Stand-In Saturday: (A standalone romcom. Book 2 in the Love For Days series)

by Kirsty Moseley

  Needing to know the time because I agreed yesterday to meet the girls for our little pre-wedding pamper session at ten thirty, I drag myself up the bed and prop up against the headboard as I reach for my phone. There’s enough power in it now to turn it on, so I blink at my screen, waiting for my eyes to focus.

  It’s just after nine. Hopefully, I’ll feel more alive by the time I have to meet them.

  A pop-up tells me the internal storage of my phone is full, and my cloud has stopped syncing. I frown, confused.

  As the phone connects to the hotel Wi-Fi, notifications start arriving one after the other: Instagram, Twitter, text messages, WhatsApp. My phone goes crazy in my hand, and I quickly switch it to silent before it makes my head explode.

  “Someone’s popular,” Theo jokes, flopping down next to me and pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

  I click on the Instagram notifications first because I know the messages will all be from Aubrey, and I’m not ready to deal with her level of intensity yet. Theo has tagged me in numerous posts.

  I frown at my screen and click on the first one. “You’ve tagged me in videos.”

  “What?” He leans in, and we both watch the screen.

  It’s a TikTok video of us attempting some funny voice-over, mime routine. It’s terrible, and by the end, we’re both just laughing. The next is worse; we’re attempting the Carole Baskin dance together. I click them one after the other. They’re stupid and ridiculous and yet bloody hilarious. Some of them are in the function room; you can see the party going on around us, people watching us like we’re crazy. Some of them are outside on the patio with the loch behind. The last one is us in the lobby. We’re clearly hammered but having a blast.

  I chuckle and shake my head. The comments are people basically adding laughing/crying faces and calling us idiots. There are lots of comments about how fit I am, how amazing we look together, how stellar our outfits are, lots of people asking Theo if I’m his new girlfriend.

  “Do you even remember making these?” I ask Theo, watching as he sips his coffee.

  He rubs at his forehead, shrugging one shoulder. “Sort of. Maybe. Down in the bar, we were fooling around, I think.” He frowns as if unsure, so it must have been towards the end of the night.

  I nod along and then open my Photos app, intending to delete them. They’ve obviously clogged up my memory. A video that’s over three hours long is the last thing I recorded.

  I frown down at it. “Ugh, what’s this one?”

  I open it and click play.

  It’s Theo and me in the bathroom in my room. I can tell it’s mine because my make-up bag and toothbrush are on the side next to the sink. We’re laughing hysterically. Theo is holding my phone, and he’s filming us in the mirror. We’re both still in our costumes. We look a little worse for wear—sweaty, mussed up, and uncoordinated.

  “Oh God, this one’s gonna be epic,” I hear myself say from my phone.

  I wince because hearing yourself on video is painful. I hope I don’t sound that screechy in real life.

  “I bet we go viral.” That’s Theo. “You ready?”

  There’s more giggling.

  “Let’s do this.”

  In the video, I fiddle with Theo’s phone that sits on the counter, and a song starts up: “Flip the Switch” by Drake. I gasp as I realise what we’re doing—the Flip the Switch challenge. I actually can’t wait to see the results. Now, I know why Theo is wearing my wristbands and tiara—we swapped clothes! I’m pretty sure we’re doing it wrong though. We’re not even in the TikTok app. This is just a normal video. Inebriated Lucie and Theo are clearly idiots.

  In the video, I start dancing to the beat of the song, swaying my hips seductively. When it gets to the flip the switch part, Theo turns the light off, and the screen goes black, but the camera doesn’t stop rolling. I can hear laughing, banging, the rustle of clothes.

  “I need to turn the light back on. I can’t see jack and can’t get this off with one hand!” Theo chuckles. “I’ll just put the phone down, and we’ll let it roll on. Then, we can edit it before we upload. It’s gonna be so good.”

  The light flicks back on. Theo props the phone up against the mirror, camera facing towards us now. The angle is awkward. Most of the screen is taken up by the ceiling, and we’re in the corner, but I see myself struggling to pull off my wristbands, handing them to Theo and grinning like a loon as he puts them on. When I yank down my top, bunching it around my waist, ready to shimmy it down my hips, Theo’s eyes widen as he stares at my strapless, lacy red bra.

