Love at the Little Wedding Shop by the Sea - Jane Linfoot Page 0,60
And he’s also backing towards the door. ‘I’ll see you in a couple of weeks then.’
‘Two weeks?’
‘Maybe three if the weather’s good.’
If that’s his attitude, why am I bothering? Everyone knows everything that goes on round here. The shop can’t afford to ruin its reputation helping with a wedding that’s a disaster because the groom organising it gives no shits at all. The sooner I make that clear, the better.
‘If you want to carry on working with me, you’re going to have to seriously up your game, Nicolson Trendell.’
He’s almost in the corridor now. ‘I’d say that makes two of us, Milla Vanilla.’ He lets the words hang in the air for a second before he carries on. ‘And if you wouldn’t mind picking up my tux for me, it’ll be ready Friday and it’s already paid for.’
I’m picking my jaw up off the floor, dragging in enough breath to tell him where to get off. But the door closes, and he’s gone.
APRIL
Chapter 17
Thursday, two and a half weeks later.
In the attic flat at Brides by the Sea.
Overkill and rearview mirrors.
One of the disconcerting things about weddings is that the days themselves are so emotion-filled you feel as if you could burst. But once they’re over and the hangover finally clears you can end up feeling like a popped balloon.
Luckily for me, my ‘incident’ on the terrace doesn’t seem to have gone any further than Cally, Nige, me and Nic. And everyone here knows about my blunders after I explained why both dresses were at the cleaners. However badly I stuffed up, a bouquet of spring flowers, hand tied with a gold satin bow, arrives for me from Cally on Monday and there’s a ‘thank you’ postcard of the Eiffel Tower lit up at night that arrives in the post on Friday. On Saturday, I nip along to Iron Maiden’s and both clean dresses are sent express delivery to New York. I hang Nic’s suit on the back of the bedroom door, and that’s that. Job done.
As for Nic disappearing so suddenly, I’m missing him and his reluctance to engage with anything wedding related about as much as a hole in the head. Better still, him being away has given me a chance to move up a gear with other things. We’ve got our first fair coming up. My pieces about the shop are generating loads of traffic on the Brides Go West blog and even though the posts about the Cornish venues are outside our usual area, they’ve been really popular too. So there’s really no reason why I should be feeling as flat as I am.
I do admit that the for the first couple of weeks after Nic left, every time I heard footsteps on the stairs my heart did stop momentarily, thinking maybe he’d come back early. If I unzipped the suit cover of his tux to see if there were any lingering traces of his scent – there weren’t – it was only now and again. But now he’s been away three days short of three weeks without so much as a text, I’ve pretty much given up on him altogether. I’ll be surprised if he even comes back at all.
If Nic ever does come back, this time around I need to be fully prepared and super-slick. So with that in mind, this afternoon I’ve asked Holly to show me pictures of weddings she’s shot at places I haven’t visited yet to give me a fast-forward view of what else is out there. And Ivy’s coming to grab the opportunity to get to know the venues too.
There would have been acres more space in Holly’s studio or the basement, but as Poppy’s baking today we decided to squash in upstairs and be on hand for her samples. And Merwyn’s here as well, lying at our feet on the rug. When he’s snuffling around in his latest Fair Isle jumper, everything feels so much homelier.
Holly’s next to Ivy on one sofa, flicking through pictures on her laptop as Poppy drops a tray of drinks and cake on the end of the coffee table. She flops down next to me on the other sofa with a muffin in her hand.
‘These are apple with roasted almond topping. See what you think.’ As we all reach out and sink our teeth into the warm sponge, she’s leaning forward peering at the pictures I’ve been sorting through on my screen. ‘So those are the famous treehouses you visited?’ As she runs