by JL Merrow
My heart felt like a wet rag someone was wringing out to dry. “Phil…” My voice cracked. I cleared my throat and gave him a wonky smile. “You don’t have to be better for me, all right? Don’t want new and improved. I’m fine with original and best. More than fine.” I stepped forward and cupped his face in my hands. “I love you, you prick.”
Phil blinked at me. In his shorts and T-shirt, with his hair all fluffed up, he looked like an overgrown kid who was worried his mum was about to wallop him. “Still?” His voice was hoarse.
Could have been last night’s smoke, mind. But I didn’t think so.
“Always, you plonker.” I sank against his chest, feeling all warm and fuzzy, and was more than mildly miffed when, after a sec, he pushed me away. “Oi, I thought we were having a moment?”
Halfway across the room, Phil turned, looking a bit jittery. “It’s your birthday, right? And I promised you a present. So just…just wait there, all right?”
I folded my arms and leaned back against the counter.
Turned out my birthday present was in the bloody kitchen cupboard. Phil rummaged for a bit, then came out holding something in one hand
It was pretty small—fitted easily in the palm of his hand. We already had each other’s keys, so it wasn’t that—cufflinks, maybe? For that formal shirt he’d made me buy for Gary and Darren’s wedding? Or—
I stopped with the guesses as the whole world tilted sideways. Well, metaphorically speaking, Hertfordshire not being known as the earthquake capital of the world.
Then again, this measured about ten on any scale you could mention.
Here, in the middle of the kitchen, Phil had gone down on one knee.
He held out a little box, open to show a medium chunky band of gold. “Tom Paretski, would you do me the very great honour of becoming my husband?”
In the circs, it was probably a bit unfortunate that the first thing that came to mind was a heartfelt “Fuck me!”
Phil huffed a laugh. “That’s generally part of the deal, but you probably ought to give me an answer first.” Then his expression changed, got all vulnerable. “You don’t have to say right away.”
Something twisted inside me. I sank down on both knees in front of him. Mostly because my legs had gone a bit wobbly. “Yeah, I do.” I smiled at him, probably a bit soppily. Well, probably a lot soppily. “And, well, yeah. I do. Want to marry you, that is.”
Phil closed his eyes for a moment. Just long enough for me to take his face in my hands and kiss him. He kissed back feverishly, one arm going around my neck and almost pulling me off balance. Then he pulled back. “God, I love you.”
We moved to the sofa after that. The wood flooring at Phil’s wasn’t exactly easy on the knees, and let’s face it, we were both the wrong side of thirty now. I popped back into the bedroom to grab a spare pair of shorts and a T-shirt first, seeing as I was apparently going to be all respectable from now on.
Phil patted the cushion, and I sank down beside him. “I can’t believe you just proposed to me when I was starkers. Think we might have to edit that bit out when we’re telling the grandkids.”
He laughed and pulled me in close. “Have you seen what kids are like these days already? In thirty years’ time, nothing’ll shock them.”
“God, that’s a weird thought. One day we’re going to be just a couple of boring old farts, and nobody’ll think twice about gay marriage.” I hoped so, anyhow. “Actually, I can’t believe you proposed to me at all. After all the crap I’ve put you through…”
“No, you haven’t.”
“I sodding well have. Um. You do realise we’re going to have to invite my mum and dad, yeah? I mean, if you want to change your mind I won’t hold it against you.” It was half-true.
All right, no it wasn’t.
“Don’t worry. Your mum’s got way too much class to make a scene at a wedding.” Phil huffed a short laugh. “It’s my family we’re going to have to watch out for.”
Bloody hell. “Hey, you know it’s traditional to have the two families on opposite sides of the church or whatever? Maybe we could erect some kind of riot shield between ’em.”
He grinned. “I was thinking separate services myself. Or as last resort, I hear Gretna Green is nice this time of year.”
“Too easy for ’em to follow us to. How about a beach wedding in St Lucia?”
