Tom approaches me now, the way I imagine members of the RSPCA approach an agitated animal. With trepidation, his words careful, nervous. Almost the way the pharmacist’s assistant spoke to Louise last week when I took her in the wheelchair to pick up her prescription. Polite enough, but with a hint of pity. And I thought as we’d walked away, “No wonder she never goes out.”
“Happy with how it turned out, yeah, Emmie?” he says now, standing at the ballroom’s long arc of a bar. “Totally,” I tell him. And I am. I really am. It’s very Lucas and it’s very Marie. White and shiny and modern and opulent. That’s the word for this venue. Opulent. Huge chandeliers glitter from high ceilings, twists and delicate showers of fairy lights illuminate the room like tiny stars, and tuxedoed waitstaff flit wordlessly about the room. It looks more like a wedding than a joint stag and hen party. The only thing that takes it away from looking like a wedding is the lack of tables and chairs. There is a huge, shining dance floor, a DJ, and just two long banquet tables. One dressed in black and white, like a tuxedo, and the other donned with white fur and gems. One for the stags. One for the hens. I just don’t know where I am supposed to sit…
“You’ve done an amazing job, Tom,” I say, and he nods woodenly.
“And you too,” he says. “Lucille’s singer friend arrived awhile ago, by the way. She did a warm-up. Sounds good.”
“And what about the pop-punk band? For Luke?”
“All here and counted for. They sound mega. Eliot’s out back with them, going over their list. They have a set list of twelve, then it’ll be the DJ. You might want to have a look over their list, just to be sure, but I’ve chosen mostly crowd-pleasers, and some songs I know Luke loves. Eliot’s looking it over.” He gives me a look that’s an almost eye roll, as if to say, “I don’t know what it’s got to do with him.” “Anyway. I’m just going to see where they are. Should be here soon.”
I stand alone at the bar for a moment, my hand resting on the smooth counter. My stomach fizzes at the idea of seeing Eliot for the first time since that moment on Louise’s drive. What if it’s awkward? What if he’s with Ana, and he told her about that moment on the drive—that I was so close to him, inches from his lips? What if that moment was all me—me reading it wrong—and now I’ve made him feel weird about us? But he asked me if I wanted him to stay, didn’t he? God. You’d think after weeks and weeks of me asking myself (and Rosie and Fox, of course) these questions, I’d feel clearer about it all. But I don’t. Not even close. A waiter places down an ice bucket beside me and I consider, for a moment, sinking my head into it.
I find Eliot where Tom said he would be: out back, hunched over a piece of paper. When Eliot sees me, he smiles warmly, and stands. Broad shoulders beneath a fitted dark shirt, open at the collar, straight-legged, black trousers. Strong. Tall. Unmistakable, this somersaulting in my stomach at the sight of him.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hey you,” he says, eyes flicking for a small second over my dress. “You look amazing.”
“Do you think? I was iffy, about it being black, like maybe I was dressed for a wake or something, but—”
“Nailed it,” he says, teeth grazing his lip. “Completely.”
I can’t bring myself to hold his gaze, so I look down at my feet. “You’ve nailed it yourself,” I say. Because he has. He looks gorgeous.
“Thanks.” He nods. “It’s been a while.”
“I know.”
“What have I missed?” he asks softly.
“Not a lot, actually,” I say. “Work. The usual. And you? How was Luxembourg?”
This feels like a dance, asking pointless, polite questions, avoiding the burning coals at our feet: that moment on Louise’s drive. The weeks we’ve gone, barely speaking.
“Ah,” he says, hand coming up to his chin, fingers on neat, dark stubble. “I didn’t go to Luxembourg. I spent it in Le Touquet, at Mum’s, alone.” He gives an awkward grin that’s almost a grimace. “Me and Ana, we… we’re taking some time out. Well, that’s the polite term for it, I suppose.”
“Oh,” I say, and silence stretches between us like elastic. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he says. “It’s been a long time coming. Sometimes you don’t realize how you feel till something shines a light on it. You know?”
“Yes,” I say. “I get that.”
Nobody says anything else, and I struggle to not blurt everything desperate to break free. I want to ask him why, and what taking some time means. I want to tell him I’ve missed him, and that I have typed out a text to him every single day, but not been able to send it. I want to ask him if he meant what he said, on the drive. If he’d have stayed with me, for Christmas, if I’d asked him to. But I don’t. Instead I clear my throat, clap my hands together, and say, “So, expert opinion please. Do I sit at Marie’s table, with all the girls, or do I sit at the black, tuxedo table among all the testosterone and man-spreading?”
And like the mood dispersed as my hands clamped together, Eliot laughs.
“Tough one, Em,” he says, closing the gap between us. “I mean, if I have my way, you’ll sit with me,” he says ducking his head, eyes on mine. “I’m not getting stuck with Tom or that ridiculous boss of Lucas’s with the eyebrows, who goes on about getting mistaken for Brad Pitt but actually looks like—”
“An armpit?”
“Weak,” laughs Eliot, shaking his head. “So weak. But surprisingly accurate.”
Tom, flustered, his cheeks the color of pomegranates, appears in the doorway. “They’re here,” he says. “Just pulled up.”
Eliot turns to me. “Time to go greet the bride- and groom-to-be,” he says. “You ready, Flower?”
* * *
The party is in full swing, the music loud, and tables littered with empty, sauce-smeared plates and half-full glasses.
Lucas and Marie were welcomed into the ballroom the way a bride and groom are when they enter the reception for the first time. And their joy was unmistakable as they walked in, both of them holding on to each other, gasping, gawping, their eyes traveling around the room in amazement.
Lucas grabbed Tom into a rough, tight, rugby hug when he arrived, then ran toward me—actually sprinted—and threw his arms around me, lifting me from the ground.
“Em, this is fucking awesome,” he spoke into my ear. “The band. There’s an actual band.”
“I couldn’t resist. Eliot helped me,” I told him, and I think that was the moment I have loved more than anything, tonight, watching Eliot put his hand out to shake Lucas’s, before Lucas pulled him in for a hug, and not like the one he gave Tom. This was a still, slow hug, ending with two rough fist-pats on the back. Two brothers. Too much time between them passed, for silly, drunken mistakes to have the clout they once had. Because so much time had passed since then. We have all changed; are still changing.
There was a warbling, rambling speech from Tom, who talked mostly, for some reason, about the women he and Lucas had hooked up with in their very short traveling days and the unexpected safety of the yurt they’d slept in; and then Marie stood up and did a quick toast, when she even mentioned me, holding her hand out to me across the table—the “girls” table, where I was swiftly put by Lucille, directly opposite Eliot, across the way on the boys’ table. And who kept texting me from the other side of the room. During dinner, he’d sent: