Page 1 of The Wedding Game

CHAPTER ONE

Lexie

August 2022

‘Get off with thegroom?’ I squeak the words in shock as I read out the dare my best friend Scarlet has set me.

‘Sorry. No. That’s meant to saybest man.’ She chuckles at her own mistake while we take our seats at the wedding breakfast. ‘Get off with thebest man. Don’t get off with the groom, for God’s sake.’ She leans over, crosses outgroomand replaces the word withbest man.

I murmur ‘hello’ and nod a greeting to those already seated at our table, who are attempting polite conversation with those next to them. We’d been stuck at the back of the church because we’d arrived late, as per usual, so I have no idea what the best man actually looks like.

‘What if he has a girlfriend?’ I ask quietly as we sit.

‘Don’t do it then,’ Scarlet mutters. ‘Obviously.’

Obviously. My instruction to get off with the best man is less of a dare and more part of what Scarlet and I have dubbedwedding bingo– a game we’ve developed for a bit offun to pass the time at themanyweddings we’ve been invited to over the past two to three years. I compile a bingo grid for myself, Scarlet writes one for herself and then we give each other one ‘out there’ instruction that’s meant to scupper either of us from getting a full house.

It’s usually just a giggle, but as we sit here in the ornate Georgian country-house banqueting hall at our table full of eight other strangers tucking into their starters, I scan my wedding-bingo sheet to see what I can tick off so far. With the instruction to get off with the best man, I’m now a bit concerned we’re venturing out of my comfort zone. Although, in fairness, I’ve given Scarlet an almost equally disarming instruction to get a waiter’s telephone number. Now that I compare our bingo grids, I think she’s been unfair with my instruction. Or perhaps I’ve been too light with hers.

This is the last one: the final wedding of the summer and so we’ve upped the ante. There are prizes to be won.

This is Georgia’s wedding – Scarlet’s friend from university, who I’ve met once or twice over the years, although Scarlet’s not seen her in ages. Georgia’s wedding, with its big country-house setting and elegantly sober but soon-to-be-drunk early-thirty-somethings, carries all the hallmarks of almost every wedding that’s come before it, for us anyway.

Because weddings are all the same, aren’t they? And they really need not be. A cut-out-and-keep version of one wedding can so easily be transferred over to the next bride and then the next, and the next. I suppose that’s why, when the bouquet is caught, we all acknowledge that it heralds the turn of the next woman to go through the same motions as the girlwho’s just thrown the flowers in her direction. That bouquet might as well be a relay baton.

But maybe this wedding will be different. Perhaps it heralds thestart of something, either for Scarlet or for me. Or, even better, for both of us.

I sip my water, freshly poured by a silver-service waiter. It’s a hot summer’s day, but at least we’re indoors with the wide sash windows thrown open, allowing a much-needed breeze to travel through – rather than being stuck in a stifling marquee, as has often happened at other weddings this year.

When we plan our dream wedding (not to each other), Scarlet and I have agreed that marquees are merely glorified tents and, if we’re going to get married in a venue fresh out of a costume drama, then we’re dancing the night away in the location of our dreams rather than in a sweaty tent.

Scarlet looks round for the handful of her old university friends we’d spotted in the church earlier, but they’ve spread out around the room. I’ve met a few of them at various weddings over the past couple of years and they all fade into a series of lookalikes with whom to make small talk.

Scarlet and I met just after we’d both graduated and I answered an ad to flatshare with her in London. We’ve been flatmates ever since. Nearly a decade. Of the wedding invitations that have fallen through the letterbox over the last few years, this is our tenth together in eighteen months. Or maybe it’s the eleventh? I’ve lost track now. But it’s the final one to be ticked off the calendar before normal service resumes and my weekends stop being about country-house nuptials, heeled shoes that slice through damp churchyard soil androast chicken for the sit-down dinner. Although saying that, Scarlet and I could easily get home tomorrow to find another wedding invite has landed on the mat in our absence.

At this wedding I am the plus-one, the wingman to Scarlet, who is the real invitee. She’s been my plus-one, I’ve been hers. Back and forth.

Until one of us dies of old age.

I’m sure one of us will find a romantic partner to go with eventually but, until then, we’ve stayed strong and accompanied each other. Casual five-dates-in guys have not been permitted to attend any weddings as plus-ones, because it is traumatic for everyone involved when it comes to an end and you have to hastily ring a bride and beg her to scratch a name off a table plan that’s already been printed. We don’t bother any more. Regulars at these events have started assuming Scarlet and I are a couple. Scarlet and Lexie. Lexie and Scarlet. We are the last two left, the final bastions of singlehood.

Practically everyone we each went to university or college with decided that this was the summer to tie the knot. Almost every other weekend from May to September has involved a wedding. And those who haven’t done it this year are doing it next year. I’m exhausted.

‘Why is it always chicken?’ Scarlet whispers as she glances from the bingo sheet I’ve handed her to the elegant calligraphy-written menu placed in front of us.

‘It’s chicken,’ I tell Scarlet, ‘because it’s always chicken. Because chicken is safe. Easy. And because no one really cares what they eat as long as they get fed.’ We both tick a ‘chicken’ square on our wedding bingo cards.

Prior to the reception, I’d also ticked off a reading fromJane Eyreduring the ceremony. Scarlet reluctantly sanctioned my double points because it was ‘I have now been married ten years’ and I was very specific about which reading fromJane Eyreit would be. I often score a full house long before Scarlet. She refuses to believe people can besopredictable time after time.

‘So do I actually have tosnogthe best man?’ I ask.

‘Yes or you can’t win. And you remember what happens if you win?’ Scarlet asks.

I straighten my back, sitting up excitedly. ‘I do. I get a spa day, including treatments and dinner, with you – all paid for. By you,’ I remind her.

‘This is correct,’ she says. ‘And if I win,’ she reminds me, ‘you have to buy me a pair of Christian Louboutins, because I am sick to death of wearing shit shoes to these weddings.’

‘I cannot believe a pair of Louboutins is the same price as a spa day, treatments for two of usanddinner.’

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