“You and your sodding beaches. No, we can have the honeymoon anywhere you like, but if we’re doing this, I want to stand up and do it in front of a congregation of our family and friends.”
“Well, I’m in.” I snuggled in a bit closer to him. “Long as you’re still talking about getting married, that is. Hey, you thought about when we’d do it?”
Phil didn’t answer.
“Phil?”
“Sorry—it’s just…” He took a deep breath. “Didn’t want to make any plans. You know, tempting fate and all that bollocks. Thought my chances were dodgy enough already. But, yeah, what do you reckon? Next summer? Let the dust settle from Cherry and Greg’s bash first?”
It was my turn to make him wait for an answer, seeing as I was a bit preoccupied with the way my heart was turning into mush and, apparently, taking all my brain cells with it. “Dodgy chances? Are you serious? That’s just… I’m not even going to say what that is, you muppet. And yeah, next summer sounds good. Really good.”
It’d give us time to do things properly. Get a good venue and all that stuff.
Maybe even find a certain Mike Novak and slip him an invite, although I wasn’t sure how Mum and Dad would feel about that.
Come to that, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The wedding of the century took place the following week, on Midsummer Eve, giving rise to not a few gags about short wedding nights.
And no, I don’t mean Phil and me decided to elope to Las Vegas. I’m talking about Gary and Darren’s do. They got spliced in St Albans Registry Office, a pretty impressive, Gothicky red brick building that apparently used to house the governor of an old Victorian prison. There were some surprisingly nice gardens out the back, with an even more surprising old cannon—I assumed it hadn’t been got in for target practice on uppity prisoners, but you never know with Victorians—that Gary and his newly wedded husband made full use of in the photos.
Don’t ask. No, really, don’t ask. I’m not going to repeat my best man’s speech here, but let me tell you, with a venue like that I wasn’t short of gag material.
The sun was shining, but the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees. It wasn’t cold, exactly—pretty much normal for the time of year, as the weather man on the telly kept reminding us—but I’d just started getting used to Mediterranean temperatures, so I was actually glad of my posh Italian wool suit.
The grooms looked, as Gary himself modestly admitted, fabulous, dressed in matching dark blue tuxedos and crimson bow ties, each with a perfectly matched rose as a buttonhole. Phil and me, as best men, were in dark grey suits that looked pretty similar but were actually subtly different.
He’d insisted weeks ago that we should buy them instead of hiring. I’d thought it was a waste of money at the time, but, heh, it looked like I was going to get at least one more wear out of mine. I had to keep reminding myself not to tell anyone that, though. We’d decided to keep the engagement quiet until after Gary and Darren had jetted off to their not-so-secret honeymoon hideaway in the Seychelles—no way was I going to steal any part of my mate’s thunder on his big day.
Gary, being Gary, had insisted me and him set off half an hour early, presumably in case a sinkhole opened up and swallowed the road or something and we had to hike there. So I was expecting the place to be empty, or possibly even still full of the previous wedding’s guests. As it happened, though, we walked into the foyer to find the party already in full swing. Darren was st
anding on a chair and handing out champagne like a king dispensing largess to a rowdy crowd.
I’d been looking forward to seeing what Darren’s family were like—all right, I’d been looking forward to seeing how many of them, if any, were also of the dwarfish persuasion—but actual blood relatives of his seemed to be pretty thin on the ground.
His mum was there, all five feet nothing of her, which still made her a good six inches taller than her son. She looked a lot like Darren, actually, all except the goatee—although she did have the makings of a pretty impressive ’tache. Hefty arm muscles too, presumably from lugging crates of fruit and veg around. The bloke with her, though, who was around Phil’s height and had a permanent stoop from bending down to speak to his better half, turned out to be Darren’s stepdad. His real father had apparently copped it twenty years ago in a tragic market accident. I didn’t ask.
