Page 131 of The Wedding Forecast

I can feel my face going red.

He steps forward, close to my ear. ‘He’s obviously in love with you,’ he says quietly, then grins, and waves and leaves.

‘Who is?’ I want to yell after him. ‘Which one!?’ But I contain myself.

We have a table booked at a restaurant a block away. The original plan was for my parents, Bobbi and Jean, Patrick and me, and Hayley and Luke to have dinner together post-launch, and now Mac is coming too. I am trying to be calm and rational about this. Of course he should join us. He’s Luke’s best friend and he’s only here for a week, and he’s my, well, he’s my old friend, let’s say.

I am hoping beyond hope that Patrick somehow doesn’t recognise him as the man in the photo he gave me. A futile hope. Of course Patrick knows who he is.

40

HAYLEY, LUKE, PATRICK, Mac and I walk as a group to the restaurant. Bobbi and Jean are taking the left-over stock and EFTPOS machine back to the shop, and my parents are helping them, and they’ll all meet us there.

Patrick walks beside me and takes my hand in his.

Mac walks on my other side, a step ahead. I feel slightly faint.

‘So Mac, how long did you say you were here for?’ Patrick asks.

‘Just a week,’ Mac says. He looks back, his eyes landing on our joined hands.

‘Visiting family?’ Patrick asks.

‘Something like that,’ Mac says.

I glance around. Where are Hayley and Luke? Where are my buffers? They’ve fallen behind. Hayley is fiddling with her shoe. I told her not to wear those shoes.

‘Well, it’s nice you could be at the launch,’ Patrick says.

‘It is,’ Mac responds. He has his hands in his pockets, and he keeps glancing back at me, and I can’t concentrate properly. My hand in Patrick’s is sweating.

We walk into the restaurant, and as soon as we sit down I ask the waiter to bring some appetisers, because if people have food in their mouths, there is less opportunity to talk.

Patrick sits next to me, and Mac sits opposite. I am staring right into his eyes. I have looked at his face on my laptop screen so many times in watching and rewatching episodes of Arcadia Rising, it feels surreal to have the real him in front of me again.

Patrick is edging his chair closer to mine, and his elbow knocks into me. I pick up my water and drink it slowly.

Hayley has gone to the bathroom and Luke is talking to the waiter about wine. They are failing me right now.

‘So, what happens next?’ Patrick says to me.

‘What do you mean?’ I ask. I’m so distracted, I have no idea what he’s talking about.

‘With your book.’

‘Oh well, I guess I just hope it sells copies and readers like it,’ I say, with an awkward laugh.

‘Have you read it?’ Mac asks, looking at Patrick.

‘I haven’t yet,’ Patrick says. ‘Just got my copy tonight.’

‘I thought Anna might have given you an early copy.’

‘She didn’t.’

‘Did you like The Hike?’ Mac asks. His tone is mild, polite, chatty, his expression impenetrable. I gave Patrick a copy of The Hike on our second date, when he asked. Since then, every time I’ve been at his house, I’ve seen it on his bedside table. His bookmark has not moved. I checked the page—number fifty-five. The spot where the woman who hated it and returned it on my first day in the shop had given up. I have been determined to read nothing into this.

‘I still working my way through it,’ Patrick says now. ‘I’m not a fast reader. I warned Anna about that,’ he says, squeezing my hand.