He chuckled. He had the audacity tochuckle.
‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ he said. ‘There are other friends I could ask – male friends – but… the whole idea behind a best man is that they’re the person you trust the most. And you’re my best friend, Lily. There’s no one I trust more than you.’
He smiled at me. He looked so happy it made me want to rip my eyes out.
Oh god. Ohgod.
‘Obviously I’ll be your best man,’ I said, because what the fuck else was I supposed to do? What the fuck else was I supposed to say? ‘But I have conditions. Number one, I want to wear a suit.’
9LilyNine years ago
Weddings weren’t my thing – so manyfeelings,ugh – but as far as weddings went, Murray and Julia’s was lovely.
I leaned against the bar at the reception, watching Murray slow dance with the new almost-Dr Scott-O’Connell. He was holding her close, one hand pressed into the small of her back, one curled possessively against the nape of her neck, fingers playing in some loose tendrils of her hair.
He caught my eye over her shoulder and winked. I smiled back and saluted him with my almost-empty glass of wine.
It was all right. Really.
At the end of the day, nothing between us was going to change. We were even shifting jobs together. The forbidden love story of Jonno and Harriet had been such a TV sensation that we’d been headhunted by the Romeo and Juliet franchise. We’d be shooting our first season pretty much as soon as Murray and Julia got back from their honeymoon.
He was still my best friend. He was still my partner. A ring on his finger affected none of that. I had lost nothing.
It was a compelling story, but I hadn’t quite managed to sell it to myself yet. I’d been trying to work on my innate territorialism – the fact that it had taken Thuong and Michael literal years to tell me they were in a relationship because they were worried I might think I was losing them to each other had led to my most sustained flirtation ever with therapy – but I was going to have to work harder, because the knowledge that Murray was going to peel that wedding dress off his bride later was like fingernails scraping across a blackboard in my mind.
I finished my glass of wine and turned around. ‘Can I get another of these, please?’ I asked the bartender.
‘Hey.’ Murray appeared beside me, a little breathless. ‘Come and dance with me.’
‘You know I don’t dance,’ I said. ‘It’s the only thing I’m worse at than cooking.’
‘Not even today? Not even with me?’
‘I think there’s a different woman you should be dancing with.’
‘She’s dancing with her dad. Please?’
I sighed, gave in, and let him lead me to the dance floor.
It was a slow song, thank god. There was no way Murray ever would have lured me out there for a fast one. One hand settled on my waist – lightly, impersonally, like I was his sister – and he took one of my hands with his other one.
‘So I think you’ve revolutionised the best man speech,’ he said. ‘That was awesome. Thank you.’
I gave him one of my sunnier smiles. ‘Everyone will be getting hot girl best men soon. It’ll be a whole thing.’
‘I was thinking about how we could incorporate it into the Romeo and Juliet shows. Their whole structure is based on romantic rituals, right? The best man speech is a classic, so—’
I let go of his hand and flicked him between the eyebrows. ‘Stop it, Murray. Stop thinking about work at your own wedding.’
‘I don’t know how to.’ Murray looked a little sheepish. ‘Part of me is always thinking about it. Julia’s the same. No matter what she’s doing, at least twenty-five per cent of her mind is on her research.’
Ugh. He just had to rub it in, his perfect happiness with a perfect woman who wasn’t me.
‘Of course,’ he added, ‘the other seventy-five per cent is focused on destroying Elias.’
And he had to remind me that I actually fuckingliked her.
‘You really love her, don’t you?’
