The flash of a smile brightened his usual serious expression and I found myself genuinely smiling back. It wasn’t that I didn’t like weddings, or social gatherings. I did. I enjoyed the chat and the music and the fun that was there to be had, and the day had been perfect. But it had also been exhausting. We’d been up early to have our hair done and then make up, manicures, pedicures and every other cure Vanessa had thought of. It hadn’t been painful or tedious and I hadn’t needed to keep my filters on as I was with my sisters and two other women I was close to.
Watching my brother see his bride and say his vows had been hard. I rarely bothered to control myself: my tears fell as easily as I usually issued my smiles, but today I’d finally, at the age of twenty-seven, felt grown up. Jackson managed the law firm; he carried his responsibility well but had, like the rest of us, avoided serious relationships. For all of us, our loyalty was to our jobs and we’d learned that from our father. But Vanessa had changed something in him, something for the better, something that made him contently happy.
A bottle of champagne and a bottle of tequila appeared before me like an offering to a god. Not that I was a god, at the moment I was a tired and slightly dishevelled bridesmaid. It was however the first alcohol I’d had apart from a glass of champagne with the speeches and I was feeling the need to catch up. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I said, looking up at Eli.
“It’s not all for you, you know,” he said, sitting down next to me. “Shift up and share the seat. And the champagne.”
I moved, aware of his size and his scent, which reminded me of the woods and forests, clean and musky. His leg brushed against mine and I remembered watching him playing rugby with my brothers: he was strong with cut, lean, defined muscle. “I’m happy to share. I have six siblings. If I couldn’t share I was doomed to start with.”
There was that chuckle again. “Eldest of four. I had no chance but to share, otherwise it got taken from me. You’re the youngest – everyone had to share with you.” He uncorked the champagne quietly and poured. “I guarantee you that if you drink your champagne before me, someone will come over and say, ‘let Ava have the rest of yours because she’s younger!’ Seriously, it happened all the fucking time.” He glanced up at me with a tiny smile that belied the humour beyond his annoyance.
“Eldest of four,” I said, surprised I didn’t know this already, but then why would I? “Brothers? Sisters?”
“Three sisters,” he said. “I was serious about Wednesday. I’m meeting the eldest of them, Izzy, for dinner.” He looked cranky.
“Does she live in London?”
Eli nodded and was about to speak but a loud whoop came from inside the function room that sounded suspiciously like one of my brothers.
“She lives in Highbury.” He rolled his eyes at the noise. In all likelihood, it was Seph, providing extra entertainment.
I prodded his thigh with my finger. “I’m assuming from your decided lack of enthusiasm that this isn’t going to be a highlight of your week?”
He reached to the tray and passed me a glass of champagne. “You assume right.”
We knocked the glasses together and sipped liquid, the burn and bubbles familiar as the drink slipped down my throat. It had been a steady stream of alcohol and the hit of the shot gave me a pleasant buzz. I was staying over at the venue, so I wasn’t overly concerned about having a couple of drinks. “So tell, why’s seeing Izzy not on your list of Top Ten Things to do in London this week?”
He sipped the champagne. “Because she’s going to ask me thirty dozen questions, none of which I’ll have the right answer to.”
“What’s the theme of the questions?”
He shook his head, finishing his glass and then topping up both of our glasses. “Let’s not go there. I saw Bradley at the bar. He came over and apologised.”
I frowned. “What for?”
“For assuming you were single. He then congratulated me on finding such a ‘good catch’ who was also ‘hot as fuck’.” He was deadpan as he said it.
I let my forehead hit the table, not quite enough to hurt, but dramatically enough to make Eli laugh. “Seriously? Why? Why do men still think it’s okay to talk about women like they’re some sort of trophy?” I muffled my rather loud groan with my hands.
Footsteps thudding made me look up to see two of my brothers head into the courtyard, two blondes with them. I quietened and watched as they displayed the mating rituals of peacocks; Seph trying to flex his bicep subtly and failing; Callum running fingers through his hair like a C-list movie star. I shook my head and downed another shot. “I can’t watch this,” I muttered to Eli. “It’s like a bad soap opera.”
His hand touched the small of my back, a soft pressure applying warmth through the thin material of my dress. “You should watch. It’s comedy gold.”
Pulling my head up and setting sight on the scene in front of us took a lot of effort. I’d been witness to many attempts by my brothers to entice some poor pretty girl into their beds for the night and it never became less cringeworthy to watch. “Seph’s using his reel-them-in-with-his-physique-technique,” I said in an undertone. “The poor things usually fall for it too.”
“Maybe I should take some tips from him,” Eli said.
I frowned. “What would your girlfriend say about that?” I hated cheating. If you were interested in someone else, then your current relationship wasn’t working and you needed to get out of it.
“I don’t have a girlfriend anymore.”
“Oh.”
I wasn’t sure what else to say. None of my brothers had mentioned it, but why would they? Callum chose that moment to thread his arms around his girl’s waist and pull her into him with his hands cupping her ass; Seph had slid over to a darker corner of the courtyard.
“I really can’t watch.”
There was that short laugh again. “Do you want to move back inside so you can’t see?”
