The cars arrived and we all dived in. Music blared, and we sang along to all of Kat’s favourite tracks before pulling up to the church. The ceremony was long but beautiful. Kat’s dad beamed with pride, her mum and aunties wiped away tears of joy. I even saw Ben shed a sneaky tear. The whole thing went without a hitch.
After the vows, we had photographs taken inside the church, then we had photographs outside the church. We detoured on the way to the hotel, and had photographs at Beachy Head with the beautiful scenery behind us. Once we arrived at the hotel, we entered the reception hall as our pre-packed cases were taken up to our rooms. I found my seat –Kat’s handwritten place cards marking where we sat, with our menu choices written out in her and my best calligraphy. The tables looked beautiful. Huge cocktail glass centre pieces filled with lilac flowers, fairy lights, and diamantes.
I looked at the empty place next to me. Danny’s name card was still there. I took it down and snuck it into my handbag. Suddenly a waiter appeared at my side. ‘Courtesy of the bar,’ he said, placing a drink down on a small square napkin.
‘Erm, thanks.’ I looked over at Katherine, who was sitting opposite me. ‘They must have seen me coming!’
Katherine’s husband Derek sat glumly by her side. He was a huge Seagulls fan and was absolutely gutted to be missing their home game. When anybody spoke to him, he pointed out that she had made him give away his tickets to her brother, who didn’t really even follow football.
‘I haven’t made him do anything,’ she defended herself. ‘I just pointed out that I have full control over whether he gets any at all this year.’
Derek wasn’t the kind of guy that would disappear on a night out, or fuck off for a weekend with his friends, and he was always happy to babysit so Katherine could go out… just as long as their Sky Sports subscription was up-to-date. Sport was his life. I always joked that if you cut him open, he didn’t bleed blood but football facts, and results from the past forty years would spill out of him.
The barman appeared again with another drink. Katherine pointed to it. ‘Who did you screw to get special privileges?’
I was so confused.
‘Honestly, hun, I do not know.’
A loud commotion drew our attention to the other side of the room. Oh no! DJ Dexx. He seemed to have pushed his chair out as a poor waitress was carrying a tray of drinks past his table, sending the contents over one of Kat’s aunties’ heads. He jumped over and started furiously dabbing at her with a handful of napkins. Then he glanced up at me and provocatively raised his eyebrows.
‘Oh God, that explains it.’ I told Katherine about the night I’d met Dexter. I felt stupid for not even realising he would be here. I had been hoping I wouldn’t have to see him ever again. Did he think that sending me drinks over would get him a date? I was considering whether I should go over and speak to him, but I was saved by my main meal.
Food eaten and speeches done, we raised our glasses to toast the happy couple. We had about an hour left before we moved into the adjoining party room, where the disco and bar were. Thinking about bars, I decided to wander through and get myself a drink, hoping that maybe if I kept my glass replenished, Dexter wouldn’t send over any more. It would be good to stretch my legs anyway.
Weaving through the crowded tables, stopping to say hello and pose for photographs, I arrived and pushed open the heavy wooden door. I wasn’t prepared and had not expected to see what was behind it. The giant bar, with sparkling lights and large display of optics and glasses, had three or four bar staff already busy serving; one was loading a full tray of dirty glasses into the dishwasher. Right in the centre, pouring out a tray of champagne, was Danny.
I stared at him, shocked and confused. He had said he wasn’t coming. Why was he here? I must have looked really confused, because one of the bar staff who was on her way back into the dining room with a tray of drinks, asked me if I was ok.
‘Yeah,’ I muttered vaguely, still staring ahead. At this point, Danny looked up.
‘Hey, Case, how do you like the uniform? Snazzy, huh?’ He held both arms out like he was on the cross, champagne bottle still in hand.
Realising I wasn’t quite ready to answer, he continued. ‘Wow, look at you in that dress. Knew you were going to be stunning. Cor, you’re going to make working tonight really hard, if you know what I mean?’
As he winked, I moved forward and practically hissed, ‘What are you doing here? You said you weren’t coming. You—’
He stopped me. ‘Ahh, but did I?’
