Ryan and Jules and Mam were on the second-to-top table, where Auntie Lou could keep darting over to gossip with Mam. The three of them, along with Kellan, were clustered at the middle of the table, book-ended by crepey-faced family members, with a couple of the groom’s best friends at either end.
After the mains, the floor manager directed Freya to clear the next table over and Ryan watched her, wishing it was their table she’d been sent to. Although maybe not, since someone had brought up the story of another wedding, long ago, when Kellan had dared him to run onstage and moon the audience halfway through the best man’s speech.
A memory that neither Mam nor Ryan wanted to relive, but that Auntie Lou – who’d pulled a chair up and stage-whispered that the top table was a drag – had cackled at.
“Bless our Ry,” she said, giving him a fond look. “Never been one for behaving, have you, pet?”
Ryan tried on a smile and watched as Freya added a third plate to the stack balanced on her arm.
“It’s a shame he can’t go to Campion Boys’.” From Uncle Tim’s sister, who’d been sitting on his right and ignoring him all meal.
“We’re not Catholic, Karen,” Mam replied.
In spite of himself, Ryan exchanged a twitch of a smile with Kellan, who was as Catholic as a bear shitting on the Pope.
“But it’s such a good school and excellent on discipline. My two flourished – and look at Kellan, doing so well.”
Ryan coughed a “bollocks” that wasn’t subtle enough to go undetected. Arching wafer-thin eyebrows at him, Karen said, “Swear words are for people too illiterate to use proper ones.”
“What if I use sign language, Auntie Karen?” Ryan’s hands flew up, both middle fingers in full view.
Jules folded forward until their head rested on the tablecloth as Mam whipped her arm across the table to slap her son’s hands.
“Ryan! Apologise at once!”
“Apolo-what? That’s too long a word for me.” Ryan pushed his chair back abruptly and walked off, not caring about whatever scandal he’d left behind.
Auntie Karen was a dick.
The toilets were a better place to be than the dinner table and Ryan locked himself comfortably in one of the cubicles, burning through what little battery he had left on his phone until a message came through from Jules.
Did you drown, like?
He should go back. Sorry for ditching you.
It’s fine. Everyone’s being really nice to me – they pity me for having you as a brother.
Bet they think you’d be better off with Kellan.
They’d be very wrong then, wouldn’t they?
Sighing, Ryan gave up his peace and returned to the Speedwell Suite, where the tables had been rearranged to make room for a dancefloor and a buffet table of desserts, the centrepiece of which was a chocolate fountain surrounded by swirls of chopped fruit and marshmallows. Ryan had already helped himself to several handfuls of exclusively white marshmallows when Kellan found him.
“Excellent work at dinner, mate.” He did a chef’s kiss, blowing traces of alcohol into the air. “Made me look like a saint.”
When Kellan took a marshmallow from Ryan’s plate, he held it under the chocolate, then wiped a smear of it on Ryan’s cheek. Didn’t work when Ryan tried to do it with his finger.
The two of them stood together, watching the room, Kellan fit to walk the red carpet while Ryan looked as if he’d come dressed as his butler.
The fact that his aunt had paid for his outfit didn’t help matters.
“Jules is looking very sparkly tonight,” Kellan said out of nowhere, eyes narrowed as he stared at where Jules was dancing with Heather and a couple of her university friends, flailing around, taking the piss out of the adults.
Alcohol made Kellan more of himself. More confident, more charming, more cutting – innocent words were anything but when Ryan’s cousin smiled like that.
“Don’t start.” Ryan ground his teeth, his promise to Jules the only thing keeping his fists locked safely away in his pockets. “I’m not in the mood.”
Kellan cocked his head, eyes like ice-chips in the cool blue light over the dancefloor. Then he shrugged and reached out to hold a strawberry under the fountain.
“You know what I am in the mood for?” he said, looking round the room with interest. “Sex with my ex.”
Ryan thought about saying nothing. Ignored his own advice.
“Leave her alone, Kellan. She’s working.”
“So?”
“So shagging one of the wedding guests on her break might get her fired.” He should leave it there… “Assuming she’d even want to.”
Kellan laughed, loud and cruel. “Of course she’d want to. She always does when I’m the one asking, she’s—”
“Shut up.”
Kellan’s grin only grew wider – like he’d found what he’d been hunting for in a place he’d not expected.
“I’ll talk about her however I like.”
Ryan’s hand flashed out to grip his cousin’s jaw, squeezing it tight enough that he could feel Kellan’s teeth through his cheek.
“Rethink what you’re saying.”
Beyond them, the dancefloor was a frenzy of movement, of arms in the air, people singing along, too absorbed in the music to notice what was happening by the dessert table.
Ryan held Kellan there a moment, not knowing what would come next until it happened. Until he had enough control to let go and lower his hand.
Only Kellan had to push. Had to lean in and whisper what would happen when he got Freya alone…
He only had himself to blame for making it all too easy for Ryan to shove his smug head into the chocolate fountain.
Mam could (and did) blame Ryan’s dad for a lot of his worst failings, but his temper came from her. Rage was what drove her, made her bloody-minded and bold.
Not a force to be reckoned with so much as flattened by.
Being out in the corridor with her was terrifying and Ryan pressed his back against the wall, feeling an intense pity for all the people who paid her to yell at them as they sobbed through their sit-ups.
“Every time – like you can’t help ruining everything.” Ryan set his jaw and avoided her eye. “Could you maybe think of anyone other than yourself? Kellan’s family, he’s your cousin, my sister’s son—”
“Oh my God! Kellan this, Kellan that – why can no one else see that he’s an absolute tool?”
“Because he’s not the one who gave an old woman the finger and tried to drown the bride’s brother in a chocolate fountain!” she screamed back at him, face contorted so that if she hadn’t been shouting, Ryan would have thought she was crying.
“Maybe I had a good reason—”
“I. Don’t. Care.” She brought her hands up to her head, nails scraping into her scalp. The hair she’d spent so long styling coming loose with frustration. “All I want is for you to stop being such an absolute arsehole at every possible opportunity.”
“Tell that to Kellan!”
“Kellan isn’t my son—”
“Bet you wish he fucking was!” The words tore out of him, louder and more violent than all the others, his throat ripping with the force of it.