We have Internet back, and a day early too! This is excellent for someone like me who can't deal without my Internet fix, haha.
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Katie didn't always attend client weddings, it depended largely on her relationship with them, as well as countless other factors – the venue, the guest count, and of course, how likely it was that something would go wrong. With JJ and Lara there had been no question. They were friends of hers, pretty good friends, and Emily had even been roped into being a bridesmaid after a last minute drop out. She was looking adorable (if about half her age) in pale blue chiffon and lace.
After bidding hurried good lucks to everyone in the bridal party, Katie rushed back to her seat in the pews next to Thomas, squeezing his hand in excitement. He, if anyone, knew how much weddings always meant to her. The culmination of months, often years, of work – careful colour matching, budget managing, and yes, yelling. It was a smallish church, bedecked in sky blue ribbons and posies of forget-me-nots. JJ stood at the altar, almost shaking with nerves, his nine-year-old step son (and best man, which Katie found almost painfully adorable) Albert standing grinning beside him.
Music began to play, a track Katie had heard all too many times over the past few weeks, but that seemed fresh as she watched the first bridesmaid emerge – a girl called Georgia with yards of red hair and a tentative smile. Next was Emily, beautiful, of course, and Katie grinned on seeing Naomi, modern as ever in a sharp seal grey trouser suit, turn to look at her with mouth agape. Finally, Lara herself, arm in arm with her best friend Rosie, and resplendent in a simple white dress that barely touched her ankles. God, she's beautiful. Katie still thought she should have chosen a pink sash, but she had to admit that the pelagic blue colour set off Lara's green eyes stunningly.
JJ's smile just grew ever brighter as she progressed down the aisle towards him, a rare grin on her face, and it might have sounded soppy, but it made Katie happy to see that sort of love. Maybe any two people can be perfect, just for one day. Inevitably, her mind wandered to her own wedding day of years before. God, I looked hot that day, but then, to be fair, I'm always hot. She'd changed three times, she remembered, a nice metaphor for her own fickleness. It had been a typical pouffy meringue gown for the ceremony, ornamented in various shades of pink, a long mint green affair for the dinner, contrasting with her hair in a surprisingly attractive manner, and then finally a vixen-like red minidress that hardly scraped her thighs, and offered enough cleavage to make half the attendees regret that the occasion was, in fact, her wedding.
Katie was shaken from dreams of past glory when the vicar asked them to stand and sing. It wasn't exactly a hymn, something close to it, though, all gratefulness and positivity. JJ and Lara were still beaming stupidly at each other. Were Thomas and I that happy once? Wait, when did I start talking about us like we're not still happy? We are, aren't we?
Before she knew it, they were kissing, the bouquet was in the air (Emily caught it and turned round to look at Naomi with a delighted smile on her face), everyone was laughing and cheering. Katie joined in vigorously, making her hands ache with the amount of clapping she was doing. Then people were leaving in a whirl, grinning and chattering, some people congratulating JJ or Lara. Little Albert was actually skipping back down the aisle, earning 'awws' from all and sundry.
There were some photos taken outside, mostly just the marital family, but there was one of all the guests, giving Katie the welcomed chance to pose happily in her silk blouse and skirt. Then people began to pull away in an assortment of cars, taxis, and even a minibus that had been arranged for those who didn't have transport. Katie adored weddings, but the recpetion was always her favourite part. Lots of dancing and alcohol, just her thing.
The dinner was nice, simple, but nice. JJ made a very eloquent speech (so eloquent that hardly anyone could understand it), a few others spoke, and then the married couple were up on the floor, dancing. It was just a simple waltz, but obviously it had been very well rehearsed, because JJ hardly tripped over his feet at all. Lovely. Others got up to dance, Katie and Thomas included, people began drinking, the clock ticked later and later.
"Do you remember our wedding?" Thomas said quietly in her ear as they shuffled awkwardly in ballroom hold to a song far too many people knew far too many of the words of.
"Of course."
"You were so beautiful."
"In which dress?" Katie teased, but Thomas seemed determined to take this conversation seriously.
