Page 8 of One Moment in Time
Was it wrong that there was a tiny part of her that was relieved? She’d never in a million years have admitted it, especially to Aiden, but she’d never felt that Layla was the right one for him. Sure, Eileen could spend a solid ten minutes listing all her plus points and it was tough to actually nail down any negatives. It was more of a feeling. Aiden had a warmth about him, a genuine niceness that made Eileen prouder than all the sports championships and career achievements her son had ever clocked up, whereas Layla was colder. Yep, that was it. More calculated. Super sweet on the outside, undeniably beautiful, but a bit too concerned with herself and her image to have that warm humour and all-round niceness Eileen had always hoped she’d one day get in a daughter-in-law.
As soon as this day was over, she was going to google whether Reese Witherspoon was single. But in the meantime…
At her son’s side, she was still avoiding eye contact with the ex-husband she only referred to in her head as Gary the Gob. Gary the Gob who had spent the last hour of the preamble for his son’s wedding throwing back shots of tequila and feeling up his girlfriend’s arse. Sadly, the avoidance strategy was wrecked when his girlfriend reached around Aiden and greeted her with a wave. Aiden took a step back, turning them into a little semicircle of happy families.
‘Hi, I’m Mitzy,’ the girlfriend giggled.
Gary at least had the self-awareness to look slightly embarrassed. ‘All right, Eileen?’
‘Just peachy, Gary,’ she replied, with probably more disdain than she intended.
He didn’t look thrilled. Och well. He could cry into his girlfriend’s 34GGs until he felt better. She honestly didn’t care. At least, that’s what she told herself. Damn, she’d loved that man once. Given up everything for him. Including herself. That was what scared her most. How lost she’d been for so many years, how she’d overlooked things that shouldn’t have been overlooked because she was so scared he’d leave. How she still saw him now and felt… It was hard to nail it down. That whole ‘love and hate’ thing. She loved him for the glimpses of happiness that they’d had. She hated him for throwing it all away and humiliating her time after time. Most of all, being around him gave her a pain in her chest, or perhaps it was her heart, so it was easier to stick with avoidance and hate. And no, not for anything was she ever going to put herself in that position again.
‘Nice to meet you, Mitzy.’ She wasn’t in the business of tearing other women down. Unless she was the bint who had just jilted her son at the altar.
‘Mizz Gregg, you’re looking fine, fine, fine,’ Trevon whistled from the other side of the bar, using her surname to tease her into reacting. He’d always been one to turn on the charm and Eileen adored him. She’d first met him a good few years ago, when he and Aiden had shared a flat, when her son was a fledgling lawyer and Trevon had just opened his first gym. Now he had half a dozen across the state and was a big deal in this town – a well-known influencer and entrepreneur who had long passed his first million, yet he hadn’t changed a bit. Since day one, he’d encouraged her and Aiden to work out with him at his cross-fit centre about a mile from her home. Aiden still did the 5 a.m. shift with his mate during the week but Eileen preferred to train at night on her own. Gave her something to fill her evenings. However, she did work out with Trevon most Saturday and Sunday mornings, fearful that if she missed even one session of rigorous training, her arse would slide and her core muscles would collapse in surrender. Being a single fifty-five-year-old woman in a business and a dating scene populated with a whole load of Mitzys demanded effort and discipline.
She saw that Trevon was still grinning at her, waiting for the inevitable comeback. Eileen didn’t disappoint. ‘And you’re looking like you’re twenty years too young to be making comments like that to me, son,’ she jibed back, making him howl with laughter.
Eileen switched her attention back to the immediate situation. Her son. A beach full of guests. As always, she felt the need to confront the situation head on and to try to fix things, even though she was absolutely at a loss as to how she was going to sort this out. She put her hand on her son’s arm. ‘Okay, let’s all get on the same page. Have you told them yet?’ It was typical. She’d tuned into the situation, realised what was happening, confirmed it with a silent conversation with her son, and was already trying to work out a plan to resolve it. Her ex-husband was right there and still hadn’t realised that anything was amiss.
Aiden shook his head, then turned to his dad, Mitzy and Trevon. ‘The text I was just checking, it was from Layla. She isn’t coming. She’s changed her mind. The wedding is off.’
‘Oh for fu—’ Gary exploded.
Eileen shut him down before he could even get warmed up. ‘Pipe down there, Rocky,’ she said, taking the wind out of his sails. This was typical Gary the Gob. Loud. Alpha male. Solved absolutely sod all.
Weirdly, that’s why they’d been such a good team. He was one of those men who lit up a room with his personality, while Eileen had been the person at the back, taking care of every other bloody thing so that he could shine. It had worked for them for years. Until it didn’t. Now, every time she saw him switch on the charm, she just wanted to pull out the plug.
Trevon was fully focused on his friend now. ‘No way. Damn. What can we do? Name it, bro.’
Eileen cut straight to the pragmatic steps. ‘Do you want us to get rid of this lot, son?’ she asked Aiden, but he shook his head. The poor man was ashen.
‘Thanks, Mom, but I’ll do it.’
Eileen watched as this strapping bloke, all six foot two of him, made his way back up to the centre of the aisle. Sure, he was a grown man and an impressive one, but in her gut, he was still her kid, and she was devastated for him. Even if he did now have a chance to marry Reese Witherspoon.
‘Hey, folks,’ he said loudly, making sure everyone could hear.
Eileen saw her plus-one, Kurt, break off his conversation with Aiden’s boss and turn to pay attention.
‘I can see from some of your faces that you already know… but just in case you don’t, I’m sorry to tell you that Layla isn’t going to make it today. She’s had a change of heart and the wedding is off. I’m so sorry. I know the effort you all made to come here today, and we appreciate that. If you brought a gift…’ he nodded over to the table at the back, next to the bar, where guests had left presents, ‘then please take it home with you. Again, I’m so grateful that you gave up your time to be with us and I’m sorry we’ve wasted it. And thank you to the musicians, you have been great, but you’re free to finish up now.’
There was a smattering of applause from the forty or so assembled people and the expressions on their faces were ones of pure sympathy. Or pity. It was hard to tell.
‘But hey, the good news…’ Aiden went on, facing the crowd again, ‘…is that Trevon has a banging playlist on his phone that he can feed through a speaker back there and we have a full bar of booze and a buffet that need to be consumed, so please, if you feel like a beach day, kick off your shoes, grab a beer and stay here with us for a few hours while we drown our sorrows.’
There was an almost immediate split. Layla’s friends and extended family started streaming out of their rows and, faces full of apology and embarrassment, made their way up the aisle and over towards the car park, many of them stopping to retrieve the gifts they’d brought for the happy couple.
Aiden’s mates and work colleagues stayed put, the men cranked off their ties, the women kicked off their heels and several of them made their way to her son to give him a hug and some genuine sympathy. Eileen was grateful for every one of them.
Eileen tossed her shoes to the side, threw her jacket over a nearby chair. ‘Trevon, love, can you put on a song that’s going to make Aiden feel even a tiny bit better? Extra points if it comes with a beer for me.’
‘I’ve got you, Eileen,’ Trevon assured her, pressing a few buttons of his phone, while simultaneously popping the cap off a bottle of Modelo beer.
The intro to an old nineties song, ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ by D:Ream sounded out from the speakers and Aiden’s face managed a sad smile of gratitude when, sympathies and apologies exhausted, he joined them at the bar.
Eileen wasn’t surprised that Gary and Mitzy had already headed up to the house, her ex-husband muttering something about asking the caterers to start bringing the food down. The man had a pathological aversion to emotional or awkward situations.
