Page 53 of The Wedding Game

‘It was. And you almost said yes,’ he replies softly.

‘I did.’ I want to say,But now we’re just friends, although it feels like such an obviously forced comment.

There’s silence between us for a beat, two beats, and then someone enters the restaurant and the door bangs shut behind them. Chris glances towards the noise, breaking our connection.

‘So what have you been doing since you got on a plane and left me watching your taxi pull away?’ I ask.

‘I’ve been dating someone,’ he says.

‘Have you?’ My voice rises an octave and I bring it back into check. ‘I thought you were giving up on dating.’

‘I was, but I matched with someone online.’

I roll my eyes.

‘I know, I know. Hear me out,’ he tells me. ‘After everything we’d been talking about – meeting people in real life – I was going to take myself off all those apps, but when I logged in to do that very thing … there she was. So I took a risk.’

‘On watching the sand-timer of your life run out, over a glass of warm wine?’

‘I took a risk onallof that,’ he says. ‘But in the back of my mind I also think it was because of the other chat we had.’

I narrow my eyes. ‘Which one?’

‘Married at thirty, babies by thirty five.’

‘Divorced by forty,’ I remind him.

‘Ha, yeah. So I took a chance. Sand timer and warm wine be damned.’

‘And how’s it working out?’

‘Good,’ he says, looking bashful all of a sudden. ‘I mean, it’s early days, but so far so good. What about you?’

I pause. I’m not sure how he’s going to take this. ‘I kind of … got together with Josh.’

He reaches for his beer. ‘Who’s Josh?’

‘You went on the stag weekend with him. He was Dan’s best man.’

Chris thinks and then says, ‘Josh?Owns-a-farm-Josh?’

‘Yeah.’ I smile proudly.

‘Really?’he asks, his voice laced with disbelief.

‘Yeah,’ I repeat, a bit uncertainly now.

Chris pauses, thinking. ‘How didthathappen?’

‘We met at the wedding.’

He nods and then, ‘Hang on. The same wedding where you met me?’

‘I met you and then I met him.’ I tell Chris I met Josh at the bar, when I disappeared inside for so long that night, and about how, later on, I behaved in a very unladylike way and snogged Josh’s face off in public. I don’t think Chris’ll be upset by this. He’s dating someone too.

‘Really?’ he says again.

‘Stop saying that,’ I whine.

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