Page 20 of A Wedding in a Week

Here’s the thing about being close enough to see that line between his brows—he’s also close enough to see that I can’t lie to him.

“Of course it hurt.” Marc huffs again, but it doesn’t sound bad-tempered. It’s my mum’s version of exasperation right there as he grabs my plate, setting it down at the head of the table. “Sit.”

I do.

“Eat.”

I don’t.

I pick up my fork but I can’t help looking out the window. John’s out there, busy picking up more of my slack. Marc’s about to do the same instead of getting to work on his presentation.

Marc adds mind-reading to a list of skills that keeps lengthening. “No, Stef. You resting up isn’t being lazy.” He also stops sounding huffy or exasperated. Honesty bleeds through instead. “Let us help like you’ve already helped both of us.”

“How do you mean?”

“You set up that pension plan for John. He told me last night. You also told him he can stay in the cottage for as long as the farm’s yours.”

Of course I did. “He’s lived here longer than me.” Plus he got me through a couple of bleak years of shuffling around this farm in shoes far too big for me.

Marc nods at the laptop. “And you’re helping me by letting me co-opt your plans. Yes, there’s still loads to do, like tie in the Cornish angle much tighter, and do some local market research, but I’m miles ahead compared to starting from scratch, so please relax and eat your breakfast.”

He backs off again, and I’ve had too many breakfasts on my own in this kitchen to let him go that easily. I don’t know when that started—me eating alone, I mean. Maybe when Mum moved out. It’s all a black-edged blur compared to the bright mornings that used to start around this table. “How about you?”

“How about me what?” Marc comes back, his hands on the back of the chair that used to be his.

“Have you eaten yet?”

“No. John and I usually—”

“Eat together at the cottage?”

That’s how it’s been since I took over. As Marc lets go of the chair, all those shared meals flood back, especially summer ones when Mum and Dad hashed out plans not only with John chipping in, but also with Marc listening, like now.

“Stay.” I push my plate over the table towards him.

“No. Lukas says you’ve lost weight.”

“Makes a change from him telling me I’m obese.”

Marc chokes. “He did not!”

“To be fair, he only weighed me when he needed data for an essay, and he also called those BMI charts a pile of wank that don’t factor in—” I’m about to say a lifetime of cream teas and Cornish pasties but Marc speaks first.

“All that muscle.” He blinks. “I mean, you need to build your strength up.”

“Stay,” I say again, quieter because it turns out that I don’t want much, but I do want this—him—back where he belongs. It feels right. Movement out the window catches my eye, and saying, “Ask John in, will you?” feels right too.

Marc does, coming back with my right-hand man, only John doesn’t take the old chair that was his next to my father’s. He sits where Marc used to and picks up an ongoing conversation as if us eating together isn’t novel. He makes it easy to join in while Marc puts more bread on to toast, scrambling extra eggs that he divides along with my bacon before taking a different seat than usual.

He’s at my right hand and…

I like it.

I also like that we eat and talk over the day’s plans around a table as if we haven’t had a three-year interruption. I even like that Marc butters my toast when, sling or not, I can do it myself, after a fashion. Marc does it for me without asking while telling John how yesterday’s interview went and about me volunteering to be his case study, which means I then tell John about my wedding plans far earlier than I would have. But sharing that plan along with my eggs and bacon doesn’t kill me. If anything, it sparks a useful conversation.

John starts it off by asking, “Why weddings? Why not camping? Plenty of farms make money that way.”

Verbalising this is easier than I expected. “Because I can’t unless I make it permanent. I know that isn’t the same everywhere along the coast. It is here, so I won’t pivot that way unless it’s my final option.” One that will steal choice from whoever slips into my shoes one day. Plus I don’t want to. “Hosting wedding celebrations wouldn’t involve permanent changes.” They do require a ton of paperwork that I’m already dreading, but nothing that has to last forever. “That means if it doesn’t work out, the farm isn’t locked in. It can revert to something different.”

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