I’m thinking the same, but I can’t say that. Instead, I call back to Holly who has followed us as far as the doorway. ‘Tell Nigel we’re off for a quick toilet stop.’ I turn to Cally. ‘If we whip you round the outside and straight upstairs, no one will be any the wiser.’
She blows out a breath. ‘I shouldn’t have made Nigel tip me upside down. He knew we were pushing it.’
After eleven chocolate puddings most people would have barfed without being tipped upside down, but I can’t say that. ‘Don’t worry, Cally, it’s only a bit of sick. I’m your bridesmaid for the day, I’ve got this.’
I’ve got no idea what I’m going to do. But someone has to sort it, and this one’s down to me.
Chapter 15
Later still that Saturday.
The Waterfront Marina Hotel.
Salvage teams and rescue remedy.
‘So brides change dresses?’
This is Nic and I’m looking over his shoulder from the bar where we’re sitting with Cally and Nigel, watching the dancing guests across the room and pondering our umpteenth cocktail. Put it this way, Nigel’s parents’ friends would never have been jumping around this enthusiastically to cellos and clarinets. And considering how happy Nic’s been to blank out all things bridal thus far, surely a few more hours’ silence would not have been too much to hope for from him.
I give a silent groan. ‘Why the sudden interest, Nic?’ As Cally and I seem to be getting away with our makeshift mix-and-match outfit swaps, it’s hardly the ideal moment for him to start scrutinising the details.
To have any hope of Cally saving the dress to wear again in New York, the only option was to seal the whole lot in a plastic bag and courier it straight over to Iron Maiden’s dry cleaners in St Aidan for an immediate emergency clean. Which left Cally coming out of the shower ten minutes later with a pair of seam-free Calvin Klein pants, two nipple shields and the belt which by some miracle escaped the carnage.
Sacrifice and resourcefulness are what being a bridesmaid is about. So I whipped my lace dress straight off and handed over my satin underdress. You could probably fit two of Cally inside mine, but after we’d made pleats in the side seams, and pulled it all together with the beaded belt clasped around her ribs, thanks to the beautiful bias cut of Sera’s dresses the fabric fell in folds like a lustrous waterfall. The super-sophisticated dark cream satin was set off so wonderfully by the tiny gold shaded beads of the belt, there was very little to give away that this wasn’t what had been planned all along.
Which left me with one see-through lace over-layer for myself. I added the cream slip I’d been wearing under my make-up robe, turned inside out to hide the silver #TeamBride printing. With my cleavage hidden inside the slip, it was one of those swings and roundabout times, when masses more leg on show through the lace is nothing like as bad as it could be now my boobs are properly under wraps. Unless I turn up for the evening reception in my pleather skirt, this is as good as it’s going to get. Since we’ve been back perching at the cocktail bar, Cally’s already had loads of compliments on her outfit change, so that’s our story and we’re sticking to it. If you say something enough times with conviction, you start to believe it too. As for finding the bright side, yet again, we were damned lucky.
And that’s the other tricky thing. Where everyone on #TeamBride is in on Cally’s secret, Nige hasn’t yet shared it with anyone on #TeamGroom. If Nic had half an idea what was going on here, he might shut up.
He stares at me over his cocktail as he swirls the blue liquid with the stick. ‘Do you know how contrary you are, Milla?’
‘Excuse me?’ My gasp is so big I hiccough. ‘That’s quite a challenging statement, Nicolson, you might need to back it up.’
He looks completely certain of himself. ‘You spend weeks pressuring me to take notice of weddings, then the moment I do, you don’t want to know. It’s the same with your heels.’
‘How do shoes come into this?’ My voice is an octave higher than I’m expecting. I’ll put that down to the shock and quite a few too many margaritas.
He pulls a face. ‘Every guy appreciates a heel, but the second I flag up that yours are extreme enough to constitute a danger in the workplace, you come back in higher ones still.’ He takes a sip of his drink. ‘How you haven’t broken your neck on those shop stairs I’ll never know.’
‘Years of practice.’ I’m not going to tell him how hard it’s been, or that I’ve taken them off when he’s not around. But it’s sinking in how wrong I’ve had this. And if I’ve got this totally back-to-front, what else have I ballsed up? I’m smiling very brightly. ‘As Phoebe says, a heel can never be too high.’
Nic frowns. ‘And who the hell is Phoebe?’
Strange how I’d momentarily forgotten he didn’t know her. ‘She’s my super-intelligent business partner – the one with all the knowledge.’
‘And have you ever considered the possibility that your “super” esteemed colleague Phoebe is talking bollocks?’
I’m staring at him. ‘Totally not.’ I have to throw it in because I know he’ll be impressed. ‘She’s got qualifications.’
‘What, diplomas in bullshit?’ He’s still not done. ‘Anyway, back to you being contrary, I have one best man duty left today, and now you refuse to go anywhere near the dance floor.’
Which is something else entirely. The trouble with that is, however infuriating and spoken-for Nic might be in real life, and however rude he is, thanks to me having the old mojito goggles clamped firmly over my eyes, with every new cocktail I knock back Nic and his tux are becoming more and more delicious … to the point of being irresistible. Right now, all I’m getting are the hollows of his cheeks and the stubble shadows on his jaw. And the dent at the base of his throat that looks like it’s crying out for me to put my finger in it. And possibly my tongue too.
Whatever my intentions of skipping Happy Hour, there have been more than a few cocktails. Cally’s and my latest arrangement is simple, fool proof, and guaranteed to work. We sit together with our drinks between us. I sip from alternate glasses and Cally waves hers around but doesn’t drink from either, and both drinks gradually disappear. Sure, I’m drinking when I hadn’t intended to. But the night is almost over, so as long as I pace myself, it’s a considered risk I’m happy to take. And if I’m brutally honest, when I threw back the first cocktail, the ache in my chest for my own lost wedding eased so much I couldn’t wait to start on the next. The only unforeseen drawback is the horribly misdirected alcohol-induced urges I’m getting. And the floor in the loos that was swaying uncontrollably last time we went. But that’s way better now we’re back sitting down on our bar chairs again.
As for this irrational compulsion to hurl myself at a guy, I can’t say it’s anything I’ve ever felt before, even in my wildest partying years. Lots of couples talk about the time when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, but I always assumed Ben and I had sidestepped that because when we got together it wasn’t as if our eyes met across a crowded room and we were helpless to resist. It was more that we got inadvertently roped together and dragged along because of where Phoebe was going.
As a teenager she’d done that ridiculous thing where she decided she’d be married by the time she was twenty-six come hell or high water. As she’d just blown out twenty-five candles on her birthday cake and was still flying solo, she was ramping up the effort. Panicking even.
