‘It’spissingit down.’ Lily poked her head out of the hotel’s entrance. ‘We’re going to getsowet.’
‘You could wear this jacket?’ he offered.
‘That’s a very kind offer,’ Lily said, ‘but it’s already soaked and also, by the looks of you, I don’t think it’s even waterproof.’
‘Do you not have an umbrellawithyou?’ He’d suddenly remembered that shealwayshad an umbrella in the very large bags she always carried. He was sure she’d had one of those bags with her when he’d seen her this week.
‘I took it out because I thought it definitely wouldn’t rain and my bag was already really heavy.’ Yep, knowing Lily her bag would have been full of a lot of ‘just in case’ items like a travel first aid kit, socks, spare toothbrush, you name it. They’d once been to the beach for the day with Matt’s best friend and his then girlfriend, and the girlfriend’s flip-flop had broken, and Lily had saved the day by producing an ‘emergency pair’ of brand-new flip-flops from her bag.
‘I think we’re just going to have to accept that we’re going to get very, very wet, and get going,’ Aaliyah said.
‘Oh my God,’ she said within literally under a minute. ‘We might as well be swimming fully clothed. This is actual torture.’
‘Once you’re as wet as this, you just have to embrace it.’ Lily shook her head like a dog, so that drops of water from her hair splattered around her, held her arms out and pirouetted in the road. She looked ridiculous and perfect and gorgeous, and both Matt and Aaliyah began to laugh. Matt really wanted to join her. He shoved his hands in his wet pockets and stayed still where he was.
Aaliyah put her hands on her hips, shook her head, still laughing, and said, ‘Honestly.’
On Lily’s third spin, she slipped and began to fall in a kind of arc through the air with the impetus of her spin propelling her. Matt and Aaliyah both leapt forward and the three of them collided, while Aaliyah yelled, ‘You muppet,’ and Lily yelped.
‘Everyone okay?’ Matt asked when they were all steady again. The other two nodded.
‘Sorry about that.’ Lily grinned at them both. ‘Maybe I should take the embracing-it down a couple of notches.’
Matt couldn’t help grinning back. Her hair was plastered to her head and her clothes to her body, she had rain dripping off her eyelashes, her nose, her ears, she’d obviously had a bit of eye make-up on and what remained of it was in streaks down her face; but all you really saw was her huge smile.
God.
‘Come on,’ Aaliyah said, shattering the moment very effectively – for a few seconds, he’d barely even remembered that she was there – and starting to walk again. ‘We have a wedding reception to save.’
‘Woah. It’s a mud bath.’ Lily was the first one to break their awed silence. She wasn’t wrong. The hand-wringing restaurant owner, Johanna, had walked them through the clean white interior of the restaurant to windows next to the large back doors – firmly closed against the elements right now – through which the guests would have accessed the reception in the field, and now they were all standing – in increasingly large puddles of water from the drips rolling down their bodies – goggling at the exterior.
‘Tess’s wedding shoes are lovely,’ Aaliyah said. ‘They’ll be ruined.’
‘And her dress. And everyone else’s. Everything’ll be ruined,’ Lily said. ‘We need to either find an indoor venue or erect some kind of outdoor shelter. With some kind of boarding over the ground.’
‘Simple,’ Matt said.
‘Not simple,’ said Aaliyah, ‘and that’s why we brought you and your architect brain on board. What have you got?’
‘Same as what Lily said.’
‘Really?’ Aaliyah genuinely looked like she’d been expecting more.
‘Sorry, I should have mentioned the prefab wedding reception venue kit that I have stashed in my architect’s suitcase. That you can build in only three hours. Yes, really.’
Lily rolled her eyes. ‘Clearly we need to ask around the whole island as fast as we can and if that doesn’t work we need to do the exterior thing.’ She turned to Johanna. ‘Do you know of anywhere we could hold the reception inside?’
Johanna was still hand wringing. ‘I am very sorry but no,’ she said. ‘There will be nowhere. It is very busy with tourists. Everywhere will be reserved.’
Lily nodded. ‘Sounds like if we change venue it would need to be to a private one, which feels pretty much impossible at five minutes’ notice. So we’re probably going to need to board this up. Johanna, do you know any builders?’
‘I will try to find someone.’
‘I’m going to call Meg again. Maybe Pythagoras knows some different people.’ Lily tugged on the phone in the back pocket of her jeans, which now looked welded onto her body. Very nicely, actually. And, really? Was his mind going to keep going in this direction? Pathetic. ‘I hope my phone’s survived the rain.’
‘I’m going to try Carole again.’ Matt extracted his own phone from his sodden but less welded-on jeans with a fair amount of difficulty. There was no answer.
‘Yes. My phone still works.’ Lily paused and then rattled off a quick voice message for Meg. ‘This issoannoying. We need Meg. Well, we need Pythagoras.’
