Her smile doesn’t falter, but something calculating flickers in her eyes.
“You think you’re on abreak?” I add sweetly, sipping my drink. “Didn’t you finish years ago? Bit of a long timeout.”
Helen’s smile turns surgical. “Years? No, darling. Try six months ago.”
My stomach plummets. What the actual fuck?
Her voice is sugar and spite, each word dropped like a perfectly timed mic-drop. “I suppose he forgot to mention that. Tyler can be very… focused when he’s chasing his next distraction.”
I stiffen.
Helen’s eyes slide over me, appraising, like she’s wondering if I’d make a decent handbag.
“You’re charming, Hayley,” she says finally, the wordcharmingsounding like a consolation prize. “In a chaotic, romcom-blooper-reel sort of way. But Tyler’s tastes usually run a little more… polished.”
Her smile settles into something worse, pity. “It’s brave to keep hoping at this stage, isn’t it?”
The pity lands like a slap.
She takes one step back, casual, sipping her drink like she hasn’t just filleted me with a few well-chosen words.
“Anyway, darling, you’re not really his type. And you don’t exactly have thecasualphysique.”
Fucking cow. If I had a sword, it’d be duel-at-dawn time.
My chest tightens. My throat burns. She tilts her head, glittering eyes raking me up and down with surgical precision, then glides away, leaving behind nothing but perfume and the echo of every insecurity I’ve ever had.
I stand frozen, heart pounding, swallowing the lump in my throat.
Six months.
Not several years. Not some distant ex filed under ‘ancient history.’
He didn’t tell me.
And despite every rational part of me screaming that I shouldn’t care, it sits deep. Heavy. Familiar in all the places I pretend don’t hurt.
Then…
A voice slices through the static in my head.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Peacock, pieced together, once again in full theatrical glory, appears at the edge of the room. “Our beloved couple, Lily and Ben, have requested a brief pause in tonight’s theatrics.”
He spins on the spot, robes flaring like he’s Willy Wonka auditioning to play a young Henry Tudor (VII or VIII, I doubt even he cares). “They would like to have their first dance this evening. So, if you would all kindly make some room and find your partners…”
He winks.
“…we’ll be time-travelling all the way to…Taylor Swift.”
A ripple of laughter moves through the crowd as bodies shuffle politely towards the edge of the floor.
The opening chords of “Lover”float into the air, gentle and dreamlike. Taylor’s voice wraps around the room, unbearably tender.
The dance floor clears, and Lily appears, barefoot, glowing, tulle dress wrinkled and stained but somehow still perfect. Ben takes her hand, pulling her in like he still can’t believe he gets to.
And then they begin to dance, moving as if the rest of the room has fallen away. There’s an intimacy to it, a private world they’ve built in the middle of the room, and I almost feel like an intruder just standing here. Like I’ve stumbled into someone else’s dream and stayed too long.
I don’t realise my eyes are pooling until I blink and a tear slips free.
