Page 34 of The Wedding Forecast

Mac pauses, lifts his head.

‘That didn’t sound like a good oh god.’

‘It wasn’t!’

He steps back and I jump off the bench, adjusting my top.

‘We’re in the men’s bathroom!’

‘I know.’

‘Why?’

‘Did I hallucinate you saying let’s go into the bathroom?’

‘I meant the women’s bathroom. Obviously.’

‘I can’t go into the women’s bathroom.’

‘There are urinals in here.’

‘They’re just urinals, they’re not’—he glances behind him—‘Okay, yeah, they’re not great.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m just. I’m losing my mind, clearly.’

He takes a deep breath, steps back and puts his hands in his pockets, watching me.

‘Me too. This was a mistake,’ he says. ‘I got carried away. I’m sorry.’

‘No, not a mistake, it’s not you, you’re great—it’s that, I mean, I was about to have sex in a men’s bathroom. I need help. I need a tetanus shot.’

‘We weren’t about to have sex.’

‘We weren’t?’

‘We were?’

‘I felt like we were.’

‘We’re still fully clothed in a semi-public space and I don’t have any condoms, for a start.’

‘Oh. Okay.’ I am not going to tell him that I have an IUD and was in such a state I would have just jammed the door shut and gone with it condomless and caught who knows how many diseases. From him and, more likely, the bench beside the sink where bacteria are multiplying in little water puddles.

‘We were going to do something though,’ he says. As if I need reassurance. Which I appreciate. My face must have been showing my disappointment.

‘What were we going to do?’ I ask. ‘From your perspective?’ I can feel hysterical laughter rising in me, and I try to tamp it down.

‘I was going to…’ He pauses, clears his throat. ‘I was going to make sure you had a good time.’ The way he says it, looking into my eyes, shuts off my urge to laugh and makes me suddenly think I’m being a priss, and fuck the urinals because I want the good time he’s offering.

The door to the bathroom swings open then and Luke’s father walks in.

‘Oh,’ he says. His eyes are glassy and drunk. ‘Am I?’ He looks around in confusion. ‘Where am I?’

‘You’re in the right place. Sorry, I walked into the wrong bathroom!’ I say, smiling and hurrying towards the door. I am acutely aware my bra strap is showing, and my hair is everywhere and my face is flushed, but, luckily, Luke’s father is the kind of man always preoccupied with his thoughts and not especially interested in anyone else.

Mac follows me out, and we slide into our seats, and Luke’s mother dings her fork against her champagne glass, and Luke tells his mum no speeches, and she says she just wants to say one little thing, and he says, ‘At least wait until Dad is back from the toilet,’ and Hayley makes a ‘help me’ face and everything is back to normal. Except my skin is tingling and my heart is racing and I keep thinking about Mac’s mouth on me, and, best of all, I’m not thinking about Joel at all anymore.

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