Faking with Benefits : A Friends to Lovers Romance(94)

I don’t know what to say.

In front of us, the photographer sighs, setting her camera down. “For God’s sake. Could the best man kindly remove the lipstick from his neck?” She calls out, her voice dripping with irritation.

I turn to glare at Rob, who’s bent over laughing. “You prick.”

“I thought you were experimenting with a new look!”

Someone offers me a tissue, and I wipe the makeup off my skin. I can still smell Layla on my fingers.

Today is going to be a long day.





SIXTY





LUKE





“And little Jimmy finally passed his first swimming badge,” Amy’s aunt tells me, rolling her eyes. “Ten metres. Only took him two years. The child is deathly afraid of water.”

“That’s great, Mrs Smith,” I tell her, trying to pull away. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just—”

She waves me off. “Oh, don’t call me that. We’re all family here. Be a good boy and top up my drink, will you?”

I smile and take her glass, turning to the drinks table and swapping it out with a fresh flute of champagne. It’s been over half an hour since Amy’s aunt cornered me, and she’s been chatting my ear off ever since, bringing me up to speed on all the latest family gossip. I’m not sure if she actually remembers I’m not her nephew-in-law anymore, or if she legitimately doesn’t care and just wants someone to talk to. I hand her the new drink, then try for the fifth time to excuse myself.

“If you don’t mind, I need to find my date. She’s disappeared somewhere.”

She waves me off, eyeing up one of the waiters, and I make a quick escape, stepping away and scanning the hall.

It’s so odd to be here again. Everywhere I look, memories ping up in my mind. The venue clearly hasn’t updated its decorations in the last fifteen years. The cream vases of silk roses are the same. The swathes of gauze hanging from the ceilings. The rows of white chairs decorated with pink ribbons.

Even the wedding guests are the same. Everyone is over a decade older, but all of Amy’s family and friends are here. Most of the unmarried adults now have kids. The babies are moving into secondary school. There’s a vaguely familiar-looking teenager hanging around on her phone by the chocolate fountain, ignoring everyone, and I frown, trying to remember where I’ve seen her before. As I watch, she glances up at me, her eyes flickering, and recognition shocks through me.

It’s Lavender, my ex-niece. I remember her as a chubby little four-year-old, watching TV cuddled up against me, or holding my hand as I walked her home from school. She loved me, because I was the only adult who’d sit down and have tea parties with her stuffed animals. And I loved her, too. To pieces. I’d never been an uncle before.

I haven’t seen her in over ten years now.

The wedding hall suddenly flickers around me, déjà-vu rolling over me like a wave. For half a second, I’m an excited twenty-four-year-old on his wedding day, absolutely brimming over with happiness. Then the image fades, and I’m left standing alone in the crowd of celebrating people, laughing and dancing and chatting. Lavender looks at me awkwardly for a few seconds, then blushes and drops her eyes back to her phone.

Suddenly, it feels like my lungs are getting crushed.

Without thinking, I turn on my heel, weaving through the party and towards the ballroom’s big wooden doors. As I step out into the hotel lobby, my heart is pounding hard. Making my way over to the lifts, I lean against the wall, taking a few deep breaths.

I honestly didn’t expect that coming to the wedding would be so hard; but I also didn’t expect it to look like I’d stepped right back into my old wedding photographs. The last time I was here was the best night of my life. And now everything I worked so hard to achieve back then is gone.

It’s hard not to feel like I’ve lost something.

A hand touches my arm. I turn to see Amy looking up at me, her eyes wide. She must have followed me out here; she looks ridiculously out of place, standing in the atrium in her puffy white gown.

I force myself to smile at her. “Hi,” I say. “Congratulations. You look beautiful.”

She snorts and waves me off. “Re-wearing the dress was a bad idea. I can barely breathe in this thing. And I already gave up on my heels.” She lifts the hem of her dress, showing me the pair of Converse hidden underneath.

“Well. It’s a lovely party. Thank you for the invite.”

“Thanks for coming. Since your best friend is now my brother-in-law, I thought it would be best for us to show there’s no bad blood between us. Might make family events less awkward.”

I nod. “How’s Emery High?”

“Same old, same old. I’ve been thinking of switching schools. You can only be the principal of one place for so many years before it gets mind-numbing.”

I nod, and we both stand silently for a moment, looking out over the lobby.

“So,” she says eventually. “Layla Thompson.”

“Yes.”

“How did you two meet again?”

“She lives in my building. Moved into the flat opposite mine a few years ago.”

“Right. And you’ve been seeing her all that time?” The disapproval is clear in her voice.