Page 52 of A Wedding in a Week

Lukas: Later?

Downstairs, a chair scrapes across the flagstones again, Marc wrestling with his presentation, fighting to stay here long-term, and I roll out of bed, determined to keep fighting too, only not with Hayden when he gets here.

* * *

I can’t help watching the clock on the countdown to his arrival, time spilling away like the land does to the sea as I handle the rest of Marc’s chores as well as my own lighter duties. Or maybe it spills more like sand does through an hourglass, like the egg timer I find Marc using when I finish up early in the afternoon and return to the kitchen.

I pause in the doorway. “There’s a blast from the past. Where’d you find that?”

Marc looks up, frowning, lost in concentration that I almost regret breaking until he brightens, his smile skipping like his gaze between the egg timer and me. “Find it? Where it always is.” His gaze skips next to a drawer in the old pine dresser, and of course he’d know where Mum kept it. “Used to be my job to turn it, remember? Make sure no one got a hard-boiled egg instead of a runny one to dip their toast soldiers.”

I do remember. I also remember overhearing my parents plotting ways to involve a kid Lukas loved but who was so wary around them. Maybe my gaze does some skipping of its own. Marc follows it to the stool by the Aga where he used to sit, watching the sand trickle while our breakfast eggs boiled, a space carved for him by my parents, who also wanted to keep him. Like so many memories this week, another slips free. I close the mudroom door behind me and share it.

“They spoke to your social worker once.” I empty my trouser pockets, twine and a multi-tool clinking in that old bowl. “Maybe more than once. It sounded like a repeat offer.”

“What was, and who?”

“Mum and Dad. I heard them.”

He frowns, and I almost regret speaking. “When?”

“I don’t know exactly. Your second summer? Maybe your third? I think it was the year you came for Easter.” All I clearly remember is stopping in the mudroom with one boot on and one off, hearing half of a conversation. “They wanted her to know that you could stay for longer, if you needed.”

Marc studies the egg timer, and I wonder if each of his stays here flowed fast like its sand does. He finally says, “It wasn’t that bad at home.” He squares his jaw. “It wasn’t that good either, but it was a lot better for a break. For Noah, especially.” He meets my eye. “I didn’t know Emma and Richard did that. Maybe it worked out for the best.” He gestures between us, and there’s a flicker of humour I’m not sure how he summons. “Might have made this weird.” His smile turns sweeter. “Thanks for telling me though. I really didn’t know they’d done that.” It must mean something to him—it sounds like his throat thickens. “And people wonder why I want to come back.”

He turns the egg timer over again with purpose.

“Why are you using that though? Doesn’t your laptop have a built-in timer?” I know it must, but Marc doesn’t answer. I mean, he speaks, only not to me.

“These projections confirm that Love-Land Weddings has real potential. All it needs is the seed capital. Here are grants options I’ve found linked to rural regeneration that could supplement a bank loan.”

I get it then—he’s delivering his presentation in three-minute chunks, detailing slide-by-slide why a business I’d kept to myself until last week has the real potential he mentioned. Sand falls and he speaks, sounding convinced, determined, and a fraction desperate.

I do too.

Fall for Marc, I mean.

Fuck it, I’ve been falling for him for what feels like forever, but hearing him believe in me only makes me fall even harder. He’s also linked my concept to a local network so much bigger than I expected. I cross the room as familiar faces fill his screen, and I stand behind him, watching where he can’t see me rub at an ache in my chest instead of my elbow. It doesn’t grumble this afternoon. It grinds like rusting metal, but I can’t make myself care. Not when local people, like Jude, feature on slide after slide. Marc must have left the farm this morning to capture this shot of him in the Anchor’s kitchen. He’s serious in his chef whites with his arm around his husband who looks at Jude like he hung the moon, and I know that feeling.

Marc hangs a moon for me too. It’s right there in the background of another slide, the sky inky above a bell tent, only it isn’t on my land. “Sorry,” he murmurs once the egg timer empties. “I tried my best to photoshop one onto the headland, but it looked shit. So fake.” He shakes his head like he did over those business cards, as if his best effort isn’t amazing. “This is just a placeholder. Thank fuck Hayden’s coming. I have to submit the final slides tonight.”

It's a final deadline that makes me grip my elbow harder. So does what he says next. “This photo’s better. My favourite.”

It’s me who fills the screen now with that armful of lambs, and of course I remember Marc taking this photo, but I hadn’t known I could look this happy. It transitions into another shot he’s taken of me, and fuck knows what I must have been thinking. I stare at something with so much softness you wouldn’t know I was a farmer used to trudging through manure and loan rejections.

Marc’s voice also softens while more sand falls, grain by grain, like I do for him as he quotes facts and figures that wash over my head. I focus on a photo montage featuring Mum instead, adding to a carousel of photos he must have taken while I was busy this morning.

“Love-Land Weddings isn’t only dedicated to preserving Cornish farming traditions. It also has access to local experts and their produce, their expertise, and their love of everything local.”

I hear the smile in his voice. It makes letting go of my elbow easy. I rest a hand on his shoulder instead, and he leans into my hold as the slide transitions to Jude’s tasting-menu samples, each miniature bite looking as delicious as they’d tasted when we shared them while sitting shoulder-to-shoulder.

Marc reaches up, his hand covering mine and squeezing in a way that feels so natural—so right—I can’t help nodding along with what he says next as the sand almost runs out.

“Whether each happy couple wants five-star catering or more simple options, Love-Land Weddings has the contacts to make their dreams come to life with authentic Cornish flavours.” His gaze flicks to me over his shoulder as his sand runs out one more time. “I know what I’d choose if I was getting married.”

I do as well. “Homemade pasties and a cream tea with scones warm from the oven?”

“Jam on first, then cream,” he confirms while clicking on the next slide, where he doesn’t only hang another moon in the sky for me. He goes ahead and sprinkles stars across it.

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