The Last Word (20 page)

In the fifteen minutes that the photos had been taken, her mother had managed to criticise Tabby’s make-up, wonder aloud why she couldn’t be more like Chandra, and, of course, ask how much Tabby paid for an escort.

‘He’s a bit scrummy, darling. Did you phone an agency or something? Nothing to be ashamed of, although I suppose if you couldn’t get a man to come with you for free, you should probably work on being more appealing.’ Her mother smiled for the camera, while Tabby was sure her face would be scowling in every print.

Claudia also pointed out that it was very selfish of Tabby to have hired an escort as well as inviting Rhi and Chandra. And that she was using her mother’s money in a very frivolous manner. This from the woman who had hired swans for the day, and paid people to spray paint some of their feathers purple.

‘I look like a dessert!’ she said as she approached Harry, standing with Rhi and Chandra. The fact that he looked so gorgeous in his suit was almost painful. Every low self-esteem, what-is-he-doing-with-me thought mushroomed in her head until it felt like a tumour.

‘You look sweet.’ Harry put his arms around her, his lips briefly touching her neck. ‘Delectable. Good enough to eat.’

‘I forgot how good you are with spin.’ She leaned back into his arms, safe and solid, letting the doubts drip away gradually. Harry’s spotlight shone on her, and yes, she admitted it, she felt cherished. Like she really did have appealing qualities and stuff.

‘There are many more worrying things,’ Harry said, and she followed his gaze across the room, where her mother was viciously attacking Liam’s mouth.

‘It’s like a scene from Alien,’ Rhi remarked cheerfully, clutching her bottle of beer.

‘You mean you’re not overjoyed by your new daddy, Tabs? Look what a catch he is!’ Chandra giggled and nudged Tabby, who simply groaned into her hands, covering her eyes. She peered over briefly, only to see them pause as her mother and Liam smashed cake onto each other’s noses. Then a bit of face-licking commenced, and the minimal content of Tabby’s stomach threatened to reappear.

‘We’re going to get more drinks.’ Chandra waved, and dragged Rhi with her in the direction of the bar, where her main aim was clearly the dark-haired bartender rather than another glass of Chardonnay. Rhi shrugged then followed.

‘I can’t believe your mum married an Essex boy! Look at how much fake tan he’s wearing!’ Harry laughed.

‘Ask me where they’re going on honeymoon.’

‘Where?’

‘Marbella!’

‘Shut up!’

‘It’s true! I swear!’

And suddenly, it didn’t seem so bad that she felt three sizes bigger in a fluffy pastel dress, because laughing with Harry seemed to make all those stupid problems seem not just stupid, but a source of amusement, a good story.

‘This is fascinating!’ he said with absolutely no irony. ‘What do you think their first dance song will be?’

‘Here’s to you Mrs Robinson?’ Tabby offered, and Harry stifled his laughter in her neck. Claudia looked over, wriggling her fingers into a little ‘hello’. She looked so happy, and for a second, Tabby thought that maybe everyone deserves a second chance, and if this wedding made her mother happy, it was a good idea.

And then her mother started pouting at Harry, and it didn’t seem worth holding onto those warm feelings.

‘Oh yeah, you owe me twenty quid.’

‘Why?’

‘Mum thinks you’re a male escort I’ve hired for the evening.’

‘Did you tell her that?’

‘Why would I tell her that? She thinks you’re too pretty for me. Apparently I’ve always been very practical, and there’s no point in trying to kid myself now.’ Tabby shrugged and tried for an ‘I don’t care’ grin. There was a painful tension in her cheeks.

‘You’re possibly the least practical person I’ve ever met, Tabs.’

‘Really?’ Tabby raised an eyebrow. ‘But I can cook and put up shelves and a tent and do my own tax returns…’

Harry frowned. ‘Oh right, sorry, I got practical confused with rational. You’re the least rational person I’ve ever met, but you’re very practical about it.’

Tabby pouted. ‘Bad day. Mean man.’

‘Monosyllables.’ Harry stuck out his tongue, and pulled her closer to him, turning her around so he could stroke her cheek. ‘You listen to me, Riley, no one is too pretty for you. Or too good or smart or kind for you. I am nowhere even near the realm of deserving you, but I’m really glad you’re letting me be here anyway.’