"In all of them. You are always beautiful." His words were uncomfortably close to what Effy had told her in bed a few days ago, and she quickly nodded her head in thanks. He raised her hand, kissed both of her rings – the flashy diamond (he knew her taste so well) he'd given her on proposing, then the gold band, studded with tiny rubies, that was their wedding ring. Suddenly it felt tight on her finger, and she wondered, if she were to want to take it off one day, for one reason or another, would she be able to?
The room was becoming stiflingly hot and as soon as the song finished, Katie made an excuse and ran for the toilets, clumsily locking the door behind her. Fuck. I promised Effy I wouldn't drink anymore was her last coherent thought before everything she had consumed that night vacated her stomach, finding a better home in the toilet bowl. Now the ring was rubbing against her skin, too tight, too hot, too wrong. She tried to pull at it, have even five minutes respite, but suddenly everything was falling apart. There were tissues in her handbag, and she pre-emptively wiped at her eyes, making hacking noises in her throat that she knew meant tears were on their way.
She had just succeeded in dislodging the ring and was now twisting it down and off her finger when there was a tentative knock on the cubicle door. "Katie? Is that Katie?" A sigh, then Emily paused. "Thomas is looking for you, you know. He said you went off in a panic. Do I have to babysit you?"
The sobs had arrived by this time, and Katie only just managed to push them aside for long enough to say "I wasn't supposed to drink."
"That's why you're throwing up?"
"I don't know."
"Right." She hesitated; a typical Emily hesitation, you could almost hear her biting her lip. Katie knew it was a habit she'd picked up from Naomi but she still thought it was cute. "Do you want to call Effy?" How does she always know how to help? The smell of sweat and cheap air freshener was beginning to fade, overpowered by Emily's perfume, sweet but not sickly, the only thing guaranteed to make Katie feel better whatever the situation.
"Yes, please."
"Okay." A moment passed, Katie could hear the ruffle of Emily's skirts as she crouched; pushing her phone under the door. Her password was emsynk – Emsy and K – and always had been since they'd got their first phones, Katie's being katiene – Katie and E. She'd tried to change it several times as they'd grown up, but of course, Katie wasn't having it. It had been the source of many arguments over the years.
Katie waited to hear Emily leaving before she dialed the number. Effy didn't pick up on the first ring, it took two more tries before she heard that familiar drawl. "This is the Tomone residence, if you're looking to speak to – " She sounded thoroughly bored with the message, and Katie almost giggled.
"It's me, Eff. I'm on Emily's phone."
"Oh!" Maybe Katie was imagining it, but she could have sworn Effy's tone became brighter. There were questions in the air, she could tell, but as usual, Effy wasn't going to lower herself to the level of asking any of them.
"I wanted to talk to you."
"That I can tell."
"I drank some – just some champagne, but it made me feel guilty, and – "
"I'm not an agony aunt." Bitch. A moment of silence, of words being held back. "Don't do it again, Katie." Why not, though? Her first thought answered itself quickly. Because you told her you wouldn't. It's not about the practicalities. It's about the promise.
"No." She went to speak again, to tell her about the wedding, the dancing, the ring, but she heard a small sound from the other end of the line – almost a hiss, as if Effy wanted her to be quiet. So she was.
They stayed like that for some time, Katie sitting trembling on the toilet seat, phone pressed tight to her ear like she was afraid of missing something, Effy keeping control on the other end of the line, her breaths regulating Katie's, her finger on the speaker muffling the background noises of the house. And then, just as soon as Katie was thinking okay, this is okay, there was a click and the connection was over. Almost as if she had known.
x
The rest of the evening passed smoothly. Lara thanked her near the end of the night, face flushed and grinning. Nearly half the guests had gone by then, now it was mostly people Katie didn't know and couldn't be bothered to socialise with – the exception being Emily and Naomi, still on the dance floor, in their own little world. Katie remembered Emily's overjoyed expression when she'd caught the bouquet and hoped Naomi did, too.