They were currently making stilted conversation with Gary’s mum and dad—or Mumsy and Pops, as Gary liked to dub them. Both were dressed up to the nines, for them—Mumsy in a sort of shapeless kaftan thing the wardrobe department on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat would have rejected for being too garish, and Pops in an antique dinner jacket and with braids in his beard. I caught a snatch of Gary’s mum, whose accent is posher than the Queen’s (pun not intended), getting all poetical about the mystical energies of the solstice. It was clear Darren’s folks didn’t have a clue what to make of them.
There was also a whole barrowload of market traders, most of them still in their everyday clothes but one or two in their posh frocks. One bloke was even in a top hat, but seeing as I recognised him as the bloke who ran the hat stall I didn’t reckon he deserved any special credit for that.
Darren yelled out to Gary over the crowd. “Angel! Light of my life! Come and get some of this inside you!”
A middle-aged lady with a deeply lined face gave a raucous cackle. “Oi! You can wait till after the wedding for that!”
The crowd parted genially, and we trooped up for an audience with the Champagne King. Phil, standing at Darren’s side like a mafia enforcer, sent me a smile that was mostly in his eyes, and I felt like I’d been at the champers already.
“Sweetie-pie,” Gary cooed, making grabby hands at the glass Darren had filled for him. “A man after my own heart.”
“And the rest of you,” Darren said with a wink and a leer.
“Some bits more than others,” Mrs. Raucous suggested and nudged the hat man so hard in the ribs, he spilled his champagne.
I gave Phil a helpless grin, but he seemed to be enjoying himself anyway.
Marianne was standing off to one side, all on her lonesome. She was looking all summery in a floral sundress that was a bit see-through in the sunlight streaming in through the foyer window.
Her eyes were pretty bright already, but I swear they lit up even more when they spotted me. “Tom!” she called, waving so hard her boobs jiggled. I was worried her strappy frock might not be up to the task of keeping them in check.
I walked over for a natter, having already run out of pre-wedding duties. There’s only so many times you can check you’ve remembered (a) the ring; (b) the speech notes; and (c) the groom. And if I drank too much bubbly, I’d be bound to belch embarrassingly halfway through the ceremony. I grabbed a glass and took it along to her. “All right, love? Here on your own?”
“No, I’m here with Cas—remember I told you about her? She’s just gone to the Ladies’. She’ll be along in a mo.”
“Uh…remind me. It’s been a rough few weeks.”
Marianne’s hundred-watt smiled dimmed just a little. “You’re not wrong there. I told you and Phil about her, back before everything? Cas. My ex, well, sort of. From London, see?”
“Cas! Right. Gotcha.” So the girl off powdering her nose must be the one she’d tried to dump Carey for, back in London. “So are you and her getting back together now?”
Marianne bit her lip, looking shy but happy. “Maybe.” All at once, she gave a sunny smile. “This is Cas,” she said unnecessarily as I turned to see who’d put the light in her eyes.
I blinked. Cas was… Well. Not what I expected at all.
For one thing, she was tiny. And for another… You know those dolls they make in Russia? Where you open one up, and there’s an identical one inside, only smaller? That was Marianne and Cas. Both blonde, both bubbly, both pretty and busty.
“Hi!” Cas said, flashing me a perky smile and sliding an arm around Marianne’s waist. Her dress went a bit see-through in the sunlight too.
“Cas, this here is Tom,” Marianne said.
Cas’s eyes widened, and she literally launched herself from Marianne’s side and threw her arms around my neck. “Oh my God!” She squealed it right in my ear, which started ringing a bit. “You saved her life! Thank you so much!”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. It was nothing didn’t seem like it’d be very complimentary to Marianne. “Er, yeah, any time,” I muttered, patting her arm and hoping she’d take it as a hint to let go.
She did, but not before she’d given me a big, cherry-lip-gloss-flavoured kiss, which got us a wolf-whistle from somewhere in the foyer and a shout of “Get a room!”
Still a bit deafened from all the squealing, I wasn’t positive, but I reckoned at least one of the two had come from Gary.
