Page 74 of The Wedding Game

‘It’s a polite way to end an email,’ I point out.

He tuts. ‘This isn’t what I had in mind. I don’t know what we’re trying to achieve, but we’re doing it all wrong.’

‘I don’t make the rules,’ I say, echoing his words at the Edinburgh wedding. ‘This isyourgame.’

He pauses, remembering. ‘That was bingo,’ he replies, cottoning on. ‘This is life.’

‘It’s not really, though, is it?’

‘It is. Lexie, I didn’t envisagethis.There doesn’t need to be any drama. We can chat. You’re over there, I’m over here. We need to be able to communicate over this kitchen nonsense, and all the other things that are going to start amassing soon. We can’t do it if we’re sending “Hope this email finds you well” to each other over and over again until one of us dies of politeness overload. It’s inane.’

I chuckle without meaning to, and then I’m annoyed at myself for relenting quite so quickly. ‘Yes, it is,’ I agree. ‘But you started it.’

‘You going down that road is even sillier,’ he dares.

‘Er, excuse me—’ I start, but Chris responds quickly.

‘I know. I know,’ he says. And then, more gently, ‘I hold my hands up. I’ve caved.’

‘You can’t,’ I tell him. ‘You’re not allowed to.’

‘No?’ he questions. ‘Why not?’

‘Because this was your idea, and you’ve only held out for three months.’

‘I didn’t think it through,’ he says.

‘Not my problem,’ I reply, digging in the knife.

‘You want to be rude to each other? You actually want that?’ he asks. ‘Because you know full well that’s not what I was suggesting, when we agreed to cool it all down.’

‘We’re not being rude to each other. We hope each other’s emails find the other well. We’re beingreallypolite.’

‘We’re being rude now,’ he snaps. ‘Or, rather, you are. You’re being rude while we discuss the fact that we’re being over-polite.’

‘It’s quite the mind-fuck, isn’t it?’ I declare, proud of myself for having found a way to shoehorn this word into our conversation, because I’ve been thinking all of this is a mind-fuck for quite some time.

Chris sighs. I can picture him, his head thrown back in his chair at work, shirt sleeves rolled up as he stares at the ceiling in frustration.

‘Where are you?’ I ask.

‘I’m working from home today,’ he says.

‘Oh, I pictured you at work. I thought this is quite an interesting conversation to be having within earshot of everyone.’

‘You pictured me?’ he asks. And then, ‘Forget I said that. How’s your day been – kitchen nonsense aside?’ he asks.

‘Fine,’ I answer, a bit taken aback at this change in direction. And then I remember. ‘I’m not used to small talk from you. You’ve thrown me a bit.’

I hear him laugh softly. ‘I want to make sure everything’s OK.’

‘With me?’

‘With us,’ he says. ‘That we’re OK. That I can hang up and we can both go off and have our weekends and it’ll all be OK.’

‘Chris?’

‘Yeah?’

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