  “Damn. Wow, nice!” he compliments.

  I glance over at the real Theo, squirming.

  He nods in agreement with his drunken self. “Very nice.”

  Chuckling, I look back at the screen. Theo is unfastening the Velcro on the back of his outfit, pushing it off his shoulders and down his waist. I get a great view of his arse in his tight black Calvin Kleins as he bends. When he tries to step out of the bulky Yoshi part of his costume, he trips and loses his balance. His hands reach out and grab me, and we both go down, disappearing from view.

  The giggling intensifies, and then suddenly, there are a few beats of silence before … sounds of noisy, sloppy kissing.

  My eyes widen. Theo and I both lean in to get a better look at the phone screen.

  “Oh shit, please don’t tell me we made a sex tape.” I groan loudly.

  Seconds later, we both reappear. I stand first and then Theo. We’re grabbing at each other, frantic, bumping into stuff as we stumble against the wall, Theo’s body pressing against mine tightly as my hands scratch at his back and fist into his hair. We kiss like we’re trying to kill each other.

  “Well, that escalated quickly,” Real Theo says beside me.

  My face burns, and I can’t contain my bubble of laughter.

  In the video, Theo picks me up, and my legs wrap around his waist. When he manoeuvres us towards the camera so I’m sitting on the counter, blurring the image with a close-up of my back and my bunched-up costume, my possessions go everywhere, make-up scattering onto the floor as we fumble awkwardly, obviously pawing at each other.

  Just when I think it can’t get any worse, it does.

  “Ouch. Okay, you’re a biter.” Video Theo chuckles. “Bed or counter?”

  “I don’t care where we do it as long as you get inside me right now!” I sound so breathless and excited in the video that a wave of shame washes over me.

  “Bed then. More room.” He picks me up again, and we’re on the move, bumping into the door on the way out of the bathroom.

  The camera continues filming the empty room, but in the background, though fainter now, you can hear us kissing, moaning, and giggling. Video Theo is humming the Wonder Woman theme song.

  “No, leave the boots on, Luce. They’re hot as shit.” His video voice is all gravelly and filled with lust. It makes my breath catch and my whole body ache with longing.

  I wince and jab at the screen, stopping the video. My face feels like it’s on fire. “That’s quite enough of that!”

  Theo’s mouth pops open. “No, come on. I wanna listen. Don’t you wanna hear how it ends?” He reaches over and tries to take the phone from my hand, his eyes excited.

  I shake my head and hold it out of reach. “No! Jeez, it’s over three hours long. It’s filled my whole phone memory. I’m deleting it. I don’t even want to know what we got up to; denial is a much better idea. What we don’t know won’t hurt us.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Three hours? I’m not even gonna try to blag and say I can last that long. I got thirty, maybe thirty-five minutes of solid rutting at the most. Drunken fumbles … probably less than half that. Three hours? No way. We’d be dead.”

  My body stiffens at his words, and I raise a disbelieving eyebrow. Thirty-five minutes. Is that a joke? I quickly filter through my sexual encounters with Lucas over the years. They’re all essentially the same—some foreplay, then seven or maybe eigh
t minutes of actual screwing, if I was lucky. Thirty-five minutes? No way.

  Theo presses a hand over his crotch and shifts uncomfortably. “I know I shouldn’t get turned on from watching us have a drunken hook-up, but damn, that looked hot. I wish I could remember it.”

  He looks at me and grins, laughing as I slap his chest with the back of my hand. I don’t disagree with him though.

  A sudden surge of panic grips me. “This had better not be uploaded anywhere!”

  I quickly do a scan of my socials and his, but it appears this one was just for us. Thank God.

  I breathe a sigh of relief and look over at Theo. His eyes twinkle as he looks at me over the rim of his coffee cup.

  I gulp and know this needs fixing. We get on great, and I don’t want that to change because of a drunken mistake neither of us remembers. Well, sort of don’t remember … I get another micro flash of his mouth on my body, skin on skin, but I force it away.

