Page 29

Chapter Twenty-eight

Gemma

With six hours and twenty-two minutes until our flight departs, thanks to yet another delay, the emotional confessions and confrontations are a thing of the not-so-distant past. Fran got back from her post-dinner wander with red-rimmed eyes and flinched when her phone buzzed, but I wasn’t about to ask about that, and Leon definitely didn’t.

And I certainly didn’t fancy diving into a deep therapy session about my childhood trauma, which really left us with only one solution: drowning our sorrows in drinking games.

Well. Drowning our sorrows and playing a game of ‘what outrageous way can we stop this wedding going ahead that’s even crazier than telling your sister you hate your new brother-in-law or trying to get the groom to jilt his bride at the altar for you’. Which is close enough, really.

It starts with me saying, ‘Maybe I should object during the ceremony. Claim I’m in love with Marcus, too.’

And Leon snorting and adding, ‘Say you’re pregnant with his baby.’

‘Or we could lock Kayleigh in a cupboard!’

Fran snorts. ‘We could lock Marcus in a cupboard.’

‘What, with you? Have the entire wedding party go searching for you, and the pair of you tumble out, Marcus with his pants around his ankles, I bet? Ha! Love it!’

Fran grimaces, but probably because the idea of being caught having sex somewhere public is so mortifying, or whatever. She says, ‘I could hide the dress.’

‘ Sabotage the dress,’ Leon says. ‘No, I’ve got it. Red wine on Marcus’s suit! That preening bastard would stop the whole ceremony if he thought he looked less than perfect.’

I laugh. ‘See, I told you he and Kayleigh are a good match.’

Then the stag/hen do attendees come back from their trip to the loos, having apparently got distracted gossiping, and they fall on us and our pile of booze with glazed eyes asking where we’re off to, and obviously I say we’re headed to Barcelona for a wedding, and they mention they’re headed out there for a joint stag do for the two grooms, and …

Next thing I know, the three of us are being roped into participating in a makeshift obstacle course around the concourse.

Half of the stags’ group are stone-cold sober, but everyone’s laughing loudly and giving it their all as we hopscotch around piles of bags and coats, leapfrog our way from one end to the other and have three-legged races with one person blindfolded.

We’ve made a solid dent in the booze, all loose-limbed and giggly.

Even Leon is giggly, which is adorable to see.

It’s not as if he’s always broody and sullen like he was around Fran earlier – if anything, he’s normally unfailingly polite, even if he is a man of few words.

But it’s cute, seeing him really lighten up and let go a bit.

He and Fran are atrocious at the three-legged race.

He picks both of us up and wins the piggyback race, though, which somehow leads to a contest of ‘how many people can Leon deadlift?’ and has one of the grooms leaping onto his back without hesitation.

He throws his arms in the air like Leon is the prow of the Titanic . ‘I’m king of Paree !’

The other groom is blushing as he whoops, ‘You’re my short king!

’ Meanwhile, a few of the group start up a rousing chorus of ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’ from Les Mis .

Leon becomes an impromptu barricade when the best man climbs up onto his other shoulder, and then I nudge Fran and tell her to hop on.

She blushes (which really, is telling me all I need to know) and stays put, so I cling to Leon’s front like a koala.

Our human pyramid/barricade collapses when one of the bridesmaids takes a running leap and spills Leon off balance, and we’re all a tangle of limbs on the floor, howling with laughter, with a slightly bruised Leon left standing in the middle.

There’s a weird lawlessness about the airport at this time of night, with all these people stuck waiting for their flights in the middle of a storm.

Bags abandoned willy-nilly, people sat right in the way of usual foot traffic, this bonkers little obstacle course, the lot.

It’s so surreal, it feels like the first time I had to queue up for pasta in a supermarket when the pandemic began. It won’t feel real afterwards.

That’s precisely the beauty of it, though: none of this is properly ‘real’, and I feel like I can really let go for once.

Some of our obstacle course is overtaken by children, but nobody seems to mind too much.

A game of prosecco pong is pulled out of a rucksack by a very prepared bridesmaid.

I see the redhead girl who eavesdropped in Victoria’s Secret eyeing it with either intrigued disdain or coolly reserved interest. The ginger guy sat next to her is slumped, eyes closed, over the bag in his lap.

I nudge Fran and point at the girl. ‘Shall we ask her if she wants to join in? Doesn’t look like her travel buddy is a whole lot of fun.’

Leon looks over. ‘Nah, leave them be. They’re probably just pissed off their honeymoon got ruined.’

