Page 39 of The Layover
I cut myself off, seething.
I shove the lipstick tester back and storm over to the Diptyque and Jo Malone section, as if angrily sniffing extortionately priced candles will calm me down. Aromatherapy at its finest, I’m sure.
‘Whataboutthe wedding?’ Fran asks me, coming up beside me. With her big watery blue-grey eyes and sad mouth and looking like shecares. ‘You’re not … I mean, you’re not in love with Marcus, are you?’
I snort at the hilarity of the very idea. It relieves a little of the tension coiled tight inside my body. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘And you’re … not in love with Kayleigh?’
‘Again, no.’ I raise an eyebrow at her and deadpan, ‘This is notLove Actually, and you are not Laura Linney at Peter and Juliet’s wedding. For the record.’
A little smile tugs at her mouth before vanishing in favour of that all-consuming concern I would suddenly justloveto run a mile from. How dare she be actingniceto me? She’s trying to steal my best friend’s fiancé. She’s the work wife from hell. She’s not supposed to be a halfway decent human being. Especially not to me.
‘So what happened with the wedding? Is it just that she’s getting married at all, or …?’
I slam down a candle a little too hard. It makes the plastic shelf wobble.
‘It wasmywedding. I was the one who wanted to get married abroad, had browsed a few venues, narrowed down which city I wanted to get married in, had an idea of the costs and the menu and the number of guests and … I wasn’t engaged,’ I add, ‘but I was … I thought it was going to happen. I was with someone who … She was …’
I think of the way Brittney looked at me, so fed up, like the entire conversation was an inconvenience. ‘I can’t keep doing this, Gem. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to be around you? You’re always trying way too hard, expecting way too much. Clingy isn’t a good look on you. I thought we were just having fun.’
‘Fun’ which lasted for eighteen months, and was exclusive, and a total kick in the teeth when it ended when I thought it was … something else. That all those deep chats about what we wanted for the futuremeant something.
I shake myself, feeling Fran’s big eyes boring into me.
‘It doesn’t matter now, anyway. We were together for a while and I thought it was going well and then itwasn’t, and thenKayleigh got engaged and stole my dream wedding. Made it all seem like it was everything she wanted, too, and I’m her best friend – what was I supposed to do except help her out with planning it all? It wasn’t like I’d be using it anytime soon, was it?’
‘She said that?’ Fran gasps.
‘Not in so many words. But I knew. We both knew that was what was happening.’
I pick up another candle. It’s pear and freesia.
It smells a bit like Mum, and there’s a lump in my throat. I take another deep breath in through my nose, let my eyes close for a moment, then put it back down.
Fran says softly, ‘She doesn’t sound like a very good friend, Gemma.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘She’s not.’
But she’s all I’ve got.
Chapter Twenty
Leon
The flight gets pushed backanothertwenty minutes. Not a single flight has left in the time we’ve been here, which makes me feel …
The exact opposite of hopeful.
Maybe even a bit grateful?
I’m beginning to toss around the idea of abandoning the flight altogether. Finding an information desk and requesting to change my ticket to one back to the UK. Getting the bloody Eurostar to London, even, at this rate. I can pretend there was a problem with my ticket for the connecting flight, that I got sick,anythingbut making it to the wedding.
I was already stressed out about the idea of sitting Kay down for a serious conversation about Marcus’s behaviour and his effect on her, but at least that had felt like I’d be doing the right thing, ultimately.
But after everything Gemma said …
What if she’s right?
