Nancy interjected. 'I don’t know, maybe, you know, some people might think that it was a bit strange.'
Nina wasadamantabout wearing the dress. She was also more or less certain that Robby would be fine with it, too, otherwise she’d wouldn’t have brought it back to Lovely Bay. Right from the word go, when she’d first blurted out about Andrew, they’d talked about him and how it affected her. It had never been a problem between them. She nodded. 'No, I think it will be fine. In fact, I think he will be pleased about it. It’s not as if Andrew is anything bad from my past.’
‘Totally agree,' Colin said and clapped his hands together. 'I literally can’t wait for this wedding. It’s going to be such a good party. Our Robby and our Nina, the love story of the century.'
‘Aww, thanks. It feels that way for me, too.’
It was later on that evening, and Nina again found herself on the riverboat. Only this time, it was Clive in charge. He chatted away to Nina who was on her way to the stop nearest Robby's office.
After disembarking, she strolled along in the twilight, thought more about the dress, and wondered how Robby was going to take it. About ten minutes later, she approached Robby’s office building and shuddered as she remembered what had happened when she'd first been going out with him a year before. She had popped down to his office to surprise him and had inadvertently overheard him talking to someone. She'd assumed that the person he'd been talking about was her and had been devastated to hear him say that he and her were just a casual thing.
Luckily, he'd been talking about someone else. It had been the first blip in their relationship and more or less the only one. Since then, they'd had a few little spats here and there, the oddbickering about something small and insignificant, but mostly, their relationship had just pottered along nice and comfortably, just as she liked it and wanted it to remain. She hoped the dress wasn’t going to cause him to be upset. She didn’t think so otherwise she wouldn’t have gone ahead with it. She thought that she knew him well and it would be fine.
Robby had been away working on an office block on the outskirts of Bath. She walked around the back, opened the door, and found him at the end of the corridor, sitting in his office at the computer. He got up from the desk, kissed her on the cheek, and smiled. 'How was it? How did you get on at the flat? Everything all good there?'
'Yep, everything was fine.’
‘Did you bump into Mrs Gilbert?'
'No.' Nina chuckled. 'I ran across the landing to the sound of Radio 4 and made sure that I kept well out of her way.'
'How was it in the loft?' Robby asked, cutting straight to the chase.
Nina smiled and raised her eyebrows. She blinked a few times. 'It was good, yes. Really good.’
‘Did you find anything that might be good to include?'
'Well,' Nina said, pausing for a second. 'I actually did. I found something perfect.'
'Oh?' Robby replied, 'Like what?'
Nina stopped for a bit, pursed her lips together, and made a funny face. 'Actually, I hope this is going to be okay with you, but what I actually found was the dress.'
‘Pardon. What do you mean?’
'I want to wear the same dress. My dress.Thedress.'
Robby frowned and Nina panicked because of the look on his face. She felt all her muscles tense. She’d totally read the room wrong. He was not going to be okay with it.
'What do you mean, "the dress"?' Robby asked. The look on his face wasn’t happy.
Nina faltered. 'I meanthe dressthat I wore when I got married the first time. That dress.'
Robby nodded. 'Okay. So that's quite a big memento from your first wedding.'
Nina felt her heart race and her stomach drop. That was the end of that. 'Okay, yes, sorry, umm, right. You think it's a bit too much?' Nina said with a wincing sound.
Robby frowned and turned his head. 'No, why would I think that?'
'Oh, I thought by your face that you weren't happy with that.'
Robby shrugged, got up from his desk, and took Nina's hand. 'No, I just didn’t know what you meant. I couldn't care less if you wear a bin bag for all I care.'
'So you're telling me you're absolutely fine with it, are you? You don’t mind? Not in the slightest?'
'No. What sort of dress is it? The whole big white thing? I thought you weren't going to go for that after the terrible time at the wedding dress shop. I thought the one you had was a much simpler affair.'
Nina inhaled. 'It is a white dress, but it's actually a bodice and a skirt. When I wore it before it had a huge train with a massive bow on the back, but that’s all detachable. Without the bow, it's just a really plain top and a beautiful skirt, but it looks like a dress. It's almost exactly what I wanted and nothing like anything that I tried on in that hideous shop and nothing I've seen online. I can send that other one back.'
