Wedding Bubbles: A romantic comedy (Wellywood Series Book 1) (2 page)

I turn to the wedding guests. “Dan was my first and what a disaster he was,” I tell them, feeling they needed the information. “He had no idea what he was doing.  Y
ou know what I’m saying, ladies? Oh yeah, you know what I’m saying. Sure, he was cute, but as far as lovers are concerned, he was a big fat zero with a capital ‘Z’. Know what I mean?”

A general titter wafts around the room. I’m pretty sure they caught my drift.

“Anyway, what was his name?” I ask Laura.

“Geoff Tait!” someone I can’t quite see shouts from a table at the back of the room.

‘That’s right. God, he was awful. Remember he had that weird receding hairline already at seventeen? And really bad breath? Like he ate sardines all the time? Good choice giving him the flick, Laura,” I congratulate my friend who is now whispering in her husband’s ear.

Oh, so cute! They’re so in love.

Through my inebriated haze I spot a really hot guy who looks vaguely familiar at a table near the back of the room. He’s what romance novelists would describe as ‘
brooding’
, and he’s looking at me with a scowl on his face. Which of course only serves to add to his dark and mysterious good looks. Like a romantic heroine I feel certain I could smooth that frown and heal his wounds with my … errrm…
womanliness
.

Perhaps he’s the one? Perhaps we’re meant to meet tonight, fall in love, and live happily ever after?

I dart my most coquettish smile at him and I’m certain I detect a smirk tease at the edges of his mouth.

As lust for Brooding Guy creeps tantalisingly up my body I feel an arm circle around
my waste. I turn to see Kyle’s Best Man, Ben standing beside me, gently taking the microphone from my hand.

“Thanks, Jess. That was great. Nice job,” he says to me kindly.

I smile drunkenly at him thinking how lovely it feels to have his arm wrapped around me. Ben and I have been great friends since we met at university. He’s witty, bright and fun, and one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet to boot. Some people think we’re friends with benefits, but the only thing I’m benefitting from right now is his supporting arm.

Which is pretty much all that’s keeping me upright.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the maid of honour, Jessica Banks,” Ben says into the mike to muted applause from the guests.

Despite the lacklustre response I decide to take a bow nonetheless.

“Jessica’s …errr…
heartfelt
thoughts wrap up this evening’s speeches. It’s time for the newlyweds to cut that cake,” Ben announces as I search the room for Brooding Guy. But he’s nowhere to be seen.

Did I imagine him?

After the cake has been cut it’s time for the dancing. I’ve had a moment or two to sober up. Or at least I think I have until I stand up and feel the floor wobble inconsiderately beneath my feet like a boat on choppy water.

“May I have this dance?” Ben asks, proffering his hand and smiling broadly at me.

I take it and he guides me skilfully to the side of the dance floor. Kyle and Laura are already in position in preparation for their big wedding boogie moment.

The music begins and I guffaw in what my mother would certainly regard as an unladylike manner when Air Supply’s
The One That You Love
begins to play. That song is tackier than a box of… well, tacks, in my opinion. But Laura and Kyle begin to move in beautiful synchronisation and I’m quickly swept away in the moment, gazing at them in their newly wed love bubble.

After a few moments Ben guides me onto the dance floor and we begin to sway slowly to the music. I’m concentrating extremely hard on appearing sober. I decide, after exerting a huge amount of energy for very little return, that perhaps that particular ship has sailed.
What the hell
, I think.
This woman wants to move like Jagger!

“You doing OK there, soldier?” Ben asks as I bump my head against his shoulder for the third time in as many minutes.

“Yeah, just a little, I don’t know...”

“Trashed?” he suggests helpfully, grinning at me.

I laugh uproariously, throwing my head back. Ben grabs me by the shoulders to steady me before I fall flat on my back.

“Hey thanks, man,” I say to him earnestly, his hands still on my shoulder. Ben’s always been there to catch me when I fall.

Quite literally tonight, it would seem.

He smirks at me, shaking his head. “What are we going to do with you, Jessie? You’ve become a drinking machine lately.”

I admit reluctantly to myself that he’s right. Drinking too much has become somewhat of a new hobby of mine. I’ve been working on it extremely hard and achieving some excellent results. You could say I excel at it, in fact.

But I don’t need it pointed out by anyone. Even by a good buddy like Ben.  And especially not tonight.

I open my mouth to defend myself as Ben’s obscenely beautiful girlfriend, Amber, arrives.

He immediately releases my shoulders, turns to her and kisses her chastely on the cheek.

“Hey sweetie,” she purrs. “I’ve missed you.”

She pulls a little girl pouty face and I instantly feel sick to the stomach. Why do so many women think they need to act like children around men? It’s demeaning, I tell you.

I know - I’m drunk.

As the music changes to the rather inappropriate
Another One Bites the Dust
by Queen, Ben turns to me.

“Do you mind, Jess?” he asks, gesturing towards Amber, whose Amazonian gorgeousness is attracting the attention of virtually every man in the room.

“Go for it,” I shrug and move away as quickly as I can before I’m elbowed by the dancers letting loose to the upbeat track.

It’s then that I spot Brooding Man. He’s leaning up against the bar, laughing and chatting with a group of guests. I realise he no longer looks like he’s brooding, so I might have to rethink
the name I’ve given him.

But I’m
enjoying looking at him just too much to concentrate.

After a while of watching him he looks up and catches my eye and I feel a sudden thrill in the pit of my stomach. I automatically push my chest out and suck my tummy in, throwing him my best seductive ‘
come hither’
smile.

Like an irresistible magnet we’re drawn to one another across the dance floor. Sadly for me there are several people twirling in my path, a number of whom I stumble into as I utter my apologies. I might be a single woman in her twenties on the prowl, but I was raised to be polite, you know.

