Page 41 of A Winter Wedding Adventure (Adventure Weddings #2)
‘Come on! What do you call that? Your head’s all over the place today!’
Kira’s seventeen-year-old student abseiled down from the top of the climbing wall with a grimace, stumbling over an apology. A twinge of guilt assailed Kira, especially since she knew she’d been a hard-arse and a hypocrite to boot.
She still doubled down. ‘It’s only three months until Nationals. There’s no time for laziness. I expect better on Wednesday.’
The girl ambled away in the direction of the changing rooms, her head hanging. Kira watched her go, consumed by the restlessness that had become a familiar companion over the past three weeks.
The fact that she’d done the right thing – the only thing – by leaving before anyone got hurt was no comfort when she seemed to have to readjust to life without him.
It made no sense. She’d been fine before – content with her friendships and occasionally scratching the itch in bed with someone.
She shouldn’t feel starved of touch – a very particular kind of touch.
She’d always been alone, so why did she feel even more alone now?
‘I hope you don’t go so hard on me .’
Turning with relief at the distraction, Kira found Ginny and enfolded her in a hug before she realised what she was doing. God, she’d turned into a sappy mess. It was a good thing Andreas wasn’t there to tease her, and Rhys was off photographing pumas in Patagonia.
Actually, Andreas would try to recruit her for his pyramid scheme again and she might choke him before Sophie ever had the chance to drag him to the altar. She was not in love, like everyone else seemed to be, all of a sudden.
She just missed Mattia like a part of her own body. Nothing serious.
‘Whoa there,’ Ginny said with a smile, extricating herself from the tight hug. ‘I need to breathe if I’m going to learn to climb.’
It was Ginny’s third session and she was still entirely uncoordinated, but she claimed determination would make up for her lack of natural talent – although she also definitely lacked the self-confidence to test herself against the wall.
It was late January, which could have explained Kira’s restlessness. She wanted to get back to the real crags along the Dorset coast, or into the hills – anywhere legitimately outdoors. But the weather was dreary and cold, so she was stuck focusing on her indoor groups and individual training.
But that was just an excuse. She was miserable and it was getting harder to pretend she wasn’t.
‘Is something bothering you?’ Ginny asked.
‘I’m always this grumpy,’ she joked instead of answering.
Ginny rolled her eyes. ‘We are going for a drink afterwards,’ she stated, giving Kira no opportunity to protest.
After they’d finished their forty-five-minute session, Ginny was sweating and groaning, but Kira could honestly say, ‘You did well today.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Ginny laughed, still panting from her last ascent.
‘A definite improvement on last week.’
Ginny snorted. ‘That’s because Rhys isn’t here. I started to think he haunted this place.’
Kira peered doubtfully at her. ‘He’s in Patagonia on an expedition.’
‘Oh, Patagonia ,’ Ginny said with a dismissive flick of her hand. ‘As you do. We’ve never had a wedding in Patagonia . Only the usual places with restaurants and beaches and things.’
‘But what does Rhys have to do with it?’
‘He looked at me last week the whole time,’ Ginny grumbled.
‘He did not,’ Kira defended. ‘Rhys doesn’t look at people.’ He truly didn’t, but it wasn’t Kira’s place to explain to Ginny.
‘Well, whether he was really looking at me or not, I felt judged and it drained all my confidence. Does he hate everyone or just me?’
‘Everyone,’ Kira confirmed with a smile.
‘Oh… that’s all right then?’
After showering and changing, they met Toni at The Admiral, the scene of the first, disastrous meeting between the employees of the newly merged ‘Great Heart Does Weddings’, or whatever Reshma and Willard had decided to call it.
Kira would continue to say ‘I Do Weddings’ just to tease the others, although she was beginning to accept that she truly did weddings too, now.
Toni looked bright that evening and folded Kira in another hug. She’d never hugged so many people in her life and she wasn’t sure she was happy with the development, since Great Heart seemed to have gone all mushy.
‘How lovely is this? Three girls having dinner at the pub on a school night! With no babysitter required!’
Kira smiled over her pint. ‘It’s working out well with your parents nearby then?’
‘Yes, except I’ve forgotten how to be presentable. My clothes are all fifteen years old or bought from the supermarket!’
‘Oh, Toni, not the supermarket!’ Ginny said disapprovingly. Kira couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic.
‘At least to come here, I don’t need anything special.’
Ginny set down her wine and eyeballed Toni. ‘Does that mean you’ve been thinking about other occasions where you might need to wear something special?’
Toni choked on her sip of wine.
