Page 79 of A Winter Wedding Adventure
The list of tasks was endless for the day of the wedding, but Kira enjoyed the busyness and the camaraderie, especially now the ambience was ‘make do’ rather than ‘absolute perfection’.
She would never have expected to wake up on the morning of the wedding and join in with a quiet sunrise yoga session. The two of them didn’t quite fit on Mattia’s mat, which had been salvaged from the chalet by Andreas and the mountain rescue volunteers, along with the rest of his things, but the hotel carpet was soft enough to manage and they only occasionally poked each other with an outstretched hand or foot – and only even more occasionally on purpose, usually after Mattia had patronised her with uplifting yoga-speak that only made her more determined not to connect with her centre.
‘And lift,’ he said smoothly as they transitioned from a warrior pose to a side angle, ‘the corners of your mouth.’
‘Fuck you,’ Kira replied lightly, her balance wavering. She wasn’t great at holding still without a goal.
‘You can take that energy,’ he continued in his infuriating yoga teacher voice, ‘and wrap it up in a lovely, big bow.’
She eyed him, trying not to be impressed by how his lean muscles tensed and relaxed.
‘In a few hours, you can give that present to that fucking bastard Christian.’
Kira collapsed onto the mat, laughter causing her stomach muscles to give in. ‘What kind of karma is that?’
‘I’m pretty sure my baptism protects me from karma – and the curniciello.’ The horn-shaped charm around his neck hung down towards the ground as he held a forward bend position.
She gave him a shove, but he remained infuriatingly stable. ‘It doesn’t protect me.’
‘You’re not Catholic?’ he asked in mock horror.
‘Of course I’m not Catholic!’ She chuckled, but there was a little sting in the banter, realising it didn’t matter if she was Catholic or not, because their relationship was casual.
‘I could get you a curniciello, but I’m not sure you’d appreciate the other meaning: my mother’s secret wish for grandchildren.’
‘Whaaat?’ She tumbled onto her bottom, imagining him one day with a bunch of kids. He’d be a great father, which was the strangest thought she’d ever had about anyone.
‘It’s a fertility charm, as well as warding off the evil eye,’ he explained sheepishly. ‘Luckily, we foiled it.’
‘I think you should probably shut up now,’ Kira said, not quite stifling her chuckle. ‘But thanks for making me laugh about seeing Christian. You know when I brought Joe down in the cable car the day before New Year’s Eve?’
‘I was ordering pizza.’
‘Yeah, I was thinking about what I told him. He had reservations about the marriage. Ginny tells me this is normal, as strange as it sounds. But I told him he could do anything he wanted after the wedding, as long as he actually turned up at the altar and didn’t embarrass her.’
She crossed her legs on the carpet as she stared out the window at the slanted roofs of Mayrhofen, under a layer of marshmallow snow.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ Mattia prompted gently.
‘It was bad advice,’ she insisted. ‘Surely it’s better for everyone involved if they don’t get married, when there’s a serious problem, something that might lead to divorce. That’s heartbreak packaged up in bureaucracy.’
‘That does sound bad.’
‘Exactly. I realised I was thankful Christian hadn’t gone through with it. He tried to explain it to me afterwards, but all I remember was something about me being a friend with boobs, so I definitely had a lucky escape.’
‘I told you, he’s a turd!’
‘He is a turd,’ she said softly, smiling at Mattia. ‘I assume that’s more poetic in Italian.’
‘Poetic? No. Emphatic – yes. He’s a stronzo, that’s for certain.’
She nodded slowly. ‘He’s a stronzo, who destroyed my pride at a delicate age.’ Her next words caught on her tongue and she couldn’t bring herself to say them aloud. But maybe he didn’t kill my heart the way I thought he did? ‘He’s not going to ruin Alessandra’s wedding, though. And neither am I.’
‘Did you really think you could?’
‘I thought I could ruin certain aspects of the preparations, yes. But those aren’t the things that matter, even for a bride like Alessandra. I’m starting to understand that.’
He sat next to her, his arms propped on his knees, as a sprinkling of snow tumbled down past the window. ‘This reminds me of the hotel in Salzburg,’ he said softly. ‘But no fridge.’
