The One with the Hen Weekend. Erin Lawless

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СКАЧАТЬ you know you really do need to explain…’ Gray prompted.

      Cleo swallowed her mouthful of cookie. ‘Well, you see, when she was a kid, Nora LOVED Smash Hits! magazine…’

      ‘Who didn’t?’ Gray allowed.

      ‘But her mum was quite strict and didn’t like her being in to all that.’

      ‘All that?’ Gray echoed, amused. ‘What, pop music?’

      ‘Apparently. So, anyway, Nora used to scrimp and save up her lunch money so she could buy it every fortnight. But she couldn’t bring it home, or her mum would find it, so she gave it to her friend and he kept all of her issues for her. For years. That friend being Harry.’

      ‘Ah.’ Understanding dawned on Gray’s face.

      ‘And, years later – when they fell in love and moved in together and blah, blah, happy ever after – he turns up with three huge cardboard boxes stuffed full of old issues of Smash Hits!And they’ve been a right ballache to store, but they didn’t just want to throw them away… so this seemed like a really good idea.’

      ‘I’m not sure your wrist agrees.’ Gray said, taking that wrist in his hand, almost like a doctor checking for a pulse, the broad pad of his thumb pressing gently against those fragile, birdlike bones, against the swell of her blood. Cleo scrambled back aboard her train of thought, plucking her hand back from his and using it to pick up her mug of cooling coffee.

      ‘Well, you know how it is,’ she shrugged. ‘Bridesmaids are the dogsbodies of every big wedding!’

      ‘Well, to be honest, I’ve never really been to a big wedding,’ Gray shrugged, moving his own hands back to his drink, an easy mirroring of Cleo’s own movements. ‘Maybe a few family ones, but all my mates who’ve gotten hitched have done it pretty small-scale, registry offices and pubs, you know? Certainly no custom confetti hole-punched by the fair hands of beautiful maidens.’ Cleo ignored the easy flirt, ignored the traitorous heartbeat shouting in her chest, pinched it down, right down. (She did not, could not and would not fancy this man, period. It was just a question of discipline.)

      ‘What time are you getting there on Saturday?’ she asked lightly, focusing on how Gray’s fingertips were paler where he held his mug.

      ‘I… I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to make it, actually,’ Gray answered after a moment’s pause. ‘I was going to see if I could, er, move some things around, because it was really nice of your friend Claire to invite me, but, yeah.’

      ‘Oh,’ Cleo replied, tonelessly, her mind slow to decide how she wanted to react to this news. She’d been part mortified, part thrilled when Claire had informed them all that she’d invited Gray along to her 30^th birthday dinner.

      ‘Well, why not?’ Claire had demanded, when the news had been met with an awkward silence. ‘He got along really well with people at the engagement party, and at your birthday Cleo.’

      ‘He got on really well with you, you mean,’ Nora had teased gamely, but she’d still shot a worried glance over at Cleo. Nora was still utterly persuaded that Cleo and Gray were meant to be. (She’d even developed a celebrity-style nickname for their rhetorical relationship, which – unfortunately – was the rather unromantic ‘Clay’.) The more Cleo railed against it, the more adamant Nora became.

      ‘Well, if you’ve got something else on, I’m sure Claire will understand.’ It felt like Gray was waiting for her to ask what his other plans were, but Cleo refused. (Because she didn’t care. Honest.) ‘But, you know, maybe you can just come for the dinner part, or meet us for drinks later in the night?’ Cleo found herself saying. Gray regarded her, his expression smudgy, unreadable.

      ‘Yeah, maybe,’ he allowed, finally, with a half-smile. ‘I’ll drop you a text, yeah?’

      ‘Yeah, sure. Or, you know, Claire.’

      ‘Sure.’ Gray unfolded slowly to his feet, gathering up the packet of cookies and folding over the packaging to keep them fresh for the next break. ‘Guess I’m on washing up duty. Considering your wrist injury and all.’ And with that he collected up their mugs and headed to the grotty old staff room sink, leaving Cleo with a full five minutes left of their morning break and her discipline bruised, but mercifully intact.

       Chapter Twenty-Two

       I went away for my cousin’s hen weekend – I didn’t know anyone but the bride, and as the other hens were quite cliquey and serious it was a fair bit awkward when we arrived to do our life drawing class. It was even more awkward when the male model got a huge boner half an hour in…

      Lucy, Peterborough

      ‘So I wanted to show you first,’ Claire chirped. ‘Just to check, you know; get the ‘bridesmaid seal of approval and all that’. Claire was getting used to the idea of not being a bridesmaid, Bea thought, but there was still just the barest nip of real bitterness in her tone.‘But I think Nora’s really gonna love these!’

      To Bea, an invitation to Nora’s hen do was probably going to be in the form of an email and/or text, once Nora had provided the finalised list of lucky gals. When she’d mentioned this to Claire last week however the girl had almost choked on her gin-and-slim and begged to take over the sourcing of “proper” invitations. Already a little overwhelmed at the thought of marshalling twelve women into booking travel, accommodation and activities, Bea had readily handed over the invitation reins.

      Now she was sincerely regretting it.

      After a full minute’s silence, she realised she’d better say something.

      ‘Wow,’ she just about managed.

      ‘Great, aren’t they?’ beamed Claire. ‘Do you want me to explain a little?’

      Phew. ‘Yes please!’

      The invitations were much more of a… “pamphlet”… than Bea had anticipated. The front cover was largely taken up by a close-up selfie of Nora, snagged from her Facebook page no doubt. Her mouth had been partially obscured by a bright pink lipstick print. Letters in a matching pink floating above her head proclaimed Nora to be KISSING THE SINGLE LIFE GOODBYE!!!

      ‘That’s actually my lip print!’ Claire trilled.‘I did it on the back of the receipt at the copy place and got them to digitise it; it’s amazing what they can do with computers these days, isn’t it?’

      ‘No kidding?’ Bea flipped over to the inserts with a slight frisson of trepidation. Claire’s skill at Facebook stalking was no longer in any doubt – each of the twelve hens were represented by a square-framed photograph snagged from their social media and washed over with a liberally applied pink filter. Nora was first and most prominent, as was natural, followed by Bea, Cleo, Claire, Daisy and Sarah (Bea decided not to comment on the fact that Claire had interjected herself in the centre of the row of bridesmaids). Then came Alannah and Aoife, Nora’s twin younger sisters (or maybe it was Aoife then Alannah..?) and four other friends made up the chosen dozen. ONE LAST FLING BEFORE THE RING!!! shouted the bright pink letters on this page. (Bea hated that. What, was Nora supposed to stop having fun once she became Mrs СКАЧАТЬ