I feel him trying hard to use the words I want him to use. To be the person I want him to be. It hurts, him thinking I might judge him—and the strength of our relationship—based on which adjective he chooses.
“I mean, you always look beautiful,” Rory clarifies. “No matter what you’re wearing.”
“You’re allowed to think I look better dressed up with makeup on than in my retainer and zit cream,” I tease, though I’m drinking in the compliment like a glass of lemonade.
“But I don’t think that,” he protests. “I think you’re equally beautiful all the time.” We both seem a bit taken aback at how many times he’s used the wordbeautifulin the past minute.
“You look rather smart yourself,” I say, taking in his sleek suit ensemble. It’s an old suit but impeccably ironed, and it makes me glad I’m not with someone who has money to splurge on whatever he wants. Rory takes care of his things, and I like the metaphor as it applies to love—investing in what you already have and making it last a while, versus casting it aside to buy some new, flashier version.
He did buy a new tie for the occasion, though, and spent an hour at a formal wear shop, comparing all the different shades of yellow to ensure he chose the one that most precisely matched my dress.
I want to kiss him, but I resist because I know he doesn’t like getting lipstick on him, so I just give his hand a squeeze. It makes me smile to myself that the best way I can express my love for him right now is not to kiss him.
Heading out of the inn, we make our way over toward the village hall where the ceremony is taking place, just on the other side of the river. It’s a dry but overcast day, with a lukewarm breeze. Pausing on the arched stone bridge, I look out over the water. Families of ducks and paired-up swans swim idly along the gray, glassy surface. Willow trees swoop playfully, lightly brushing the water in the breeze. The locals we pass smile and say hello, a welcome change from the London brusqueness.
“I like it here,” Rory decides. “Reminds me of home. Everyone’s super nice, and no one’s in a rush.”
“Except me,” I note, furiously speed-walking to our destination, my ankles wobbling in my heels. Rory keeps up easily, bouncing along with his reliably springy step.
The ceremony is taking place in the back garden of the village hall, a historic sandstone manor house nestled right against the river. White folding chairs are sinking into the spongy grass, and a wooden arbor stands at the front, adorned with colored Christmas bulbs that ooze Jules-related joy. The gardens are teeming with pink heather and purple irises. It strikes me as one of my favorite things about England, how the mild climate allows for flowers to bloom year-round.
It’s not a large wedding—under a hundred people—and it makes me preemptively nostalgic. Like it’s one of those days I’ll look back on in a decade or two as a souvenir from a prior era when I was close friends with someone I haven’t seen in years.
Jules’s grandmother, a feisty old Irish woman with a fabulous Shirley Temple wig and a pint of Guinness in hand, serves as the usher. “TheAmericanshave arrived!” she proclaims, overly enthralled by our accents as she proceeds to ask all about life across the pond. (“Have you ever been toNew York City? Is it true you eatplasticcheese? I had a friend named Annie marry anAmerican. Have you ever met an Annie Morgan? No, that was hermaidenname—what was her new second name? Drat, it’s slipped my mind. It’ll come back to me, it will do.”)
With a swift flick of her cane, she shoos me along to join the wedding party inside the hall and points Rory to his seat. Before I even have time to apologize for my tardiness, a modern remix of aclassic wedding song starts playing over the speakers, and I follow the queue of bridesmaids down the aisle, taking my place beside the arbor and waiting for the brides.
Jules struts out first, wearing a white tuxedo and a massive smile, her curly red hair wild and free. Her freckles and nose ring—a crystal hoop today—are as prominent as ever, and I’m glad she hasn’t toned herself down. Nina follows, in an ivory lace dress with a braided chignon and the aura of a Greek goddess.
Far from being a comedy sketch, Jules’s vows end up leaving half the guests in tears, with their tenderness. I choke up during the part when she says she was never good at maths, but she finally understands how, when you meet the right person, one plus one is more than two. I look over at Rory. He’s not tearing up, but he’s leaning forward in his chair, like he wants to be careful to catch every word.
After the ten-minute ceremony, we gather for drinks and a Sunday roast-style dinner, which Jules admits she cooked half of to ease the pre-wedding jitters. Once we’re filled up on meats, potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding (Jules had vegetarian options for Rory as well), we return to the garden for dancing. The chairs have been moved aside, and a portable dance floor rolled out. In an extemporaneous first dance, Nina swirls lithely around the checkered tile while Jules claps and shimmies in place, both of them dripping with delight.
Rory and I join in on the next song. We’re not drunk from booze, just buzzed from love. Loosening his tie and collar, Rory shows a carefree side I haven’t seen before, spinning me around as we make up dance moves on the spot. It’s that uninhibited typeof dancing I haven’t given into for so long. The silly sort of thing I could never get away with if I were with an aristocrat.
It feels like we’re skipping on bright, fluffy clouds, the kind that the sun can’t keep from seeping out from. Everything is beautiful. True love is alive and well. Its light has landed on Jules and Nina, and it’s found Rory and me, too, despite my best efforts to push it away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Some songs later, Jules comes bounding over, face aglow with sweat and smeared glittery eyeshadow, breath reeking of whiskey. “You look smashing together,” she slurs loudly. “Glad you put an end to thatjust friendskerfuffle. And just think about it, if I ’adn’t told you to invite ’im to Thanksgiving, where would you be now?” She looks imploringly at us, supremely satisfied with herself.
“We owe it all to you,” I deadpan as Rory grins along.
“I’ve got ter tell you, Kat,” she carries on. “When you said you were going to marry that sod on the bus, I thought you’d lost the plot and were a proper lump of school—fool. But it actually was love at first sight after all, hey?”
I try to change the subject because this is the last thing I want to talk about in front of Rory. He’s better off not knowing about my obsession with Alexander. It’s irrelevant now, and it would just confuse him.
But Jules is babbling on and on, her mouth a leaky faucet. “’Ow many weeks were you watching ’im go by before you actually got on that bus?” she asks me, resting an arm on my shoulder for a crutch or camaraderie, I’m not sure which. “Going on and on about Alexander this and Alexander that. Swore you were mad, I did. But you trusted your intuition, and after a few twists and turns, it’s all worked out. I’m bloody glad you’re just Rory, though, not Prince Alexander,” she says to Rory. “The lad would’ve been a posh prat, no doubt of that.” With that, Jules mutters something about needing to leg it to the bog, then makes a beeline for the toilets.
“What was she talking about?” Rory asks. “Who’s Alexander?”
I want to tell him that I have no idea. That Jules is just drunk and talking nonsense. I want to deny the whole thing and say that the first time I’d ever seen Rory was the day I got on the bus and sat next to him.
But like always, my fatal flaw with Rory is also my greatest gift. I can’t lie to him. So I rush out the next words, hoping to get them out and over with as quickly as possible.
“I might’ve seen you pass by my flat a few times,” I confess. “Before we met. And you … caught my eye, and I had a crush. So I told Jules about you and started to refer to you as Alexander because I didn’t know your name.”
The crease between Rory’s eyebrows deepens. He waves me off the dance floor, so I follow him away from the crowd, over to a cast-iron bench overlooking the river. Night has fallen, and the river gleams under the glow of the wedding lights, plus the half-moon hanging up in the sky.