“I’m Jessica,” I say to him breathlessly once we finally reach one another.

“Yeah, I know,” he replies, smirking from ear to ear. Well he has just seen me give my
maid of honour speech, so of course he knows who I am. “I’m Daniel.”

As I gaze at his lusciousness I wonder if
to be a really good maid of honour I have to be an honourable maid? As I gaze at Daniel I’m hoping against all hope that’s not part of the job description.

“Do you want to dance, Daniel?” I ask from under my lashes, suddenly overpowered by the need to feel his tuxedo-clad body pressed against mine.

He looks around the room lazily and then turns back to face me. God, he’s sexy.

“Sure,” he replies nonchalantly as he takes my arm.

As if by magic the music changes from the upbeat
Another One Bites the Dust
to the slow, schmaltzy
Lady in Red
by Chris de Burgh. Under normal circumstances I find this song cheesier than a French delicatessen, but as Daniel takes me in his arms I feel like the most desirable woman in the room. I am indeed dressed in red, but the thoughts I’m having about Daniel are certainly not very lady-like.

“Wow, you’re a really good dancer,” I say to him as he moves me expertly around the dance floor.

“Well you know what they say about the way a man dances…” he replies with a wicked grin, allowing his words to hang in the air suggestively.

I’ve sobered up enough now to feel a blush creep up my neck and into my cheeks. He so muscular and firm in my arms and it’s all I can do not to imagine how he’d feel naked, pressed up against me.

“You’re just back from London?” he asks as we shimmy past Morgan and Dave.

“Yeah. Just for the wedding. You?”

“I live here,” he replies before he spins me around.
Hmmmm
, I think
, I’m not quite as sober as I thought
, as the room keeps whirling long after my body has stopped.

“So, umm, how do you know the
bride and groom?” I ask, gazing at his mouth, thinking about how much I’d like to kiss it.

“Me? Oh I met Kyle through work a few years ago. But I’ve known Laura since high school.”

“You have?” I squeak, feeling miffed that she never set me up with him. He’s so hot and we have such incredible chemistry - we’d clearly be a fantastic match.

“Yeah,” he replies, smirking at me as the music stops. “Thanks for the dance.”

“Sure,” I reply uncertainly, narrowing my eyes at him.

“Catch you later?” he asks.

Disappointment and confusion flood my body as I watch him walk away, back towards his group of friends.

“Hey, babe,” Morgan chirps, interrupting my train of thought as she and Dave dance over to me. “Want to join us?”

Feeling like I’d rather gouge my eyes out with a spoon than be an obvious third wheel in the sea of couples, I reply, “No thanks. You guys have fun. Think I’ll go and get a drink from the bar.”

“Suit yourself,” she replies as Dave twirls her around and dips her in a surprisingly dapper move. Although Dave’s one of the sweetest
guys you’ll ever meet, he’s never been known for his smooth moves.

I reach the bar and order another glass of bubbles, against my better judgment. A woman about my age dressed in a gorgeous sheer silk shirt and short, sparkly skirt smiles at me.

“Hi,” I say pleasantly to her. ‘Having fun?”

“Not as much as you, by the looks of things,” she replies. “I found your
maid of honour speech really … entertaining.”

“Thanks,” I reply, struggling to remember exactly what I’d said. Something about how fantastic the newlyweds are? Yes, that was it. With a joke or two thrown in for good measure.

“Well I guess you know my name then, but I don’t know yours,” I say to her, proffering my hand.

“Me? Oh, I’m Leona.”

I shake her extended hand. “Hi Leona. Nice to meet you. I love your outfit.”

“Thanks,” she replies happily. “Yours too.”

We stand in companionable silence for a few moments, observing the dancers on the floor, sipping our respective drinks.

“So which one do you know?
Bride or groom?” I ask.

“Both, really. Through my husband.”

“Oh? Who’s your husband?” I ask as I take another sip of my champagne.

“That’d be me,” a voice says behind me. I turn to greet Leona’s husband and come face to face with Brooding Man himself, Daniel.

My heart drops to my stomach as I watch him slink a protective arm around Leona’s waist. There goes my fantasy of meeting my future husband tonight.

“So I see you’ve met my wife, Jess. This is Leona,” he says to me. “Leona
Ostenberg
.”

Through my inebriated fog I sense a distant penny drop with a clunk onto the cold, hard floor.

Leona Ostenberg. Married to Daniel. Daniel Ostenberg…. Dan…

Oh God.

I swallow, regarding the couple in front of me with complete horror as my speech comes flooding unpleasantly back. Did I really say Dan Ostenberg was my first? And that he was terrible in bed?

“It’s been a long time, Jess,” Daniel states coldly.

“Yep, sure has… Dan,” I reply, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me in one big gulp. “You look so…. different now.”

“That was ten years ago, Jess. We were kids,” he replies.

Realising some serious groundwork’s required here I respond, “Look, I’m sorry about before. You know, the speech thingy. It was just a joke, you know? Just messing around.”

I punch him playfully on the arm. “Of course I didn’t
mean
any of it. Just being silly old Jess, making a joke. None of what I said was true. None of it. Oh, other than the bit about how you were my first,” I babble at them, digging myself further into the hole I’d created.

They’re watching me, clearly amused by my antics and revelling in my discomfort.

“Sure,” he shrugs, as though it was nothing that I’d told a roomful of people he was a lousy lover.

“And you know,” I continue. “I’m absolutely certain you’re so much better at… you know…
that
, now. And all.”

Why can’t I just shut up!

Leona bursts into laughter as Dan pulls her closer to him. He whispers something into her ear.

“Sorry,” I repeat quietly, feeling utterly shamefaced.