Husband Material (London Calling #2)(122)

Checking the cabinet had taken it out of me, so I lay back down on the floor and tried to enjoy the cool of the tiles. Unfortunately, I couldn’t enjoy anything right now. “I’ll be fine. It probably is just nerves.” My stomach churned uneasily. Oh God. Was this the universe punishing me for wishing Miles would shit himself on the way down the aisle? “Besides,” I went on, “I think I might need to get some air.”

“I’ll get some air with you,” cried Bridge, far too enthusiastically.

“We can get air together.”

“Why? Do you think I’ll need help carrying it?”

Bridge gave a kind of vindicated squeak. “See, you’re being sarcastic. That means you’re feeling better. Which means I’m helping.”

I shouldn’t have called her. There was no way she was going to let me spend the few hours before my wedding puking alone into a toilet. Not if I could spend them puking with her. But I’d panicked.

Because I was getting married in the morning. And instead of feeling excited or giddy or a little bit anxious, I was feeling like an informer from a seventies mob movie being slowly drowned in cement. And there was no point pretending now that I hadn’t known all along that she’d drop everything and come for me.

Married or not she was, after all, my best friend.

“I’m calling a cab,” said Bridge from the other end of the phone.

“Where shall I meet you?”

I groaned and ground my face against the bathroom floor.

“Anywhere but here. The walls are closing in and everything smells of vomit.”

In hindsight, anywhere but here hadn’t been a helpful thing to say. Something that became only more apparent as I half climbed, half fell out of my own taxi and made my way to our agreed rendezvous point in the middle of the Millennium Bridge.

“Why?” I asked as soon as I was in earshot. “Is this because your name is Bridge? So you thought of a bridge?”

Her ash-blond hair was whipping slightly in the wind. “Maybe? I had just woken up. Although also the nice thing about being on a bridge is that if you’re sick, you can go over the side.”

I couldn’t tell if that made me feel better or worse. “What if I fall in the Thames?”

“Then wedding nerves will be the least of your worries.”

Drawing my coat more tightly around me, I lurched over to the railing. Not because I had any intention of spewing over it, but because we were stuck on a bridge and there wasn’t much else to do. It was a weird view because you had the city gleaming on either side, but the sky above and the river below were dull, black, and voidy. Which at least matched my mood. “I don’t think this is nerves,”

I said finally. “I think this is I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

Bridge came and stood beside me. “Oh, it’s so pretty at night,”

she cooed.

“Bridge. What part of terrible mistake did you not hear?”

“The part where it makes any sense.”

“I didn’t say it made sense.” Folding my arms on the top of the railing, I sagged. “I said it was how I felt.”

For a moment Bridge was silent on the silent bridge. “Are you not in love with him anymore?”

The thought of not being in love with Oliver wasn’t even vomit-inducing. It was just…unapproachable from any angle. “Of course I’m in love with him.”

“Then everything is going to be fine.” Bridge put a comforting hand on my arm. “Love means never having to say ‘Oh my god, I’ve made a terrible mistake.’”

“Except that’s not true, is it? You can love someone and still royally fuck up.”

“Yes, but because you love each other, you come through it. And that’s what marriage is.”

I buried my face even farther into the crook of my elbow and made an embarrassing half-sobby noise. “Is it? Is it really?”

“Yes,” said Bridge with utter confidence.

“But how do you know?” I asked. “What if it’s not? What if it’s, like, fighting all the time, or one of you walking out in three years, or something you can’t do at all because the law says your relationship doesn’t count, or constantly trying to keep up with your ex and his twink husband who is going to be way less cute when he gets older and then he’ll find out what a prick he’s married or—”

Bridge made a confused but gamely sympathetic noise. “Aren’t you overcomplicating this just a little?”

“Am I? How can I tell? I’ve never had to think about marriage before. When was I meant to think about it? In the incredibly narrow window between it becoming a legal option and my boyfriend selling me out to a newspaper with a red top?”

“I suppose ideally…” Bridge was shuffling uncomfortably, her coat drawn tight around her even though it was quite a mild spring evening. “Absolutely ideally, you’d have thought about it at least a little bit before you, you know, proposed?”

I looked up from where I’d been making an unconvincing go of pretending not to cry. “In case you haven’t noticed, Bridge, I’m not an ideally sort of person. And now I’m stuck because I’m getting married tomorrow, and I don’t think I actually want to get married tomorrow.