Francesca makes a sound that’s halfway between a choke and a laugh. ‘ Honeymoon? They’re not a couple, you muppet! Look at them, they’re obviously siblings. Twins, I reckon.’

‘Come off it,’ Leon scoffs, but it’s with none of his earlier chagrin. He even bumps her shoulder, downright playful . That booze really has loosened him up. ‘I overheard them talking, they were on about telling the staff it was their honeymoon to get on an earlier flight.’

I snort. ‘Well, duh, who wouldn’t try to use that line if it got them out of here quicker?’ They’re not exactly sat like a loved-up couple, and they do look eerily similar, down to the ski-slope noses and same shade of hair … But they are both wearing wedding rings, which gives me pause.

A bolt of inspiration strikes, and I give Leon a little shove. ‘Go flirt with her.’

‘ What? ’

‘Well, she’ll tell you if she’s married, won’t she? She’ll be all, “Ew, creep, go away, my husband is literally right here .”’

Leon blanches, but his eyes flit to Francesca before he says to me, ‘Weirdly, becoming the airport creep doesn’t sound too appealing. Besides, I’m … I’m not … she isn’t … I’ll …’

‘Oh, fine, I’ll do it.’

I stride over, dropping onto the sliver of empty bench next to the girl. She looks more like Leon and Fran’s age – closer to thirty – and eyes me with her nose wrinkled a bit as I sit down.

‘Hi. I’m Gemma.’

There’s a long pause before she just says, ‘Hi?’

‘Do you want to come and have a drink with us? Or just hang out a bit. This whole night is such a drag, but these games have been a good laugh.’

Her lip curls. ‘Yes, so I heard. I think all of Paris heard, in fact.’

‘Gotta show them what they’re missing out on, right?’ I laugh, but it doesn’t land. ‘Really, though, it’s good fun. And you look a little lonely, over here all on your own …’ I lean in a bit, bump her arm with my chest lightly, give her my best coy smile.

There’s a good chance the whole effect comes off as more ‘drunkard who’s lost her balance’.

‘Um, yeah, no thanks.’

‘Oh. Okay.’ I make a point of glancing around her, at the guy. ‘Well, if you change your mind … your boyfriend’s welcome, too.’

‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

‘Oh?’

What does that mean? That he’s more than a boyfriend, or the total opposite? She is giving me nothing . Ugh.

I give it one last shot. ‘Well, he doesn’t know what he’s missing, letting a pretty girl like you spend a night in Paris basically on your own. You should be snogging under the Eiffel Tower! Or, you know, just indulging in a good old French kiss under the … lights of Orly Airport Terminal three.’

She rolls her eyes and says nothing.

I haul myself off the bench, defeated, and slump back to Fran and Leon. Leon is raising his eyebrows at me, as if my attempts at flirting are oh-so-amusing. I grimace and shove him in the chest.

‘Shut up. I’m a bit rusty after Brittney broke up with me, okay? Cut me some slack.’

‘Well? What did she say?’ Fran demands.

‘ Zilch . Zip, nada. I am officially none the wiser. The mystery remains unsolved. Detective Coleen Rooney, I am not.’

Fran pouts and says, ‘They’re so siblings,’ at the same time as Leon mutters, ‘Married, I’m calling it now.

’ The pair of them glower at each other, but it’s so non-serious and they’re leaning in and I feel like I’m intruding and shit, is Leon somehow a better flirt than me?

This is outrageous. What has become of me?

I clear my throat; they both stand up straighter.

The prosecco pong is already under way, the obstacle course fully forfeited to some children, and the three of us stay clustered just off to one side.

The grooms are distracted by holding hands and looking longingly into each other’s eyes, talking softly while their friends carry on their rowdy games.

And I’ve had enough to drink that I blurt, ‘So, Leon, what’s up with your love life these days? ’

He’d just taken a sip of his gin, and sputters. ‘Um …’

‘Oh, come on, I swear Kayleigh never says anything about it. Although that’s not saying much, is it? She hardly gets invested in life updates from the family enough to share them. Your last proper relationship I heard anything about was that girl, Emma, when you were at uni.’

Fran, the little devil, is hanging off my every word, trying not to look too keen as she waits for Leon’s response.

‘Well, there’s … there’s not much to share,’ he mumbles, and takes another drink. His ears are turning bright pink. He starts walking back towards our pile of stuff in the hallway to the loos, as if he can physically run away from the awkwardness of my question.

I am in hot pursuit, as is Fran.

‘As if Emma was your last relationship! That was more than ten years ago .’