  “Listen, I don’t want to feel awkward about this now. The wedding is today. I don’t want to be walking on eggshells or feeling self-conscious about this the whole time. Neither of us remembers it, so I think we should pretend it never happened and move on.” I purse my lips and wait to see how he feels.

  He nods in agreement. “Okay. We’re both adults. We can agree not to let this get weird.”

  “Great.” I grin and reach for my coffee, taking a big gulp. The pills are kicking in now. I already feel a tad more human.

  I turn my attention back to my phone, and just as my finger hovers over the delete button, Theo says, “Ah, come on, Luce. Before you delete it, can’t we hear how it ends? Please? Come on, you know you want to.” He nudges me in the ribs with his elbow, his bottom lip jutting out pleadingly as he bats his eyelashes. “Let’s play for it. I win, we skip to the end and listen before deleting. You win, we straight-up delete and never mention it again.” He holds out his fist on his palm, ready for another ridiculous round of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

  A chuckle escapes my lips. “You do realise this isn’t how all adults make decisions or settle debates, right?”

  He grins and waits, one eyebrow raised. Giving in, I put my coffee down and then match his gesture, and we thump our hands and throw our shapes.

  “Yes!” He crows happily as he defeats my scissors with his rock.

  I groan and roll my eyes. Though I must admit, I’m more than a little curious myself. I pass him my phone and gulp the last of my coffee as he slides his finger across the screen to skip to the last five minutes. I hold my breath, strangely excited. It feels naughty, and I kind of like it.

  When he presses play, soft snoring emanates from the phone.

  “Oh, what an ending!” I burst out laughing, shaking my head, deciding a nice, hot shower is in order. I can’t keep the smile from my face.

  fourteen

  Theo

  While Lucie busies herself in the bathroom, I turn my attention back to the video. I’m not ready to admit defeat. I need to hear it. Does that make me a pervert? Probably. But it’s not like I’m watching someone else … I have every right to check and see if I managed to make her moan my name. I scan through the video, stop-starting every few minutes, trying to find the highlights. When I find them, hearing her moan my name and begging me not to stop, it’s so hot that I’m instantly hard as steel. I press my hand against my crotch to try and relieve the ache, but it doesn’t help.

  Damn, why can’t I remember this? And why the heck didn’t I take the phone into the room with me? I bet this looks even hotter than it sounds.

  My mouth is dry. I would give anything not to have been this drunk, so I could remember every second of this encounter. What a damn waste. She looked that hot, and I got her naked, yet I can’t recall a single second of it? Life isn’t fair.

  The trouble is, now that I’ve heard it, I’ll likely never be able to get that sound out of my head again: her breathy moan, the little mewling hums she made, the rhythmic movement, and skin-on-skin noises. I want it again and again and again.

  When we finally finish (seventeen minutes later—go, Drunk Theo!), I turn the video off, and my finger hovers over the delete button. It’s like actual torture. I don’t want to delete it, but I know I have to because that’s what Lucie wants. I close my eyes and take a breath before sending the homemade porno to video heaven.

  Huffing out a breath, I force myself to get up, finding my discarded underwear carelessly strewn under the dresser chair. I slip them on and gather up my phone, wallet, and costume from last night. I don’t bother putting it on as I head to the bathroom door and knock gently.

  “Luce, I’m gonna head to my room and get showered and then go find Jared. You’re meeting the girls this morning, right?”

  “Yeah!”

  I can hear water running, and I try not to think about it cascading down over her naked body. I’m already hard enough without picturing that. I desperately want to go inside, climb in the shower with her, soap her back. Heck, as far as I’m concerned, that’d be saving the environment—conserving water and all that. It’s probably even my civic duty. Go green!

  I force the fantasy away and close my eyes. “Okay, well, I’ll see you at the ceremony this afternoon at two. I’ll be the one in the tux at the front.”

  But then I frown, wondering if she’ll be able to tell me apart from Jared if we’re both wearing the same. Our suits are practically identical. I kind of hate the thought that she wouldn’t be able to tell me from my twin. I don’t want to lose another girl if she falls for Jared’s quiet calm.

