"Hello?" Paul answers his mobile.
"Hey, Paul! It's Alice. Remember?" Alice's familiar voice answers back.
"Yes, of course" Paul smiles.
"Yeah, well.."Alice chuckles. "I'm calling because you seemed very sweet and I hope you don't mind my asking you to go to a thing with me."
"A thing...?" Paul balances the phone on his shoulder as he holds his laptop in one hand and his keys in another as he tries to open his front door.
"Yeah, it's a wedding this weekend; Sunday afternoon. I'm a bridesmaid and I would like to go with a date" Alice is embarrassed to ask in fear of sounding like a bit of a loser for asking a guy she just met three days ago to a wedding "AND..." she adds to make it sound less desperate "I figured it'd be good to go with someone who could make sure I didn't drink. How do you go to parties and not drink? Do you just not socialize or what?"
"I usually order an orange juice" Paul replies as he sits down on his couch.
"Ugh! I'm going to Shareen's hen party tomorrow night and there's going to be drinks everywhere and I have to order an orange juice? At least there'll be plenty of penis shaped lollies to keep things interesting." Alice jokes.
Paul stifles a laugh as best he can. "Well, I'm sorry to tell you that I'd love to join you at the wedding but I am actually already attending a wedding on Sunday."
"No way! It's not YOUR wedding is it?" Alice asks in a joking tone of voice but almost worried that she might be asking a man engaged to be married out on a date.
Paul laughs. "No, I'm not the one getting married but it's important that I be there so I can't miss it."
"Ok, I guess I'll see you Tuesday. Wish me luck this weekend!" Alice smiles at herself in the mirror as she talks to him.
"Will do" Paul says goodnight as they both hang up their phones.
Paul fails to mention that he wasn't just going to a wedding but performing one and it wasn't until Sunday afternoon rolled around that he noticed the bride's name was Shereen and that woman walking down the aisle towards him in a pink chiffon bridesmaid's dress looked incredibly familiar.
Alice's eyes widened with shock and her mouth fell agape as she continued walking and staring at Rev. Coates the whole way up to the alter. A little smile crept up on his face as he looked down at his feet to break eye contact. She stopped and stood at her place right beside him. He glanced up to look at her and caught her staring at him with those big brown eyes open wide. She raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips to express a silent 'are you kidding me?' and Paul couldn't help but chuckle out loud and quickly cover his mouth in his hand. Alice started to chuckle back and the other bridesmaids looked at each other a little confused that Alice seemed to have an inside joke with The Reverend. Paul shushed Alice and himself and he remained composed and professional for the rest of the service.
Once the main service was over and the reception started; everyone began to mingle and drink and Alice stood by the dessert table quietly munching on some wedding cake and resisting the urge to grab a bottle of champagne.
"What did you think of the service?" a familiar voice turns her head around. "Sermon was a bit dull. I mean, 1st Corinthians? 'love is patient, love is kind...'. A great message but maybe just a little overused. It's completely unoriginal on my part. Straight plagiarism really. " Paul says jokingly.
"You're loving this, aren't you?" Alice gives him a mockingly stern look.
"You're not?" Paul laughs. "What a great coincidence." Paul liked to think this chance encounter was providence. A sign that he was supposed to keep an eye on her but he didn't want to sound too preachy.
"Yeah, great I made a joke about penis lollipops to you over the phone the other night." Alice felt a little embarrassed.
"Did they keep things interesting enough for you to stay away from binge drinking?" Paul smiled kindly.
"Yes" Alice rolls her eyes
"Are you lying?" Paul crosses his hands in front of himself and gives her a stern look.
Alice opens her mouth but nothing comes out at first. Seeing him dressed as he was looking at her like that made her confused. "Ugh... I.." she slowly regained her voice "I didn't come here for absolution, sir. Now if you don't mind my girls are looking at me funny because they all want to know how I'm friends with the vicar." she points over Paul's shoulder to the huddled mass of pink chiffon over by the champagne bottles.
"Oh, yeah" he looks over his shoulder at the bridesmaids and back at Alice. "Try not to tell them exactly everything about how you met me. You can see how if word got out I could get in some trouble. I don't want to say you should ever lie for me but..."
"But I should lie for you." Alice finishes his sentence. "It's ok" she laughs "I'll figure something out." Alice leans in close and lightly rests her hand on his shoulder "Your secret's safe with me" she whispers in his ear and winks before she walks back to her friends.
"Sorry, girls! Can't drink..." Alice points behind her to the Reverend who's being offered a slice of cake. "God's watching" she rolls her eyes.
"You looked like you were straight up flirting with him, you little freak." Jamie laughs "The bridesmaids are supposed to hook up with the best man, not the vicar."
"I like men in uniform." Alice laughs.
"You two were laughing together like you shared some little secret." Jamie talks with her mouth full of wedding cake. "So what is it?" all the girls gather round.
"It's nothing. I have to go to AA meetings remember? Well, he's a counselor there. But I didn't know he was a reverend. So it was a surprise to see him." Alice more or less told the truth. He's the one who gave that great little speech about looking inside yourself to solve your problems and that it might be scary but you have to do it. Alice was never very religious but maybe God really does speak through people sometimes. That is assuming God does in fact exist; a fact Alice wasn't completely convinced on just yet.