My Fake Wedding(70)

‘Told you,’ George hisses. ‘He lurves you.’

‘Not like that, you dope.’ I shrug. ‘He just wants to keep an eye on me because he thinks I’m poor.’

‘Have some more wine,’ David offers kindly, picking up the bottle and sloshing more into my glass ‘And some nibbly bits. Are you an olivey person? I don’t remember? There’s a marinated anchovy if you prefer.’

I relax, tipping my head back to enjoy the sunshine warming my face.

‘Don’t overdo it,’ George warns. ‘The boiled lobster look is so unattractive.’

In the opposite corner of the courtyard, a delicious waiter is seating a tall, slim girl in a raspberry linen shift dress next to the honeysuckle-covered wall. Her hair, hanging in a glossy sheet down her back, is the colour of golden treacle and she’s groomed to perfection. Something about her makes me watch her, and I can’t help playing a game with myself, imagining who it is she’s waiting for. Someone special, from the way she keeps checking her lipgloss and looking at her watch.

That’s absolutely the best thing about having no boyfriend. At least I don’t have to torture myself with the hidden fear that it’s him she’s re-applying her make-up for.

George refills my wine glass for the second time, and in the split second it takes me to look down at it and take a sip, Raspberry Dress’s suitor has arrived and is bending to kiss her cheek.

He looks very familiar somehow.

Startlingly familiar, in fact.

As he turns to wave the waiter over, I catch a glimpse of his face in profile.

And with a jolt of recognition, I almost call out.

It’s Jasper.

Buggerfuck!

‘Right, come on, ladies, tell all,’ I urge, before the boys notice him. I can’t risk them clocking him. If anyone’s going to inform Janice of this little rendezvous, it should surely be me.

And of course it might not even be him. After all, I’ve only seen him in profile. And even if it is him, Raspberry Dress isn’t necessarily his bit on the side. She could be his daughter, for all I know. So it wouldn’t do to go jumping to conclusions. I mean, so far I’ve spotted them kissing but there definitely weren’t any tongues. So it could all be perfectly innocent.

Or not.

Still, I definitely don’t want him to see me, so I studiously avoid looking directly at him, inching myself down in my seat so I get backache and asking the boys why they’ve dragged me halfway across London on a lazy Sunday afternoon, when I could have been doing something far more productive like waxing my minky.

‘Well, go on then,’ George urges. David quickly stuffs an anchovy in his mouth so he doesn’t have to do the talking.

‘Oh bloody buggery hell.’ George runs his hands over his velvety black crop and tries to look serious. It doesn’t suit him. ‘We’ve got a proposition for you.’

‘I’m not doing a threesome,’ I say quickly.

At least I don’t think I am. Even though it could reasonably be said that I do quite fancy them both, it does seem a tiny bit sordid.

On the other hand, it would add considerably to this year’s measly score. But I’m not really that kind of girl.

‘God, no.’ George looks shocked.

Well, that’s that then.

‘Do we look remotely as though we might want to involve ourselves in all that?’ he asks. ‘No. Sorry, lovey, but I don’t think we’re ready for rug munching just yet. No, what we wanted to say was…’

‘Yes?’ I encourage. ‘It’s not that Rent My Womb thing again, is it? Because I’ve given you my opinion on that score.’ George takes a deep breath.

‘Katie,’ he says, and it takes a gargantuan effort for me not to wee myself with laughter at the expression on his face. ‘Will you marry us?’

I laugh. ‘Oh George. That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me in my life.’

And it is. You see, I’m naive enough to think he means it metaphorically. The idea of the three of us being friends. Together all the time. Being there for each other. Exactly how a marriage should be, but rarely ever is in this day and age.

Which, of course, is precisely why I’m not bothering. So the prospect of having a friendship pact with David and George is the most attractive I’ve been offered in a long time. It cheers me up immensely. I don’t even mind if I’m not included in the actual sex part. After all, plenty of people are married in the true, forsaking all others sense of the word. And they never have sex.

Well, not with each other, anyway.

It certainly doesn’t cross my mind for a minute that George means it literally. As in the full-on, slip into big frou-frou dress, stick ridiculous spangly crown on head and waltz up aisle feeling like complete twat to sign life away on dotted line type scenario.