  “See you in a bit!” she calls back.

  As I step out of her room and into the corridor, arms full of fancy-dress costume, I spot a waiter dropping off some room service a couple of doors down. He looks up and catches my eye, sending me a knowing smirk, so I tilt my chin in acknowledgement of his silent praise. If I were closer, he’d have fist-bumped me for my conquest, no doubt.

  In the safety of my own room, I flop on the bed and pick up my phone, going to my Instagram and replaying the videos I posted last night. They’re hilariously stupid, so of course, I love them all. I reply to a few comments. When I get to one asking if Lucie is my girlfriend, I’m not expecting the sudden pang of disappointment when I answer no. Lucie is great. I lucked in when that lift got stuck on Monday. She’s made this whole weekend not only bearable, but also fun. I owe her big time.

  When I can’t put it off any longer, I head into the shower and let the water pound across the back of my neck and shoulders, massaging away the last of my hangover. I’m still thinking about Lucie, but my mind moves to distinctly dirtier places, like her naked skin, her red lace bra from the video, her legs wrapped around my waist …

  Before I know it, I’m hard as steel again, and I can’t get out of the shower until I’ve indulged in a little self-satisfaction, replaying the sounds of her moans over and over as I stroke myself to climax.

  After the three s’s (shit, shower, and shave), I head downstairs to Tim’s room, where the guys from the wedding party have agreed to meet and get ready together. We all eat brunch, have a couple of pre-game drinks, and then get dressed up into our posh wedding attire before heading downstairs.

  The wedding ceremony itself is being conducted on the patio outside. As we step out of the glass double doors, my eyes widen. It looks spectacular. A white-and-cream tartan-patterned carpet forms the aisle down the centre of the patio, leading towards a large, circular metal altar with pink and white roses woven around it. Behind that, the loch and mountains will form a stunning backdrop as people watch my brother and his fiancée exchange their vows. White wooden chairs tied with a pink silk sash are set out in straight lines on either side of the carpet. The sun is shining; there’s not a cloud in the sky. They couldn’t have asked for a more glorious day or more perfect setting to get married.

  A few people have already arrived, filling the chairs, chattering excitedly among themselves. Jared, Tim, my dad, and I make our way to the front, stopping
every couple of steps to shake hands with people and for them to wish Jared luck. Our mother is already crying happy tears as she hugs Jared and then me so tightly that it feels like I’m being crushed. Aunt Theresa gives me a hopeful smile, and I can already read her expression—This might be you one day if you hurry up and settle down! Emily is gnawing on her lip furiously as she absentmindedly bounces Finley on her lap and mumbles to her husband that she hopes Carys is behaving and not causing trouble for Amy. She keeps looking at the door, obviously waiting for them to arrive. A few friends tell Jared to make a quick getaway before it’s too late.

  I throw out a few jokes, trying to distract everyone from the fact that with each step taken, Jared’s shoulders seem to tighten a little more and his face is paling.

  “Well, we’d better go take our places.” I grip my brother’s elbow and guide him to the flower-arch thing at the front, stepping closer to him so no one else can hear.

  He’s shifting from foot to foot, his eyes darting from the guests, to the door, to his watch, and back to the door again. This is not the cool, composed, unflappable Jared I’m used to.

  “All right, mate? How are you feeling?” I ask.

  He turns to look at me, his face pallid. “Sweaty.”

  I burst out laughing and clap my hands on his shoulders, massaging a little through his suit jacket. “Not getting cold feet, are you?”

  If he does, I’ll punch some sense into him. There’s no way I’ll let him mess this up and lose Amy over some last-minute doubts.

  Jared shakes his head fiercely. “No, I’m one hundred percent sure I’m doing the right thing and that I’ve chosen the right girl to spend my life with.”

  A smile twitches at the corner of my mouth. I admire his confidence in his decision-making skills. I’m not sure I’ve ever known what I want in life with that much clarity. Hell, I sometimes struggle to choose what I want to eat, as I’m so indecisive, but here he is, ready to tie himself to someone for life. We’re so different.

  “Why are you being so weird then?”