‘Ooh, you’re good with the words.’ She grinned against his mouth, kissing him and completely not caring if anyone saw, that her mother would probably call her vulgar. Especially if she knew the extent of her and Harry’s Truth or Dare game in the drive down, and how she wasn’t wearing any knickers under her billowing bridesmaid’s dress. It wasn’t until she heard Liam’s Great Aunty Edna adjust her hearing aid and shout, ‘Is that Tabitha kissing a male prozzie? She’s a wild one!’ that she stopped to catch her breath. Harry grinned at Edna, ‘Yeah, she really is!’ and grabbed Tabby’s hand.

Tabby seemed to avoid the issue of defining her relationship by explaining that, ‘This is Harry, he works with me. No, he’s not a prostitute.’ On occasion, to the limited nice family members who didn’t assume she needed to hire a bedfellow, she simply said, ‘This is Harry, he’s an editor.’ How ‘editor’ kept becoming synonymous with ‘fuck buddy’ in her life, she didn’t know. Maybe she was attracted to the idea of being corrected all the time. Or maybe when you got to twenty-six, boyfriend felt like a very simplistic and all-too defining word for what she had with Harry. What she had was mind-blowing sex, consistent attraction and a level of support and affection that made her stomach wriggle. Oh, and she laughed a lot. And she had to admit, when Aunty Grace said her boyfriend seemed like a ‘nice young lad’, she didn’t correct her. Mainly because convincing a sixty-five-year-old woman that the reason he wasn’t her boyfriend was because she was only using him for his body, seemed complicated. Not at all because she quite liked the idea of being Harry’s girlfriend. Nope.

There were a few stressful moments. When Margaret, her mum’s oldest friend asked how the writing was going, and Tabby explained about her job, she wasn’t even met with the usual, ‘It’s not a real job, though, is it?’ No, instead Margaret suggested that she write about things she was interested in.

‘I’ve been sending off articles about my gardening and they get published quite often. Maybe you should think about doing something like that, to get you started?’

‘I’ve been a professional writer for the last five years, Margaret,’ Tabby reminded her, aware of how her voice seemed to wobble up at least two octaves.

‘Yes, but it hasn’t really got you anywhere, has it, love? Think about it, I can always talk to the people at the gardening magazine for you.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t have anyone taking Tabby’s writing elsewhere, the paper would fall apart without her!’ Harry seemed to appear from nowhere and put an arm around Tabby’s shoulders. ‘She’s our star writer!’

‘Really? Tabitha, you should have said! Letting us think you weren’t very good for all these years!’

‘I didn’t let – ’ Tabby started.

‘Oh that’s our Tabs, modest to the last. No honestly, you should see the sales increase since she started working for us, it’s been miraculous.’

Even Margaret, who had been saying for years that the last good man went when her husband died, seemed to appraise Harry and find that he was one of the few men who’s opinions mattered. Her eyes shone with appreciation, and she would spend the rest of the evening referring to him as ‘that nice young man that Tabitha bought’.

Then there was the rather harrowing twenty minutes when Ted decided he wanted to read Tabby’s palm.

‘Oh, he’s got ever so good. Reading all the books, and going to the classes and that. He’s really into it. Told me I should start taking certain vitamins. It’s all in your hands!’ His wife waxed lyrical while Ted told Tabby that she had good communication and writing skills, and would probably make an excellent receptionist or telephonist one day. Harry kept a hand at the small of her back, rubbing gently every time he heard that growling noise deep in her throat. When Ted got to the words ‘sexual dynamo’ and started asking about the regularity of her periods, she figured it was time to go.

She laced her fingers with Harry’s and dragged him away.

‘Can we leave now? Wasn’t there supposed to be a part where you drunkenly ravished me? Can we skip to that?’

‘Nope, because we haven’t done the one bit of wedding tradition that I like best.’

‘I am offering you the opportunity to sleep with a bridesmaid. Is that not your favourite part?’

Harry grinned but said nothing.

‘Cake?’

He shook his head.

‘Drunken argument?’

Harry tilted his head to the side, and nodded towards the DJ. At that very moment, the Grease medley started.

‘Oh dear God,’ Tabby said, wide-eyed. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to look at you the same way after this.’

‘No choice, Tabs!’ He grinned and dragged her onto the dance floor, before grabbing Chandra and Rhi by the hand too. He then did the most ostentatious impersonation of Danny Zuko, thrusting his hips, slicking back his hair with an invisible comb, shaking his limbs alarmingly while shouting, ‘Electrifying!’ And Tabby had to admit, once she’d stopped gawking and Rhi had decidedly laughed her arse off before shouting, ‘Fuck it!’ and crooning to ‘Summer Nights’, it was the most fun she could have had.

