Nice Day For A White Wedding. A. Michael L.

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      He’d asked her to move in years ago, and she was there most of the time anyway. It would be the smart thing to do. But the idea of leaving her little dingy flat with the damp walls and mismatched furniture for his modern, sleek home seemed like the final step. She’d be leaving behind the last little part of Chelsea from the estate, leaving behind the last speck of proof that she wasn’t a middle-class London executive. And she wasn’t sure she was ready to let her go just yet. She didn’t want to forget.

      ‘Hey, where’d you go?’ Kit looked into her eyes, his finger stroking her cheek.

      ‘I just feel like I’m standing on a cliff edge.’

      ‘The altitude?’ he frowned.

      ‘No. I just…’ She struggled to find the worlds and downed her glass of Champagne. ‘I just have this feeling like everything’s building up. Like everything is about to change.’

      ‘Change can be good,’ Kit said carefully, topping up her glass.

      She smiled at him. ‘In my life, it always has been.’

      He looked at her, his head cocked to the side as if he wanted to ask more, as if he was storing that nugget of information for another day.

      And then the captain’s crisp voice came over the Tannoy to announce that they were about to land in Venice.

      Chelsea threw herself on the kingsize bed and giggled, watching how Kit just stood there in the doorway and looked at her, a bizarre smile on his face.

      ‘What?’

      ‘It’s nice to see you relaxed, that’s all,’ he shrugged and moved to the shuttered windows and door at the end of the room, opening them and walking out onto the balcony. It looked out onto the Canal, and Chelsea joined him, slipping an arm around his waist as the plush heat of the summer afternoon soaked into their skin. They watched in silence as the boats swished through the water, the smaller ones silently gliding, the larger ones offering a low thrum of engines. Everything was vibrant and alive, there was blue everywhere and Chelsea wanted to jump in and float. She leant her head against Kit’s shoulder, wiping her forehead against his shirt.

      ‘Oi!’ he laughed, pulling her closer.

      ‘Not sorry!’ she sighed against Kit’s mouth, tasting his smile. Twenty-four hours ago she’d been anxiously getting on the train to Badgeley, prepping herself for the jibes and the screaming and the jokes at her expense. And now here she was in Venice, surprised by someone who loved her. Maybe it was time to leave the old Chelsea in Badgeley, and finally live her life.

      Kit was like an excited puppy at times, which was an impressive feat for a six-foot-four lawyer who looked like a Viking.

      That evening he dragged her through the city, high on everything. They skipped over bridges and tripped on cobblestones, and everything was ‘more, more, more!’ The little candles on outside tables, the greetings from hosts outside every restaurant, the fairy lights in hidden courtyards and ice cream shops offering expanses of colour – everything made him giddy. And he’d been here before, she knew, he told her about a trip to Venice with his family when he was fourteen, after he’d been kicked out of his second boarding school. Or was it the third? Something comforted her about Kit being a bit of a trouble maker at school, like her. Except in his versions it was taking someone’s dad’s Lamborghini for a drive that got him expelled. It wasn’t quite the same.

      ‘Baby, you’ve got to calm down,’ Chelsea laughed, pulling back on his hand to slow him from charging ahead to some restaurant he was desperate to try, ‘we’ve got a couple of days here, right? We don’t have to do everything this instant!’ He looked at her, holding her hand even more tightly. He looked like he’d been told off, a puppy who’d been tapped with the newspaper. She’d hit a nerve, and she suddenly regretted her comment. Why not let him be an excitable child for a weekend, before he went back to his high-stress job? Why did she always have to be serious, boring Chelsea?

      Kit took a deep breath, shaking his head and leaning back against the stone railing as they looked out on one of the canals. The water was dark and comforting, the cobblestones lit by old-fashioned street lights, and the warmth of the evening settling around them as the smells of coffee and delicious pizzas filtered through the air.

      ‘You’re right,’ he said distinctively, ‘there’s only one thing I want to do tonight and I’ve been focusing on everything else! It’s not good to procrastinate, you’re always saying that, Chels.’

      He was starting to babble and Chelsea frowned at him.

      ‘There’s just been one thing I wanted to do here.’ He grinned at her, suddenly adorable and dangerous. The same look he had when he turned up at her flat at 5am and told her they were climbing the O2 centre, or he jumped in and started jamming with a busker in Covent Garden and the whole crowd cheered for him. He was going to do something ridiculous.

      And sure enough, Kit raised his arm dramatically, showing her the scenery and threw back his head.

      ‘Just one Cornettoooooo!’ he sang loudly, imitating the operatic style ridiculously well. ‘Give it to meeee!’

      Chelsea rolled her eyes, wondering how many poor Venetians had been subjected to such terrible renditions by drunk English tourists. She felt her cheeks colour as passersby smirked, laughing at that silly Englishman. They seemed to stop and hover to look at him, forming a relaxed semi-circle.

      Chelsea looked back and saw Kit kneeling on the ground at her feet. He had stopped singing and was simply staring at her, a desperately hopeful look on his face as he held out a small, velvet box. The ring was obnoxiously huge, catching the light of the shop fronts and reflecting back into her dazed eyes. Three huge circular diamonds sat in a row, and a small smile graced her lips as she remembered him buying her a necklace years before, three small drops, and she’d said, ‘I love things in threes. It’s so symbolic, past, present and future,’ and he’d nodded like he was making a mental note. And he had.

      ‘Say something, Chels!’ he whispered through gritted teeth.

      ‘You haven’t asked anything, Christopher,’ she teased.

      Kit looked at the crowd, hamming it up as he grinned and projected his voice.

      ‘Chelsea Donovan, light of my life, centre of my universe, apple of my eye – marry me, or I shall perish here and now!’

      Chelsea rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, tapping her foot as the crowds gathered to look at the silly Englishman’s idea of romance. ‘Ask properly.’

      ‘I love you, Chels.’ He smiled that gleaming, white smile. ‘Will you marry me or what?’

      ‘Yes.’ It exploded out before he could finish asking and he nodded, like he wasn’t sure she was serious.

      ‘Yeah?’

      ‘Yeah!’

      Kit jumped up and kissed her as the crowd erupted into applause, his arms holding her tight, rocking her back and forth as she laughed against his lips. When she pulled back СКАЧАТЬ