‘What?’
‘Say I wasn’t coming? Technically, I told you I wasn’t going to be your date today.’
He had me there. He hadn’t actually said he wouldn’t be here, but he had certainly implied it.
‘You said you had to work.’
He pointed at the bottle of champagne and continued to pour. ‘I am working.’
‘You said you were helping out a friend.’
‘Kat is my friend.’
He passed the full tray to a colleague who carried it through to the other room, and poured me a double vodka and coke.
‘It was you! The drinks.’
‘Ahh, did you think you had an admirer?’
‘That guy is here, the one I told you about. Ben’s friend, the DJ. I really thought it must be him trying to get a date or something. Imagine if I’d gone over to him; it would have been so embarrassing.’
The doors opened, and a few guests started to filter through, including Katherine. She had grabbed me a glass of champers on the way through.
‘Bloody get those drinks pouring,’ she said to Danny as she downed hers. ‘He’s doing my bloody head in. Won’t stop moaning about the fucking football. Football, seriously! We’ve got a romantic setting, a lovely wedding, I’ve even booked a fucking room and have promised him the night of his dreams now he’s finally had the snip, and all he cares about is the shitting, fucking football!’
Kat came flying in, her wedding dress streaming behind her. ‘Oh my God, today has been a-maze-ing!’ she sang. ‘Danny, I can’t thank you enough. He’s amazing, isn’t he, Casey? A- maze-ing.’
I had to agree with the bride. Who wouldn’t?
We stood talking for a while, and I found it strange how normal things were. When I saw Danny in the flesh, we were always just Danny and Casey, Max’s friend and ex-girlfriend. Nobody here knew that we had a secret connection. Nobody knew we had expressed feelings, and talked and shown each other what we liked. I found that exciting. Our little secret.
‘Where’s Erica tonight?’ Kat asked Danny.
‘Erm, she’s in Milan.’
‘Aww, it must be hard with her jetting round the world.’ Kat turned to Katherine to explain. ‘She’s a model! I wish I was jetted round the world for photo shoots.’
There it was. That little reminder. She was always there. She should be. She was his girlfriend, after all. I was just… well, I don’t even know what I was. I suppose I was his secret; his dirty little secret. I knew he liked me, though.
When he spoke about her, he had no brightness in his eyes. He didn’t even answer Kat about missing her. He just looked down and cleaned a glass. He didn’t miss her. She had probably only flown out today anyway. I’m sure she had been there yesterday, because he hadn’t messaged me much.
Lost in thought, I stood there whilst the others talked. Eventually, I snapped back to reality and looked over at Danny, who was staring at me. He smiled warmly, winked, and headed off to a side room with the empty champagne bottles.
It was time for the first dance. Ben and Kat swayed in a loving embrace with Etta James’s words floating out of the speaker: At last my love has come along. I had a warm feeling inside me that I hadn’t experienced in a very long time. I think I loved Danny. As soon as he realised he wasn’t happy with her, we could get on with our lives. I was going to be happy. I deserved to be happy. We both did.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Waking up in my beautiful suite, I
tried to remember what had happened last night. I knew we hadn’t gone up to bed until very late. I smiled to myself as I stretched out, yawning. I had small flashes of the evening. Kat and I leading a group of ladies in the Macarena. Ben trying to lift Kat in the famous Dirty Dancing pose and nearly flinging her into the cake. Every memory I had was funny.
Somebody had been crying. Who was crying? I tried to clear my memory. Why did I drink so much? I was remembering something else. Danny. Yes, Danny had been there working. I kept talking to him. He was dancing. Yes, that’s right. He finished work and came to join the party. We danced. What was it that woman said? The middle-aged woman sitting with Ben’s mum. ‘You two make a lovely couple.’ Oh yes, that was it. I had been about to correct her, to tell her we were just friends, but Danny had just whisked me off to dance, saying, ‘Thank you.’
Larrisa and Christina had turned up a bit late. It was Christina crying. Yes, she had had another argument with her boyfriend. Oh, it was his fault. She didn’t cry for long, though. Ten minutes sobbing in the toilets then we all went back to dancing. I don’t think them two left the dance floor all night. Oh, it had been a great night.
