so this is our little Dance Monkey routine, never done before in long dresses, so cross your fingers we don’t get our skirts wrapped around our axles.’
The track is one of those really catchy tunes with repetitive lyrics that stick in your head. Dance for me, dance for me, dance for me makes the perfect backing for choreographed spins and wheelies they’re doing in their chairs. Somehow they’re also managing to throw a basketball around at the same time and catch it too. When the music ends, Pixie’s shouting again. ‘Okay, no excuses, everybody has to dance tonight, just watch you don’t get your toes run over.’ Then she’s calling to Ewan, and he goes onto the dance area to join her again and as the first notes of This Is It echo off the castle walls everyone goes bonkers.
I pull Merwyn to a safe distance and rest my bum on the edge of one of the stone planters.
Nic comes too and a second later his hip lands next to mine. ‘And what about you? You must have got your wedding confidence back after how well today’s gone?’
I pull a face. ‘If you ignore the topless bathers, your mum getting stuck in the disabled loo, and the kids finding the condom supply in the emergency basket and using them as water bombs?’
‘They’re what made the day legendary.’ Nic laughs and looks down at me. ‘Before I go, you have to promise me you’re going to stay at Brides by the Sea and carry on with weddings?’
I have no idea where he’s planning on disappearing to, because the castle isn’t that big, but I smile at him anyway. ‘You know, I think I will.’
‘It’s the best wedding I’ve ever been to.’
I wrinkle my nose. ‘Me too. Well done for holding out to have it here. It’s so lovely being at the castle and hearing the sea. I love the way that in every room we go in you can look right out across the bay. And it’s worked so well for the wheelchairs.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘Would you like to dance?’
As I look at his Adam’s apple moving as he swallows and hear the up tempo beat of Don’t Look Back Into The Sun beginning, I’m very torn. However much I’d love to, I am technically working. ‘If I take my eye off the wedding ball, that’ll be when it spins out of control. Thanks for the offer, but I’d rather not risk the carnage.’
He nods. ‘I thought you’d say that. That’s why I’ve put our dance track on almost at the end. That way you can relax and enjoy it’
‘We have our own dance track?’ It’s ridiculous how much that makes my stomach contract.
He laughs. ‘We do – and before you ask, I’m saving it as a surprise. In the meantime, we can sit and enjoy the playlist. I hope your mum would approve, I was thinking of her when I put it together.’
My heart was already full, but after that it’s bursting. ‘You’ve got Tiger Feet?’
He nods. ‘Of course. And Uptown Girl, obviously.’
‘The Summer of ’69?’ I see another nod. ‘Every Time We Touch, All By Myself, Amarillo …’ I take in more nods. ‘Bon Jovi’s Always, My Heart Will Go On?’
His eyebrows arch into a smile. ‘They’re all there, with a few well-chosen recent tunes I know she’d have liked too.’ He gives a shamefaced shrug. ‘I have to admit, I went through your CDs when you weren’t looking. But the upside to that is I rediscovered The Time Warp.’
I nudge him. ‘In that case I’ll forgive you.’ It’s not that I’m going soft on him, it’s just too late to give him a hard time.
It’s one of those evenings when even though I don’t see the hands on my watch moving, hours flash by in the space of minutes. It’s a whole lot later when Immie and Poppy wander over.
Nic stiffens next to me. ‘Don’t look now … but watch out for flying masonry!’
The ‘hello again’ punch on the arm Immie gives Nic nearly sends him off the wall. ‘You have to agree, Nic, we nailed it with our team work here?’
His mouth twists into a genuine smile. ‘So long as you don’t demolish anything in the next twelve hours, I might recommend you to my friends and colleagues.’
She chortles and punches him again. ‘You can trust me and Pops, we’re looking out for you all the way.’
Poppy joins in. ‘And we’ve come to say, after everything