Page 9 of The Wedding Game

We clink glasses and then he devastates me by saying, ‘Um, so … you were gone ages and I hate to do this, but in about five minutes I’m going to have to go.’

‘Go where?’ I ask.

‘I need to head inside and say goodbye to Dan, and then I’ve got a taxi coming.’

‘And then you’re leaving?’ I ask. I can’t help but feel disappointed. I’m enjoying this too much. Or rather I was, until I ruined it and went inside, danced with Josh, when I could have been out here with Chris.

‘Yeah. I don’t want to go quite so soon, but my flight is in a few hours.’

‘Your flight? Are you going back to New Yorknow?’

‘It was the only flight I could get that didn’t cost a million pounds, and I have to be at work on Monday morning. Danunderstood, so I figured I’d go for it. It meant a lot to him that I came over for the stag-do and the wedding and was an usher, so …’ he trails off again. ‘I’m babbling,’ he finishes with a smile.

I breathe in deeply, breathe out. ‘How often do you make it back here?’

‘I don’t really,’ he says sadly. ‘Work is kind of intense and …’

‘Oh.’

‘Do you ever get out to New York?’ he asks hopefully.

I shake my head. ‘No, sadly. Especially as I don’t have a job at the minute. Although I went to Miami with my ex-boyfriend about eighteen months ago,’ I add pointlessly.

‘OK,’ he says. ‘Fuck!’

I laugh. ‘Say how you really feel,’ I joke.

‘OK,’ he says again, taking me literally. ‘I will. You’re fun and I’m having a good time out here with you. We’ve got … probably four minutes now, so we need to fit in as muchBig Talkas we can. Let’s make it count.’

‘Round three?’ I suggest.

‘Round three,’ he agrees. ‘Why did you and your ex break up, and how long ago?’

‘Really?’ I query. ‘Four minutes to go and that’s what you want to talk about?’

He nods. ‘Go for it.’

I take a deep breath. ‘It was about a year ago and he cheated on me.’

‘Shit,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’

‘What were you expecting?’

‘The usual story. Incompatibility – something like that.’

‘We were incompatible enough for him to cheat on me after only eight months,’ I point out. ‘Now you. When was your last relationship and why did you break up?’

‘She dumped me. It was a couple of months ago.’

‘That’s quite recent, isn’t it? Did it hurt? Does it still hurt? Why did she dump you?’

‘That’s a lot of questions all in one go. It doesn’t hurt. It did for a while. But y’know … time heals, I guess.’ He gives me a shy smile, as if he’s not sure of his own words. ‘We got together pretty soon after I arrived in New York. I didn’t know many people. I sort of clung to her like a life-raft. For quite a while at the start she was dating me and a few other people at the same time, so we weren’t really serious. She was keeping her options open, which worked for her, but not for me. And after I thought we were moving in a good direction, it kind of went back to how it was at the start. I realise now she was looking for a way out when she suggested that we start seeing other people, to find out if we missed each other – to see if we really were destined for each other. I said no. She ended it.’

Chris defuses the seriousness of what he’s just said by chuckling at my expression. At some point during this short tale my mouth has fallen open.

‘Wow’ is all I can say, followed by, ‘I got cheated on in secret, and your girlfriend flat-outtoldyou she wanted to cheat on you. That’s … another level.’

‘Yep,’ he replies. ‘It’s also embarrassing. I couldn’t comprehend it – any of it. We obviously weren’t right for each other. Serial dating is crazy. I don’t have the time, or the energy.’

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