Ben had been drunk. He kept telling me he loved me. ‘You’re so good with Kat, I love that. I love you, Case. You are family. You are Kat’s family, so you are our family. We love you, Casey, we really do.’ I’d never seen Ben that drunk; it was funny.
Ben’s mum had whipped her shoes off and started bumping and grinding to Dirty by Christina Aguilera! Oh, my days, I’d almost forgotten that. His dad fell asleep at the table. Oh, it was such a great wedding. We were all hammered. How did I even manage to get up to my own room?
How did I, though? I really couldn’t remember. I remembered dancing and stumbling into Danny. We were laughing, and he helped me take my heels off because my feet were hurting. There was a moment. A little moment when I thought we would kiss. We didn’t, though, not then. But we did kiss. A flash of us kissing. Where? Did anybody see? Try and think, Casey; you were laughing and joking with him.
Kat and Ben said their goodnights and went up to their bridal suite. I was holding my key card, waving it in front of my face. It was when I was talking to Danny. Why was I holding my card? My mind was blank. I had slid it across the table. Oh my God, I gave it to him. I actually invited Danny up to my room. Why can’t I remember properly?
Things started coming back to me. Getting in the elevator alone, the doors starting to close and Danny stopping them. Him coming in. It started there. He kissed me. We kissed each other. His hands were everywhere. We barely got into the room before we started undressing each other. This was the moment we had both been planning for months and months. I could remember it all so clearly now. He kissed me everywhere. All over, every inch of my body. My skin was on fire. Every part of me a hot point. I had never felt this alive. He made me tremble and shiver over and over again, just with his hands and mouth. It was like one continuous orgasm. I wanted him so badly.
I dragged his face up to mine. ‘Fuck me.’ It was barely a whisper. As he entered me, I instantly came – hard, and without any warning. He stared into my face as I did. ‘You are so fucking sexy, you know that?’
I had never had an orgasm through penetrative sex, and somehow with Danny I had them one after the other. Each one crept up on me as a shock. I scratched my nails down his back, and as I did I suddenly felt panicked that I might leave a mark. Oh no, there she was. Erica. The reminder was vivid in my head. What we were doing was wrong. Is that why it felt so good? He had to really feel this. I wasn’t imagining. This couldn’t be just sex.
He had such longing in his eyes, such passion in his kiss. We had both wanted this for so long. We tried many different positions – some I’d never done before; some I’d never even heard of before. Somewhere around 5am, we both came simultaneously and crashed down onto the bed, breathing heavily.
‘That,’ he said, between deep breaths, ‘was amazing.’
‘Yeah.’ I was still panting. ‘Well worth the wait.’
He covered us both with the duvet, cuddled up to me, and kissed me on the shoulder. ‘More than worth it.’
I don’t know when we finally fell asleep, but now I was lying in my bed remembering it. I turned my head and saw him there, sleeping next to me. I felt amazing. He stirred a bit.
‘Morning,’ he said, shuffling back over and throwing his arm around me. ‘What time is it?’
I glanced at the clock. ‘Ten.’
‘I have to go soon.’
My smile faded. Was he going back to her? Was she coming home today? I realised what I had done. I had just had the best sex of my life with somebody else’s boyfriend. I was that person. I had become the other woman. The guilt swarmed over me, and I started to feel sick. What had I done? Who was I? I didn’t even recognise myself any more.
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘Married sex is so much better than engaged sex,’ Kat boasted at breakfast, as Ben and Derek went up for seconds of the all-you-can-eat. Katherine disagreed.
‘Drunk sex is better than any sex,’ she corrected. ‘Wait til tomorrow, when you stop being a bride or a new wife, and realise you’re now stuck having the same sex with the same man for the rest of his life.’ She bit into her toast. ‘Obviously, the men tend to die first; hopefully, when we’re young enough to jump onto somebody else.’ Katherine and her husband were hilarious. They never said a nice thing about each other. Anybody that didn’t know them would think they were on the edge of a divorce. Seeing them last night, cheek-to-cheek on the dance floor, it was obvious they were each other’s world. Their pet names for each other were wanker and bitch, but they were very much in love.
