‘Better you than Todd,’ I murmur under my breath.
I glance over at Todd and Nikki, who are choosing to drink instead of dance. They don’t look like they’re having fun – they don’t even look happy – and you might think I’d be happy to see it, but I guess I’m not. They just did so much to be together, they caused so much trouble, hurt people, and for what? If they don’t even stay together then what was the point?
Neil dances me off to the side, over by the pool, away from the others, just enough for us to talk.
‘You’re really bringing out the best in him, you know,’ he says into my ear. ‘I know he’s been really stressed.’
‘Brody? Stressed?’ I reply.
‘Yeah, don’t worry, he confided in me, I know all about it,’ he replies – obviously assuming I’m covering for him.
‘Oh,’ I say – well, what else can I say? I didn’t know he was stressed.
‘It’s okay, you don’t have to pretend with me,’ he reassures me. ‘He told me. I know it’s the press stuff getting to him. The constant stories. All the stuff that went down when he and Nikkisplit. I mean, I’m not surprised he wonders if she tipped them off. How else would the papers know it ended because he wouldn’t settle down?’
Wow, I didn’t know he was going through all that. I knew that the press gave him a hard time, and that he didn’t like the publicity, but I didn’t know they knew about his break-up. I suppose I should count myself lucky that the goss on my break-up didn’t reach far beyond the wedding where it went down.
‘Front pages. Comment sections. Everyone calling him a bad boy, a lad, man-child who can’t commit,’ he continues. ‘I know it gets under his skin. I tell him not to read any of it. I imagine you do the same?’
‘Erm, yeah,’ I reply.
I don’t know what else to say. Wow, poor Brody, carrying all of that around with him without letting on. I know, he’s got big shoulders to carry it, but it must weigh heavy on him sometimes.
He seems so big, so impossible to knock down. Like nothing could actually hurt him – but I suppose that’s only physically. There’s no gym for your emotions, is there? If there were I might actually entertain that one. I often tell myself I’d be invincible, if I didn’t cry at videos of dogs doing absolutely anything or feel annoyed over… well, again, absolutely anything.
I’m not surprised though. I’ve seen his softer side while we’ve been pretending to be together. Yes, he’s got the charm, the bravado – everything you’d expect of a sportsman who spends his days surrounded by bros, but I see his softer side in the things he says to me, the way he cares – the fact he still dances with his gran. He’s Brody Ryan… although to his gran I guess he’s just cute little Brody. That’s what he is to me too, kind of, because I had no idea who he was, or what he was, and even now I do know it doesn’t really mean much to me. Obviously I think it’s amazing, that that’s his job, that he got to where he is, but I could never be drawn to him just because he has a good job. He’s so much more than his job, than what the press writes about him.
‘Mind if I cut in?’ Brody asks, interrupting our conversation. ‘I think your wife-to-be is getting jealous.’
‘She’s getting jealous, huh?’ Neil says with a wink. ‘Sure thing.’
‘Hello, Mr Ryan, children’s party planner extraordinaire,’ I tease him.
‘Hello, princess,’ he replies. ‘Fancy a roll around in the ball pool?’
‘The words every girl wants to hear,’ I reply.
‘So what were you two talking about?’ he asks curiously.
‘Oh, this, that, the other,’ I say vaguely.
‘Me then?’ he replies.
I laugh.
‘Neil and Kelsey clearly think really highly of you,’ I tell him.
‘You sound surprised…’
‘I am,’ I confess. ‘I know we met under… unusual circumstances.’
‘Like you thinking I was the valet and making me park your car?’ he replies.
I pull a fake pouty face.
‘I thought you just really wanted to drive a Fiat 500!’ I reply.
‘If anything, it drove me,’ he tells me. ‘Or did you mean me pulling you out of a dirty fountain, after you kneecapped someone for a bouquet of flowers?’