“Is it just me, or is that a bit weird?” I whispered to him after I’d disentangled myself from Cas’s arms and left the girls to it.
“Barbie’s little sister wanting to kiss you? Well, it takes all sorts, as I always say. Now, are you sure you’ve got the ring?”
“Positive. And no, you muppet, that wasn’t what I was on about. I meant, Marianne going out with someone who looks exactly like her.”
“Well, I suppose it is a tad narcissississ…” Gary frowned at his champagne. “What are they putting in this stuff these days? Vain.”
“What, Marianne? She hasn’t got a vain bone in her body. Nah, must be something else.”
“The urge,” Gary said solemnly, tapping a finger on the side of his nose, “to merge.”
I shook my head. “Nah. They wouldn’t get up to anything like that in public.”
Marianne and Cas promptly proved me wrong by engaging in a passionate smooch.
Nobody told them to get a room.
I would say, the ceremony went off without a hitch but, heh, that might send the wrong message in the circs. The vows were surprisingly traditional, Gary and Darren promising to love, honour and cherish till death did them part. They didn’t even put in any risqué stuff about worshipping each other’s bodies. It was all really moving, actually. Mrs. Raucous snuffled into her hanky, and even I felt a bit moist around the eye area.
’Specially when Phil slipped his hand in mine and squeezed tight.
The reception was down the road at mine and Dave’s hangout of choice, the White Hart. It’s an actual old Tudor inn with a hole through the middle to drive your coach through, a suit of armour in the lounge, and ghosties in the walls. Allegedly.
The place was packed—a lot of people who hadn’t wanted to come to the registry office or hadn’t been invited had been happy enough to toddle along to celebrate once Darren had mentioned the magic words, “free bar”. There was going to be a sit-down meal in the restaurant in an hour or so for what Gary liked to call his intimate inner circle of around fifty people but for now, anyone was welcome.
“Tommy!” Gary cooed as I elbowed my way into the place. “Do be a darling and fetch me a drinkie. I’m gasping.”
I grinned. True to form, him and Darren were sitting in state in the two red plush thrones the management liked to keep in the main bar for some unknown reason. “All you need is a couple of crowns, and you’d be the perfect king and queen.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, darling. I’m already the perfect queen. Now, chop-c
hop, or it’ll be off with your head!” He giggled, and Darren sent him a besotted look.
“Anything for His Majesty?” I asked.
Darren held up his half-full pint. “Nah, but your faithful service has been noted, vassal. Could be a knighthood in it if you play your cards right.”
Behind me, Phil laughed. “If you think I’m letting my bloke get down on his knees so you can tap him with your sword… No, nothing for me either, ta,” he added at my questioning look.
I fought my way to the bar, where I ordered a martini for Gary and a pint for me, then looked around while I waited. Harry was sitting on her own at the far end of the bar, looking a bit lost without any glasses to polish. She nodded at me, and I ambled on over. “All right, there?” I sort of felt like I should say something along the lines of sorry your pub burned down, but I wasn’t quite sure how to put it.
“Not so bad,” Harry rumbled. “Going to be opening a pop-up in the Granary next week. Keep the regulars happy till we get the old place up and running again.”
“Yeah?” I wasn’t sure what a pop-up was supposed to be, but she sounded pleased about it.
Harry nodded. “Be serving drinks in their downstairs room, evenings six till eleven. Going to have to be bottled ales, but some of it’s all right.” She raised her bottle of Fanny Ebbs in illustration and took a swig.
“Sounds great.” It was a weight off my mind to know Harry wasn’t going to be stuck twiddling her thumbs wherever she was staying for now—actually, where was she staying now?—gloomily waiting for the insurers to give the thumbs-up to rebuilding the Dyke.
Harry put her bottle down on the bar and put a hand on my arm, which was so unusual for her, I looked at her sharply. “I’m sorry you got dragged into that business with Carey’s body,” she said.
I shrugged. “Yeah, well. Not like you put him there, was it?”