‘I wouldn’t go there, Ginny,’ Kira warned her.
‘Mmhmm,’ Toni managed to agree. ‘Dating is my idea of hell, given the only two topics I can cover are my son and my dead husband. I was thinking about I Do Destinations, now I’ve had to attend a couple of meetings. There is a certain smart-casual vibe required that I’m too out of touch to master.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Ginny said warmly. ‘Kira set her top on fire and had to wear something of Sophie’s at our most recent wedding and that was still fine.’
Kira sat back in her chair, sharing the laughter. She was glad the gentle mocking didn’t embarrass her – since a miracle had transpired and Ginny was a genuine friend. But remembering that day brought the feelings bubbling back to the surface – all the feelings.
‘I did think that’s what we’d gathered here today to discuss,’ Toni said, lifting her eyebrows at Kira.
‘What, my complete lack of grace and poise?’
Toni leaned heavily on the table, shooting Kira a piercing gaze that sent tingles to her hairline. ‘Why you’ve been impossible these past three weeks.’
‘I’ve been just as impossible as I usually am!’ Kira insisted. ‘You don’t have to like it.’
The sympathetic light in Ginny’s eyes pricked her.
They all knew, now. Seeing Christian had been a strange anticlimax, wrapped up in too many other emotions to truly hurt, but she couldn’t hide from her friends any more.
Perhaps she couldn’t hide from her feelings, which was a terrifying thought, since they got her into trouble.
‘To be honest, it makes sense to me now,’ Toni said lightly. ‘You’ve been hurt, so you hold yourself away from everyone else – especially someone you could fall in love with.’
‘I don’t want to fall in love with anyone.’ That statement grabbed her by the neck. She meant it, but it sounded desperate and panicky even to her own ears. ‘I want to be fine by myself.’
‘You are,’ Ginny said. ‘You’re so strong and passionate and I admire that a lot. I wish I were as content as you to be alone.’
‘Passionate?’ Kira repeated with a snort, taking a sip of her beer in the hope that the conversation would just go away.
But Ginny peered at her with a dubious look. ‘I saw how you looked at him.’
Toni gasped. ‘Who? What’s this? Her ex! Sophie just said it was awkward. What else did I miss?’
‘Not her ex,’ Ginny said slowly.
Kira took a deep breath through her nose, goosebumps spreading over her skin. On her own, she could wrestle with the persistent impression of absence, reason with herself that she’d always felt alone and alienated and this was nothing different. But she couldn’t fool her friends.
Hell of a time to remember why she didn’t have friends.
‘Mattia,’ Ginny began, enunciating slowly, ‘Bentivoglio. Operatic baritone.’
That was all it took. Kira buried her face in her hands, emotions bubbling to the surface even though she didn’t want any of them. Her breath was tight and the horrible urge to cry gripped her.
‘I hate fucking weddings,’ she mumbled.
A hand touched down on her back, rubbing firm circles. ‘Poor Kira,’ she heard Toni say. ‘I’m sorry love hurts.’
The twinge of sadness in her chest wasn’t only her own, it was sympathy for Toni, who’d been deeply in love and lost him. Kira had never fully appreciated how devastating it must have been for her.
‘It wasn’t love,’ she insisted. She still had her stubbornness, even if everything hurt. ‘Not like you and Miro.’
‘Leave me out of it,’ Toni said ruefully. ‘I’m sick of being the poster girl for grief. What happened?’
‘It took me by surprise,’ Kira explained. ‘Getting on so well with him was unexpected. I never believed anything real could develop between us, so I dropped my guard and then… this happened.’
‘They were very cute together,’ Ginny commented to Toni.
‘What was the problem?’ Toni prompted.
‘Everything!’ Kira insisted, lifting a hand for emphasis. ‘Now I miss him, like when our favourite takeaway closed down and I couldn’t get Chettinad curry.’
‘That is serious,’ Toni said indulgently. ‘It was amazing curry,’ she added for Ginny’s benefit.
‘Right, but “I miss you like curry” probably isn’t something you should say to him,’ Ginny pointed out.
‘What do you mean? I’m never going to see him again. He’s finally got the courage to build his career. He’s so fucking talented, he’ll be on a big stage somewhere making everyone cry and—’ not making me cry . She should have been relieved at that.
‘Is that the only reason you left without working things out with him?’ Ginny asked.
‘There was nothing to work out,’ Kira insisted. ‘We agreed it would be casual. I heard him say it was just casual the day before the wedding. With so many compromises to make to see each other, what would be the point? I just have to get over it. Why do I need an opera singer in my life anyway?’