Page 62 of A Wedding in a Week

He steps back, his voice still low while threading our fingers. “Can’t help thinking we had the wedding night already.” He looks me right in the eye and I’m back with him in my bed, counting freckles. In my living room as well, with a slideshow of almost everyone I love scrolling behind him. In every spot on this land where we’ve kissed and touched and done more than I ever dreamed I’d get to with him.

Then he says, “And we just ate some of what I wanted for the wedding breakfast. Now you’re saying, ‘I do’ and I haven’t even had a chance to pop the question.” He tags on a quieter, “Give me time,” and for once our time does feel endless.

“Ready, Stef?” he finally murmurs.

I am.

I’m so, so ready—and that’s what Hayden captures.

He must do because Marc cradles his phone once Hayden hands it over, staring at the screen as if he’s in no hurry either. He stares for so long that Hayden checks in before leaving. “No good?” he asks through his truck’s lowered window. “Want me to take another?”

“No,” Marc says, still looking at his screen. He wrenches his gaze away to say, “But thanks. Really. Thanks for everything. See you again tomorrow afternoon when we get back to take it all down, if you have time?”

“I’ve always got time for you, Marc.” That should prickle like gorse. It doesn’t when Hayden’s eyes meet mine. “But it depends on Stef, here.” His eyes narrow. “Will there be more scones?”

“No,” I tell him because I know my baking limits. “But if you don’t care what it looks like, I can probably rustle you up a pasty.”

Hayden agrees, and I thank him too, glad I’m free of my sling so I can shake with him like I mean it even if I can’t feel it. I watch him leave, his truck bouncing over the pasture, his trailer empty, but I wonder if he maybe should have stayed to take another photo once I join Marc and see what he still stares at, his head bent over his phone.

He holds it between us to show me that I’m the only man in focus.

Marc’s barely visible, caught in silhouette, the sun behind him, his face in shadow. In comparison, there’s no mistaking what the sun finds on my face and spotlights. It’s what I couldn’t find words for. What Mum dusted a family photo with along with flour back in the kitchen, and right up until this moment, I thought I was the doppelgänger of the man whose ring she still wears on a gold chain. Now I watch Marc touch traces of her on his phone, and it doesn’t matter that I haven’t told him that I love him.

His gaze says that he sees it. Or I think so until he speaks.

“This photo isn’t good.”

I kept him waiting for three years once. Now, Marc meets my gaze right away on the very edge of my land, a long drop below me.

He doesn’t leave me hanging.

“It’s perfect.”

23

The next morning comes all too quickly, my own date with destiny rushing up like the cliffside does as Marc drives us along the coast road. My stomach doesn’t swoop at its closeness today, which I’d say was progress if it didn’t dip for a different reason.

I’m nervous for Marc. That doesn’t mean I’m not anxious, but I’m also excited, and that’s a first considering how many times I’ve heard no from the bank. Marc, on the other hand? Considering how driven he’s been all week, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him quite as worried.

“Three other candidates made the shortlist, Stef.”

“Yeah? How many were in the first round?”

“Eight. I kinda assumed it would be me up against one other today. Maybe two. Three though?” He shakes his head, and not at the line of camper vans we’re stuck behind. I mean, yes, he’s annoyed at the traffic, but that’s Cornwall for you as soon as the sun comes out. He even says, “Glad we left early,” and rolls his eyes, because all locals know you can’t get in or out of the county in a hurry the minute it’s tourist season. Really, he’s annoyed with himself.

I see it when he glances my way again, pale for once instead of pink with the passion he’s shown me all week long. It’s a reminder of a version of Marc who used to arrive every summer like a plant starved of sunlight. A different person left each September, filled out by more than Mum’s home cooking, glowing with all the ways she and Dad found to make him feel wanted.

That’s what I want for him today, which is why I guess this reminder of the old Marc gets to me. So does his hair being neatly combed instead of yesterday’s windswept riot. But that was when he’d been in charge of his destiny out on my headland. Now he sounds far from it.

“The practice manager emailed us all first thing this morning. Said how good the presentations looked. All of them, not only mine. He said they’d never had such high-level applications. Each of us had impressed him.” He sweeps a hand through his hair, or tries to. It’s stiff, and he’s easily as rigid as whatever product tames it. Now I hear why.

“There’ll be no hiding if I fuck this up.”

“Hiding? What do you mean?”

“Because the practice is all windows, an old art gallery on the busiest street in town. It’s practically a goldfish bowl.” He laughs but it’s a jangling sound instead of his usual clear chime. “The presentations will be right there where anyone can watch. I don’t usually get stage fright.” His hands tighten on the steering wheel. “But if I do mess up, the whole town will get to see me do it.”

“You won’t mess up.”

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