Page 72 of Always the Bridesmaid

It’s good, really, because I’m completely at ease. I’m more myself around Sarah than I would be around any other girl.

Even when I’m alone, I tend to have restless energy. I need to be thinking about something, analyzing something I’ve done, questioning what my next life or career move should be. My legs jump reflexively with unburned energy.

Right now, I’m still.

Maybe I’m being corny, as Sarah would say, but I seem to have this sort of inner peace when I’m around her.

‘I’m going to have the butternut squash and grilled goats cheese salad,’ she says. ‘How about you?’ She holds out the menu for me to take.

‘Is there a burger on there?’ I ask, turning my head to look at her but staying in the comfortable position I’m in, reclined on her medium-firm pillows.

‘There’s a burger.’

‘Then I don’t need to look at the menu.’

‘Don’t you want to know what it comes with?’

‘Nope. Any form of potato is grand by me and I’m sure it comes with potato.’

She reaches for the old-fashioned telephone-on-a-box style handset and presses a number for room service. She orders our food and makes a request for two brownies with ice cream to be sent up thirty minutes after the main meal. Just before she hangs up, she asks if they have popcorn. I can tell from her wide grin that they do. She asks for popcorn to be brought up with the brownies and ice cream.

I guess we are pigging out again. This woman is a dream.

I’ve got control of the TV remote and now that Sarah is paying attention, I move to the section ‘Box Office Movies’.

‘Oh, they have Top Gun: Maverick. Have you seen it?’ she asks excitedly.

‘Have I seen it? Every time I have a movie night with Cash and Will, we have to watch the original, then Maverick, too. I must have watched that volleyball scene with them more times than the number of hours I’ve been alive. Even though Tom has got older, they still find him easy on the eye.’

‘And, of course, now there’s Glen Powell, too.’

‘Ooh, got yourself a little crush, have you?’ I tease, irrationally jealous.

‘Shut up,’ she tells me, rolling her eyes.

‘Maverick it is, then.’ I select the movie, check the budget with Sarah, since it will be going directly onto her room bill, and press play.

Sarah leans back on her side, knees bent, her head propped up on her hand, her hair flowing down to the pillow on one side, her neck bare on the other.

My mind falls to the gutter for as long as it takes for me to wonder how the skin of her neck would taste on my lips.

Then I snap out of it as we hum and sing through the opening sequence, which is the same as the original.

When Tom Cruise appears on screen, Sarah says, ‘You know, if it wasn’t for the crazy stuff he’s said and done in his personal life, he could still be a hot older guy.’

Of course, because people who have checkered histories just aren’t attractive prospects.

Before I have a chance to go into my usual analytical mode and get lost in some level of self-destruction, there’s a knock on the door.

‘Room service!’ a voice calls.

‘Pause it,’ Sarah says, eagerly springing on bare feet to answer the door.

I can smell my burger and thrice-cooked chips before she’s back in the main room.

With my mouth wrapped around the hefty brioche bun, I manage to tell her, ‘This is an epic night!’

She laughs, forking goat’s cheese into her mouth and nodding. ‘Now we really are couple goals.’

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