‘OK.’ Harry grabbed her, warm and breathless. ‘I’m ready to go now.’

He was sweaty and grinning, sober but exhilarated, and she brushed back a damp piece of hair that was sticking up at an odd angle. Harry suddenly looked young and completely non-intimidating, and she felt such a sudden rush of affection for him, a clamouring around her chest that felt like a weight and a lightness both at once, that she couldn’t breathe.

‘I’m ready to go too,’ she whispered, and kissed his cheek.

They said goodbye to Rhi, waved at Chandra who was currently chatting to a scruffy boy with a waistcoat and a fedora, laughing like she hadn’t in a long time.

‘Does that look important to you?’ she asked Rhi, pointing at their friend.

‘I kinda think so, which is why I’m staying. If it is important, she’s going to freak out, and I want to be here.’

Tabby squeezed Rhi’s hand. ‘You’re a good friend. Tell me all about it over breakfast tomorrow.’

‘Let’s make it brunch, I plan to grab a couple of half full champagne bottles at the end of the night that we can enjoy tomorrow.’ Rhi grinned and hugged Harry. ‘Goodbye, Greased Lightning.’

‘I’ll serenade you,’ he said warningly, ‘I swear.’

‘Who says that’s not what I’m angling for?’ Rhi raised an eyebrow.

‘OK, leaving now!’ Tabby pulled Harry away just as he opened his mouth. ‘Can thankfully avoid saying goodbye to Mum, think she’s already gone.’

‘Yes, but what is she doing?’ Harry grinned at the look of horror on Tabby’s face.

‘Despicable.’ She pinched his arm. ‘Bleh.’

They were given their ‘keepsake’ by the wait staff: a silver key ring with a picture of Claudia and Liam, with the words ‘True Love’ engraved on the back.

‘Urgh. I might be sick,’ Tabby said, leaning against the car and examining the key ring. Harry stuffed the last of the bags in the boot, and stood in front of her, backing her up against the car. ‘Do you need a distraction?’

She loved to taste his smile, to have him warm and heavy against her, invading her space and trapping her hands in the most delicious way.

‘Definitely,’ she breathed in between kisses, feeling all her tension slip away, until there was a new type of tension that was immediate and desperate. She was suddenly very aware of the fact that she was commando under the dress, and was surprised Harry hadn’t mentioned it.

He stopped, leaning his forehead against hers, eyes closed. ‘I am going to break so many speed limits getting home, and every single ticket will be worth it.’ He took a deep breath and kissed her cheek. ‘Let’s get going.’

He opened her door, then walked round to the driver’s side and started the car. Tabby felt frantic with need, biting her lip and trying to ignore the effect of the rumbling engine making her seat vibrate. Trying not to look at Harry and think about leaning across and licking his neck. Trying not think at all, to ignore the smell of him that seemed to take up all the air.

There had been many times where Tabby had lost desire halfway through a sexual encounter, and just got on with it anyway. There would be moments of propriety, when she could usually dampen down that desire by focusing on something else. Everything she had so far experienced in her life told her that she was not someone controlled by lust. But now everything in her body told her that she had to have him right now, or she was going to pass out.

‘Harry,’ she said tightly, ‘stop the car.’

‘Why? What’s wrong?’ He pulled over to the side of the country road leading them out of the estate.

Tabby didn’t really know how to say what she wanted. Which seemed hilarious, because in every other part of her life Tabitha Riley knew what she wanted, how to get it and what timeframe everything should be in. She had a five-year plan, for goodness’ sake. And yet now, words escaped her.

‘You see that tree over there? Could you drive to that?’ Her voice trembled a little, and she knew she should be appearing all excitable and sexy and saying things to make it clear, but all she could do was replay the feel of him against her until it was a little hard to breathe. She closed her eyes.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yeah, just park over by the tree? Please?’ She honestly didn’t even care that she was begging.

He parked the car.

‘Now turn the lights off,’ she commanded.

‘The heating will go off.’

‘We won’t be cold.’

He turned off the engine and it was suddenly dark. He turned to her, reaching out a hand to her cheek. ‘Are you sure you’re OK, Tabs? We can go back if you want? Get a room for the night here?’

Had she never instigated this before? Was that even possible? Did she just wait for Harry to be turned on, and then let him do all the work? Sure, OK, maybe she started Round Two, when they were already in bed, or she moved it one step further when they were kissing. But what is the subtle way to say to the guy you’re sort of seeing, ‘I’m going crazy and need you to fuck my brains out please?’