Page 64 of Outlier

“Sorry, love,” I said quickly. “Is this okay?”

Before I could pull my hand away, hers had clamped down on it and gripped hard, as if holding onto a lifeline. “Yes. Very okay.”

“Areyouokay?”

She bit her lip and took a deep breath in and out, but before she could answer we’d pulled into the church car park.

“We’d better go in,” Vicky said, glancing at her watch. “It’s seven minutes until the ceremony starts.”

I nodded. “Right.”

I wanted to ask her why she wasn’t coming with the family. Wasn’t that what normally happened at weddings with sisters? But then again, what did I know? My sister was getting married, and she’d asked me to walk her down the aisle, so I was definitely not sitting in the audience at the church.

But maybe rich people did things differently? Maybe they were meeting outside the church?

“Mike, do I look… do I look too showy?”

My eyebrows went up.

Vicky was wearing a soft blue shift dress. It was simple and elegant. She’d paired it with a small hat thing, the kind that I didn’t really understand how it stayed on a girl’s head.

“You look beautiful,” I told her the truth.

She looked out of the window again with a frown as she chewed on her bottom lip. Somehow, it felt like I’d said the wrong thing.

As we walked into the church, Vicky kept her head down, muttering thanks to the ushers as they gave her a programme and moving quickly past them. Nobody greeted her. Nobody tried to hug her. It was completely bizarre.

Then, compounding the bizarreness, once we were in the church, she darted into the back row and sat down. This was hersister. Why the hell would she sit in the back row?

When I sat down next to her, she huddled close to me, as close as she could get, despite the fact we had the whole church pew to ourselves.

Not that I was complaining, but it was almost as though she was scared of something.

“Vicky,” I whispered. “Shouldn’t you be up at the front where the family sits? I can stay back here if you want?”

Maybe she didn’t want to force a random into the mix on her sister’s wedding day.

I mean, she’d seemed very keen, almost desperate for me to come, but I could see how awkward it might be to have me muscling in when I’d never even met this side of her family.

“C-could you stay with me today?” she said in a small voice. “Sorry. I know it’s a bit clingy of me, but just for today, could you make sure you’re with me? Um… all the time?”

I was starting to feel a bit uneasy. My instincts were screaming at me at this point to bundle Vicky up, carry her out of the church, and take her back to my cabin where she was safe.

Which was ridiculous, wasn’t it?

This was her family. Surely, this should be a happy day?

The conversation with her mother had been a bit odd; why was Vicky buying her sister’s ten-grand wedding dress? I definitely hadn’t liked the sound of the woman, or the way she spoke to her daughter, but when I pressed Vicky about her family, she said they werefine.But why was she in this current panicked state if her family was fine?

Something else was going on here.

“Of course, I’ll stay with you,” I said in a firm tone.

“Oh, thanks,” she said, her voice full of relief.

When I turned to her, she smiled up at me; it was the first one she’d managed all day. But when she turned back to the front of the church, the strangest thing happened. Her smile dropped, and her face drained of all colour as she sank lower into her seat.

I followed the direction of her gaze, and there was the groom. He was staring right at Vicky, and he was smiling.