afloat. Done his bit to get Aaron back on track after he’d completely lost the plot at school.
Always doing therightthing. And making damn sure he did it perfectly. Because if you took your eye off the ball, even for a second, some other disaster would be bound to happen.
Except… he’d obviously relaxed for a moment six months ago, because the fear he’d been running from had finally caught up with him, tripped him up and laughed as he fell.
Oliver ripped up the page. Screwed it into a tight ball and launched a precision hit at the bin. His gaze fixated on his compartmentalised tray of paperclips. Two green ones had somehow got mixed in with the blue ones.
He placed them back in their rightful compartment. Rubbed his forehead. Come on, surely he could remember a few funny anecdotes from when they were kids?
Even though he was older than Aaron by four years, the truth was, Aaron had always gotten the upper hand. He’d toddle in on his sturdy little legs and smash Oliver’s carefully constructed Lego spaceships to pieces. Mess with Oliver’s collection of gemstones that he’d labelled and placed at neat intervals on the shelves in his bedroom. Maybe he should make a joke out of that little gem (ha-ha, inadvertent pun, he realised with a lip quirk.Bad).Telling that story would make him sound like a pompous git.
I used to collect pieces of opal and malachite and my little brother came in one day and hurled them around the room and all I can remember is how much I wanted to punch his cute little face.
He’d have to ask Dad for some better anecdotes from when they were kids, because for the life of him, Oliver couldn’t remember any right now.
When a message beeped on his phone sayingWe’re at the Shamrock, come and join us, he pursed his lips.
Who’s we?
All of us.
He supposed Felicity would be there. His fingers hovered. Something inside him tugged as he remembered the sympathy in her eyes as he’d made his escape after the trip from the airport. Usually, he could hide the fact he was feeling crap. But he had this peculiar sense Felicity would see right through him, and a pretty redhead getting into his murky secret places wasn’t what he needed tonight.
He tapped back,Buried in writing. Thanks anyway.
Another message dinged on his phone, this time from Andrea informing him dinner was ready. The house was too big to hear anyone call out, so they all messaged on their phones instead. With a sigh, Oliver gave up on his MC notes and took the three flights down to the ground floor.
Andrea had set the small table in the snug.
Dad and Andrea only used three of the eight downstairs rooms: the kitchen, Dad’s study and the snug. The rest was all for show. A show of wealth that in all honesty Dad and Andrea didn’t give a shit about. Dad wandered around in his slippers when he wasn’t in work mode and Andrea, being a food blogger, spent most of her time in her kitchen cooking up a storm, or tending her veggie patch in the backyard.
As he sat down, Dad passed him a glass of wine. “This is the chardonnay that goes with the chicken dish,” he explained as Andrea hurried back and forward with dishes, as if she was serving a Roman feast to a bunch of hungry gladiators before they were unleashed to the lions. Oliver wondered if he could get that line into his MC notes, and then realised it was a terrible analogy for a wedding.
“It’s the final taste test before the Big Day,” Andrea explained, spooning a tantalisingly aromatic sauce over a succulent chicken breast and placing it in front of him.