Kat sat staring at her breakfast sadly. ‘Oh my God! I’m not a bride. Oh shit, I’m actually a wife. I wish I could wear my wedding dress every day!’
‘Well done, Katherine, you’ve managed to depress Kat.’
‘What about you, missy? Didn’t you have a guest in your room last night?’
‘What? No? Why would I?’ I said very defensively. Danny had snuck out to get back to the bar. What if she had seen us? The part before we went upstairs was still a bit hazy.
‘Oh Casey, I’m disappointed with you. That poor guy was here doing you two a favour. The least you could have done was offer him the sofa in your suit.’
‘Oh, did poor Danny have to go all the way back to Brighton last night? Bless him. I’ll message him and apologise.’ She got out her phone.
I relaxed. ‘Oh, I did offer, but he just wanted to get back, that’s all,’ I lied.
I had never lied to my best friend before. I had always been able to tell Kat everything. I told her when I got caught shoplifting at fourteen. I told her when a boy at school got a bit too heavy-handed when we were drunk at the pier. I told her before Max, the last few times I had found out I was pregnant. I could even be honest with her when she was wearing clothes that made her bum look big.
This, I could not tell her. I just couldn’t. I checked my phone, but he hadn’t messaged. I suppose he didn’t have to. I’d seen him this morning, after all. He would be busy at the bar. Who knows what mess his staff would have left it in?
Kat’s phone bleeped, and she read it. ‘Ahh, bless him. He said he was fine. Best night ever. Isn’t that cute?’
Best night ever. That was some compliment. It’s nice that he told Kat that and not me. Then again, he would be at his phone now, so I was certain I would get a message off him at some point. Yet hours passed… and nothing.
I didn’t hear from Danny for another few days. Every day, I checked my phone… but nothing. I went on Facebook. He hadn’t had any posts on his since the day before the wedding. My nosiness took over. I searched through his friends for Erica. I couldn’t find her. Her name wasn’t on his friends. I figured she had probably just gone off Facebook for a little while. She had done that before. Social media detox.
I typed her name into the search bar and noticed her profile picture flash up – h
er draped on a flash car, legs up to her armpits.
‘What are you doing?’ Larissa appeared beside me on her wheelie office chair.
‘Shit, you made me jump. Erm, nothing much.’
‘Who the fuck is Erica Walker, and why are you Facebook stalking her?’
‘She’s nobody.’ I tried to refresh my page to my home page by pressing back, but it put me onto Danny’s page.
‘Oooh, who’s he?’ She leaned over to get a closer look.
‘Isn’t that the guy from the wedding you kept flirting with?’ Christina had appeared behind me.
‘Oh, yes he is. Casey Turner, I believe you have gossip for us.’
‘Did somebody say gossip?’ Our other colleague Grace shouted from the opposite side of the desk. ‘Come on, ladies, spill. Don’t disappoint me. I need to know something now.’
I looked round at their three expectant faces, then continued looking and saw all the other faces in the office. ‘Fine, there is gossip, but not here.’
‘Lunch date in the car park,’ Grace called out. ‘Looking forward to it.’
The four of us crammed into Grace’s 4x4. ‘McDonald’s? KFC? Which drive-through are we heading to?’
‘Don’t care.’ That was Christina. ‘Spill it, Turner. Who is the guy, and what have you done with him?’
‘Don’t judge me.’ I leant forward in my seat straining against my seat belt. ‘It’s a long story. His name is Danny. He’s a friend of my ex’s, Max. That girl is his girlfriend.’
‘Wow, well done, Danny, bagging a girl like her,’ Larissa interrupted.
‘She’s a bitch. We don’t like her.’
‘Noted.’ She saluted me from the front passenger seat.
‘Well, after me and Max, Danny started messaging me. Saying things.’
‘Like what?’ Grace asked eagerly, signalling into the KFC drive-through.
Another Woman's Man Page 10
