Page 107 of The Matchmaker
“Oh yeah. Adam gave me your recipe, but I found a better one online. I added some pineapple juice to…it’s too sweet, isn’t it?” She groans dramatically before I can respond. “I knew it would be too sweet. Everyone always tells me I have a sweet tooth, but I couldn’t taste it because of the alcohol and then—”
“You put alcohol in it?” I interrupt.
“Of course.”
“What do you mean, of course?”
“Because punch has alcohol in it,” she says like it’s obvious. “I used vodka.”
“Howmuchvodka?”
“I dunno. A bottle?”
Callum shifts beside me as I stare at her. “You put a bottle of vodka in that bowl of punch?”
She hesitates, eyes flickering between the two of us. “Is that not enough?”
Oh my God.
“Tell them to take the punch away,” I say, whirling to Callum. “And to stop serving at the bar. Only non-alcoholic drinks for the rest of the night.”
“On it,” he says, as Nush’s eyes widen.
“Is that not good?” she asks, trailing me as I follow him back to the main room.
It all seems much more obvious now I know what the problem is, the noise that bit louder than it should be, the movements a little looser.
They are more than a little drunk. Half the room is completely smashed.
There are even a few protests when Callum wheels the serving bowl away, but he thankfully ignores them, disappearing into the kitchens.
I’m starting to feel a little lightheaded. “We didn’t mark it as non-alcoholic or anything, did we?”
“I don’t think anyone could take a sip of that stuff and think there wasn’t any alcohol in it,” Harry says diplomatically. “It was free, and a lot of people were nervous. They probably used it to settle their stomachs. Which,” he adds. “Is pretty ironic when you consider howunsettledthey’ll be in the—”
“Yes, okay. Thank you.”
“Relax,” Harry says, slapping me on the shoulder. “If this is the bad thing that happens, then you can do a lot worse than people losing some of their inhibitions.” He pauses as a couple go giggling past, tripping over in their heels. “But ibuprofen might be handy,” he adds, and I sigh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“I just think I’d be better suited to an Aquarius.”
I force down a sigh, my smile plastered to my face as one of the guests pleads her case. She’s my third one this morning and I am starting to take it personally.
“And one of the other girls said the matches were more like suggestions anyway and I—”
“What are you asking?” I interrupt, even though I already know what’s coming.
“Can I swap? My friend Amy already did, and she said it’s cool so long as—”
“No problem. Knock yourself out.”
She beams at me, delighted, and runs off to join her friends by the lake. We couldn’t have wished for better weather. It’s like we had the wettest spring since records began all so we could have the warmest summer. The sun is beating down on the lake, showing off the pub in all its glory, and as predicted, a few people have waded into the water as a way to cool down and are taking pictures of each other. It’s perfect. Or it would have been if more than half our guests had bothered to drag themselves out of bed.
“It could have been worse,” Nush says to me now like she’s reading my mind.
“How could it have been worse?”