She and Thomas drove home in near silence; it wasn't an awkward one, but nowhere near as comfortable as that which she had shared with Effy on the phone earlier. Has something changed tonight? She moved her hand to the ring on her middle finger. It fitted as snugly as it always had done, but she could barely feel it now.
By the time they reached the house, all the lights were out. Thomas leaned over to kiss her, she kissed him back. Easy. Inside everything was dark and tidy – except for one thing. An empty wine glass on the coffee table in the living room, accompanied by a note. There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable. Katie balled it in her fist, not wanting Thomas to see it in case he understood it as well as she did.
He kissed her again at the foot of the stairs. It took her a while to realise why. Part of her wanted to do it because they were supposed to, because that was right, wasn't it? The part of her that didn't want to, because she was tired, and he was probably tired too, was quiet. Spontaneity. That's what we need. Spontaneity. So when he tried to tug her towards their bedroom, she resisted, quickly unbuttoning her blouse, pulling her skirt down over her legs, ridding him of his patience. And it worked. He fucked her on the stairs like she wanted him to. Katie was too drunk to come.
x
"Again," was the first thing she said to him in the morning. For her, it was like she hadn't slept at all. Everything was as sickeningly clear as it had been the night before: this isn't right, Effy isn't right, our marriage isn't right, and the solution I've got is the only one I ever have. Fuck until it is.
He obliged, of course, what else was he going to do? Within moments they were almost welded together, Katie on top as usual, her scrabblings hands quickly discarding whatever excuses for clothing they had donned following the previous night. The room was so stiflingly warm that she ended up kicking both the duvet and the pillows away, giving them a blank canvas to explore. She moved lower down his chest, marking her territory with bite marks and faint lipstick stains. By the time she was tugging at his boxers, she was so overheated she was trembling, her hands visibly shaking.
"Katie," Thomas said weakly, but was cut off by his own sharp gasp as Katie reached her destination. He tried again. "Katie, I think you should – " She didn't even look up at him, too intent on doing what she was doing, on doing the only thing she could do. "Katie, please, Katie, you don't want to do this... "
x
Breakfast was a cold and silent affair. Effy, not having a clue about what had gone on, was making up for it by smirking as if she did, and Thomas and Katie were focussing all of their energy on not looking at each other. Thomas had, of course, prepared breakfast, which made Katie feel guilty – even more so because he was almost making a point of not making a point about it.
"Couple time?" asked Effy finally, raising one perfect eyebrow, and although it might have been a slightly awkward thing for her to say, Katie was at least glad that someone was talking.
Without waiting for an answer, she got to her feet and left the room, her half-finished cereal still on the table. Katie had half a mind to call her back and get her to finish it. I don't care what you eat, but I want my baby to be healthy, yeah? And only the first half of that sentence was a lie.
"Katie?" She turned away from Effy's cereal and towards her husband. He attempted a smile and failed. "She thinks we need to talk. Do you?"
"Do I think we need to talk?" Well, do I? "No."
"Things have been strange recently."
"With – sex?" Why is this conversation turning out so awkward? He's supposed to be the person I can talk about anything with. "I – well – it's a shame, isn't it, but – " Goddamn right it's a shame. "But doesn't that happen to everyone? I mean, we're having a baby, going into a new stage in our lives... " Katie was aware she was just blabbering bullshit she'd got off a Mumsnet forum, but hopefully Thomas wouldn't know that. Although it wouldn't surprise her if he did. Thomas had strange Internet habits.
"It isn't just about sex, Katie."
"What's it about then?"
"Everything. Everything has been all wrong since – " He broke off, not wanting to finish the sentence, but Katie knew what he was going to say anyway.
"Yeah, well, maybe that's because of what I said, about us having to be all mature parents. It's probably, like, psychological." Still blabbering.
He looked at her for a long time. "I'm sure it is. Psychological. And it certainly has something to do with Elizabeth."
So I know this won't be everyone's favourite chapter. Too much hetero sexytime and not enough Stonem.
I'm posting a little interlude next, and then it's baby related joy, although of which kind I won't yet spill.
Hope you enjoyed it at least marginally!