* * *
Emma
Friday night, I shuffled in well after midnight. I’d spent all evening with Nita, putting the finishing touches to the cakes for the next day, whipping cream and decanting jams into ramekins. The Cakery fridges were stacked with neatly labelled containers. When I’d left the farmhouse earlier in the evening it had looked fantastic, pretty bunting draped from every tree branch and rafter, pots with bushes in blossom and hanging baskets bursting with spring flowers filled the barn with colour. We’d borrowed every cushion from all of our respective houses, as well as the Cakery and church, and strewn them across the chairs and rugs at the far end of the barn. More cushions and picnic blankets waited to be set outside on the lawn in the morning. The signage was up ready. The menus were artfully scrawled across a chalk board. There were tables lining one side of the farmyard waiting to transform into a face-painting station, a craft stall and an information stand about ME.
Everything had been ticked off the list, which was the closest I got to perfect happiness.
That, and coming home to a bowl of chilli and a note from my husband tied to a bottle of gin with a tiny tick-list, the first few items ticked off, the last two still waiting:
Do an unbelievably amazing job getting everything ready
Complete every single item on all the other lists for today
Make everyone, especially your husband, proud of you
Have a drink, enjoy your dinner and relax
Stop worrying
Smiling despite the exhaustion seeping out from every bone, I took a generous G and T and the chilli into the living room, getting the fright of my life when a figure loomed in the shadows.
‘What?’ I stood there, hands full with the bowl and now half-empty glass, and looked down at the slop of gin now soaking my T-shirt. ‘Why are you sitting here in the dark?’
Ben clicked on the only lamp in the room, which happened to be next to his chair. He squinted at me through the sudden glare. ‘I was thinking. Hadn’t noticed how dark it got.’
‘You didn’tthinkthat lurking here might scare the life out of me?’
‘I assumed you were in bed. I didn’t hear you come in.’ He stretched his arms above his head, his crumpled T-shirt rising up to reveal three inches of stomach. I ignored it. I’d seen a lot more of him once before, after all. ‘Why didn’tyouput the light on? You’re the one creeping about in the dark, when you think about it.’
‘The kitchen lightison. And I’m the one who was going to put down her plate and glass before switching the light on in here, given that, as well as having only two hands, I’m tired and likely to be clumsy and didn’t want to end up spilling gin on my top.’
Ben eyed my top in a way that sent heat prickling across my skin.
I briefly wondered how I’d have felt if Cooper had looked at my chest like that.
‘Let’s agree mutual culpability, then. Here.’ He chucked over what looked like an old dust-rag, but turned out to be a T-shirt. It ended up draping over the glass.
‘Is that for me to change into?’
Ben grinned that grin that somehow made every transgression instantly forgivable.
‘To mop the wet patch.’
‘I’ll settle for getting changed. But thanks for being willing to donate a T-shirt to the cause.’ I turned back towards the doorway.
‘No worries, it’s Cooper’s.’
I turned back. ‘What are you doing here anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be in Mexico?’
‘I was. Now I’m back. I’d been planning on hanging around a few more days, but the wedding depressed me so much I changed my mind, rebooked my flight.’
‘Don’t you find all weddings depressing?’
‘I liked yours.’
I should have gone then. Instead I stood there in a sopping-wet top holding a bowl of congealing chilli and a half-empty glass. Waiting, I suppose, for Ben to say something that proved to me he wasn’t worth standing around waiting for.
Eventually, he shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m finding them depressing for a whole lot of different reasons these days. This couple were early forties. They’ve already been living together for well over a decade. They were clued up, morally sound, intimidatingly intelligent. Had three kids with them and both sets of parents. And they were, I don’t know.’ He shook his head, as if baffled. ‘Not just happy. I mean, theywerehappy, ridiculously so, but it was deeper than that.Content.Satisfied. Like they’d made this choice, eyes wide open. With their heads and hearts in full agreement, love and logic in perfect sync.’ He pressed his hands together to illustrate the point. ‘And they reallyworkedtogether.’
