Page 16 of Best Man
I laugh. “No, you pleb. David and Samantha, of course.”
“Is that where we’re staying?”
I shake my head. “No, we’re at a country house hotel just outside Stow-on-the-Wold. It’s huge and they’ve booked the whole place for a few days. Then in a month we’ll have to go to the wedding and the party in London.”
“No quick trip to the registry office, then?”
“Not for Frances. What she wants, she gets.”
“Like your ex?”
I nod. “Just like him.”
He nudges me gently with his elbow. “Not sure it’s a prize she’s got,” he says softly, and I smile awkwardly.
He must sense the awkwardness. He seems to have a fine-tuned sense of what people are feeling and thinking. I’ve seen him turn many potentially unpleasant situations around with just a few words and a smile so the glaring people end up laughing and smiling and utterly charmed.
“So, do they know about you and Patrick?”
I nod. “I met them a few times when I was with Patrick because his dad was friends with Frances’s father. We didn’t particularly hide what we were to each other.”
“So, how will they take to you being there?”
I smile. “They’ll be very charming and welcoming, but if I cross them or look like I might throw a spanner in the works they’ll unleash hell. Charles is utterly ruthless.”
“How lucky it is then that you’re bringing your younger and much more socially adept new partner with you. Someone who will put Patrick to shame and charm the entire party.”
“Have I arranged for someone else to come with me?” He laughs, but I sober. “Patrick’s parents will be there as well. They hate the gays because they think we’re all prowling around waiting to find our next victim. Like some sort of glittery zoo animals. They also think I’m a sexual predator, and that I somehow tricked their son into being gay.”
“How do you trick someone into being gay?” he says, and there’s a great deal of interest in his voice. “Is it through card tricks or something to do with the rabbit in the hat?”
I laugh, something I never thought I’d ever do when talking about Penny and Victor. “They’d like me to disappear. Or worse.”
“Lovely,” he says faintly. “So a few days in the Cotswolds with a wanker. Sorry, I mean a banker. And old-aged murderous homophobes. Anyone else?”
“Quite a few of Patrick and Frances’s friends, obviously, and the bridesmaids.”
There’s a long silence, and I’m sure he’s thinking of opening the door and just walking back to London, and then he laughs.
“Well, I’ve always liked a challenge.”
“This isn’t a challenge, so much as a suicide mission,” I say glumly.
The next hour passes surprisingly well. He takes control of the stereo and synchs it to his phone. I make a token protest but find that we have a startlingly similar taste in music. He loves the eighties, declaring that it’s retro, which makes me wince slightly because I fucking grew up then.
With “Long Hot Summer” by the Style Council playing, we turn off the motorway and start to travel down winding roads, the trees spreading their branches over us like the world’s oldest and greenest gazebo. We pass through little villages that look chocolate-box pretty with their village greens surrounded by houses made from the ubiquitous honey-coloured stone.
“Have you ever been here before?” I ask as I click the indicator and pull into the car park of an old pub. Made of the same Cotswold stone as the rest of the village, it has wisteria growing prettily up its sides and mullioned windows that gleam in the light of the sun. The pub garden has lots of benches with bright red umbrellas, and even though it’s just midday, there are already a few customers sheltering under the umbrellas. Their happy voices reach us as we enter the pub and blink to clear our eyes and let them adjust to the cool dimness.
“No, I’ve never been here,” he says. “My mum and dad spent one of their anniversaries here though. They loved it.”
I wander over to the bar. “I thought we’d have lunch before we get there and our appetites totally disappear,” I throw over my shoulder.
The barman comes over and I order an orange juice for myself and the cider Jesse requests. After a look at the menu we add our requests for Ploughman’s, and on an assurance that they’ll bring our food out to us, we head out to the garden by unspoken accord.
“I suppose we should get our stories straight,” he says and I turn abruptly, almost tripping in the process.
“What?”
