Page 62 of Promise Me Ever After
“Stop it.” My tone had a hard edge to it. I didn’t want to sour the afternoon, but if Mum carried on like she was, I planned to whisk my sister off for the evening sooner rather than later. “Evelyn, have you bought the happy couple a wedding present yet?” I changed the subject before things could get out of hand.
The rest of the tea passed without incident. Shortly after six, Ems came over to the table.
“Ladies, I hope you’ve had a wonderful afternoon. We need to start setting up for dinner now, so if you want to move into the bar, you’re more than welcome.”
I’d already primed Ems to come and get us so we could get ready for the evening. Knowing how Mum and Evelyn liked a gin, a move to the bar would be best. “Sounds like a good idea. Darcy and I are going to her next hen event, so why don’t you two stay for a little longer?”
“Ooo, good idea,” said Mum. “Evelyn?”
Fraser’s mum nodded in agreement.
“Before you two go, I just want to say a couple more things.” Mum picked up the remains of her champagne. “Darcy, I’m so proud of you and I can’t wait for you and Fraser to be married. The two of you have made a lovely life here and I have no doubts it will only get better. And if grandchildren were on the horizon, I wouldn’t complain.” She blinked away tears, before turning to Evelyn. “And Evelyn, Howard and I are very much looking forward to having you and Nigel as a part of our family.”
“Oh, Veronica, that’s lovely!” Evelyn reached out and squeezed Darcy’s hand. “I can’t wait for you to be a proper part of our family too.”
I bit my lip, my vision clouding with tears, suddenly overwhelmed at the sentiments. Swallowing hard, I looked at the three of them, wanting to get the hell out of there.
“We really should get going,” I said. “The others will be waiting for us at the club.”
The four of us stood up. Mum caught Darcy in a hug, before Evelyn took over.
“Georgie, you’ll have to tell me more about this man you’re seeing.” She drew me in for a brief embrace and whispered into my ear. “Although make sure you don’t rush into things. You don’t want another broken engagement do you, now you’re thirty?”
Fuck my life. She couldn’t even be nice to me about Alex. There was no way I wanted to tell her anything about him.
29
Alex
When Georgie had suggestedto Darcy that Fraser should invite me to his stag do, I wished I’d told her a hard no. While it was nice of the family to include me, I couldn’t have felt more out of my depth if I’d have tried.
Thankfully, I’d been able to cry off for the majority of the weekend because of work, so I only had to endure the Friday daytime events, followed by the evening dinner and drinking.
Fraser’s best man had organised a paint balling session for the afternoon. Normally, I’d be up for something like that. Justin, Curtis and I had loved the crack of charging around the woods, capturing the opposing team’s flag. But at the start of December, it was fucking freezing, and any shot that hit you stung like buggery. Georgie would have to kiss my bruises better when I saw her tomorrow.
At the thought of Georgie, I couldn’t help but smile. Which apparently caused me to lose my concentration as another bullet came flying through the air and made contact with my bicep.
“Fuck!” I yelled.
“Come on, buddy, concentrate, we’re losing now,” huffed Gus, the guy I’d been paired with. He ducked down behind a fallen tree and beckoned for me to do the same.
Obviously, I didn’t know any of the stag party. I didn’t even know Fraser that well. From my initial impressions, it was a combination of weak-chinned management consultants and rugby players. Fraser traversed the line between the two groups very well. There were a couple of Ealynn Sands rugby players I vaguely recognised, but them being older than me meant I had no school history with them. I had to hope the evening would pass quickly and I could get back to normality.
A ruckus from the other side of the woods led me to believe that the game was over. Loud cheers drifted towards us and Gus groaned.
“Think we’ve lost. Come on, let’s join the others.”
I actually couldn’t feel my toes, so was grateful for the thought of it being done. When we reached the castle where the flag had been captured, Fraser was being held aloft by his rugby buddies as the victor. Although I suspected he would have been, win or lose.
We milled around for a while, drinking tea and eating Mars bars until we started to lose the light. After a quick shower back at the B&B, we were ready to head out for the evening. According to the others, dinner was at a curry house, then there were plans to go on to a bar and those who wanted to could move on to a gentlemen’s club. The latter didn’t hold a great appeal for me, and I doubted I would go with them. I’d rather have gone home to Georgie.
The Taj Mahal — corny, right? — had set aside a private room. Given there were sixteen of us, even if we weren’t drinking, we would have been loud and disturbed other diners, so it was a wise move on behalf of the restaurant staff. Like when we had a kid’s party in the restaurant, we tried to put them upstairs, out of the way.
“What do you do?” asked Gus. I’d been stuck with him all afternoon and it looked like I’d be spending the evening with him too.
“I’m a chef. I work in Anna’s Kitchen, you know, in Ealynn Sands?” I reached over a grabbed the lime pickle to slather all over my poppadum. The starters were one of my favourite parts of an Indian meal.
“Yeah, I think we’ve been there when we’ve come to stay with Fraser and Darcy for the weekend.” Gus nodded, chewing on his onion bhaji.
