Would I joke about something as serious as a wedding gift? Or love?
I stare down at my phone, not sure whether to laugh or succumb to an aneurism.
Flynn...I type out.You fucker.
Keir...
Hitting call, I step out into the hallway.
‘I asked you to choose something from the registry, pay for it with the credit card, then have it wrapped, delivered, and all that shit. Not for you to wind me up, you arsehole.’
‘Who’s winding you up?’ he replies in a cool tone. ‘I did as you asked. I also picked up your shirts from the cleaners, plus the kilt you’re wearing. I mowed your lawns, got the electrician in to fix the broken light in the pool, paid for a term of Sorcha’s gourmet school lunches...’
‘You didn’t mow the lawn. You just paid the landscape company bill.’
‘I pay all your bills. Sort out any maintenance issues in your home—everything. In fact, why don’t you shove a broom up my arse, and I can sweep the floor as I’m running around after you?’
‘You shouldn’t give me ideas,’ I half huff, half laugh. ‘Come on, man. A cock ring?’
‘What can I tell you? It was on the registry.’
‘How is it a gift? A his-and-her gift?’
‘I dunno. Ask the people who chose it. It’s got a pearl,’ he then says, apropos of nothing. ‘A vibrating pearl.’Oh. Well then.
‘You’re a bastard.’ And I’m laughing.
‘And this is payback for my birthday.’
‘You asked for a stripper,’ I reply, trying not to laugh. And mostly winning.
‘Not a bloke! And definitely not one as old as my grandad!’
Ah, that was at least one laugh for the day. I can’t imagine there’ll be many more. The last thing I want to do is spend my Saturday at a wedding—especially at a wedding of someone I have a less than fabulous connection to—when I have a child with chickenpox at home. Yep, the vomiting turned to a mild fever, and a fever into a rash, and a week later, poor wee Sorcha looks like something from a plague painting. So yes, I could think of other places I’d rather be than at the wedding of a girl whose father was intent on driving me insane.
‘Keir!’ Joe, the man in question, slaps me on the back in one of those manly, magnanimousI’m so machogestures. ‘So pleased you could make it.’
Like I had any choice. We still haven’t agreed on a price for the parcel of land he owns—land I need. Land he’s using to worm his way in on the deal. A daughter he’s using to get in on my business.
Not happening, Joe. Not in a million years.
‘Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,’ I say, stretching the truth like an elastic band. Hopefully one that won’t ping me in the arse later. Seriously, I’d rather be at home dabbing calamine lotion on Sorcha’s scabs. Yep, I’m justthatexcited to be here, and I don’t give a fuck if he has “dropped a hundred and fifty k on the day”.
Claridge’s ballroom sparkles in its Art Deco splendour, mirrors lining the walls reflecting the opulence by candlelight. Tables heavy with linens, silverware, and glass stand behind us, a dance floor constructed in front.
‘Doesn’t she look a picture?’ I follow Joe’s beady gaze to the top table beyond the dance floor where his elder daughter and her new husband sit.
‘Aye, she’s a bonny girl. He’s a lucky man.’ I take a sip from my whisky, washing down the lie. Not that his daughter doesn’t make a beautiful bride—she does. But weddings are complete shite as far as I’m concerned.
Love is blind, or so they say. But there’s nothing like a divorce to sort your eyesight out.
‘He is lucky.’ Frowning, Joe pulls the snowy white handkerchief from his top pocket, dabbing the sweat from his shiny forehead. ‘He’s also pissed—drunk from too much champagne.’
That’s not true, and I think we both know that because the groom is off his face. I saw him doing a couple of lines in the toilets not twenty minutes ago.
‘These creative types, eh?’ he says, almost as though he’s read my mind.
Joe might’ve mentioned once or a hundred times that the groom is the front man for a boy band. Not that he looks very boyish right now, but I suppose a hundred quid a day habit is bound to leave you looking a bit worse for wear.
