“Isabella! Hold up!” Keats pulls himself out of the water with one push of his arms. He catches up to her as she’s pulling a towel out of her gear bag. He touches her arm but she shrugs it off. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry.”
“Do not call me sweetheart!” she says through clenched teeth, shouldering her bag, eyes like lasers on his. I’ve never seen her this mad before. “I have to go.”
He doesn’t budge. Eyes on the tiled floor, she tries to step around him but he blocks her. It’s a small move for him considering their height difference.
“Isabella…” Keats begins.
“Leave me alone, you crazy fuck!” she snaps, looking up at him. “I’m marrying your brother in nine days. Now, this,”—she gesticulates wildly towards the pool and the two of them—“did not just happen. You hear me?”
“Isabella, I think I’m still in lo—”
She smacks him in the chest with her gear bag before storming out of the public pool complex.
“Dammit!” he says, following her with his gaze.
She seems to have forgotten to wait for me.
“Smooth, Keats,” I say before chasing after the bride.
Chapter 28
“Be good, okay?” Isabella gives Byron’s cheek a lingering touch.
Outside, a car horn beeps. It must be Keats, getting impatient. I don’t know whether he tried to contact Isabella after the pool fiasco last night but it seems he’s back to his best man duties twenty-four hours after stealing a kiss from the bride.
Byron cups Isabella’s face and kisses her softly on the lips before shouldering his backpack and heading out the door.
Honestly, I am so sick of these two. Talk about being co-dependent. Yeah, you’re in lurve. We get it. Isabella catches me rolling my eyes.
“Men are notoriously stupid in big groups,” she justifies, mistaking the source of my dissent.
“He’ll be fine. It’s a stag night. They won’t lose him like in The Hangover.”
Her breath hitches at the mention of that wedding disaster movie.
“Anyway, at least your wedding’s next week, instead of tomorrow,” I continue. “Plenty of time to find him, if he got lost…” I realise I should’ve stopped talking about thirty seconds ago, and wish the others would get here already. I’m just not a natural at throwing a party. “You ready for your hens’ night?”
“I just hope Keats looks after Byron, you know? After last night—what was he thinking? I thought I’d made it clear it was over between us. I mean, this is going to be so awkward—he’s going to be my brother.”
“In-law,” I add, though maybe I shouldn’t have. It’s actually a good thing that Isabella is completely off her ex-boyfriend. Sometimes my compulsion to correct people is faster than my sense of self-preservation.
“It’s so weird that we’ve just kissed again.” Her hand unconsciously touches her lips. “I haven’t told Byron yet. It’s already bad enough that Keats was my boyfriend first.”
“What, um, base did you get up to with Keats?”
Isabella blushes. “I don’t want to think about it.” She dramatically shivers.
I don’t either, but I’m sure my imagination is far worse than what they probably did. At least I hope so, considering I write erotic fiction. Oh, God. My mind went there. A lump of bile forms in my throat at the thought of Isabella and Keats making out. Last night was a nightmare that I’m still trying to gouge out of my mind’s eye.
The doorbell rings. I answer it and find a tall, buff police officer, carrying a large, flat rectangular bag. He’s wearing Ray Ban aviator sunglasses, and a big smile beneath his fake tan.
“You the bride?”
“In there,” I motion behind me.
He touches the bill of his cap at me and walks further into Isabella’s apartment.
“Is Byron okay?” There is a catch in Isabella’s voice.
“I would worry about you, ma’am,” the cop says as I join them in the living room.
Isabella looks at me, then back at the tall guy whose very presence seems to fill the lounge area. I take a photo of her expression for posterity. She’ll appreciate the moment later.
“What’s going on?” Isabella asks, using her “lawyer voice”.
“Hi. I’m Will. I’ll be your naked masseuse this evening.”
I’m a bit disappointed that Will doesn’t continue the ruse longer. He could’ve pretended to arrest her, at least. Though Ms Goodie-two-shoes lawyer has behaved impeccably in living memory, so any charge wouldn’t have fazed her. Unzipping the large bag he’s brought with him, Will extracts a foldable table from the fitted cloth cover.
The doorbell rings again while he is locking the table leg joints.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Penny’s loud voice muffles the softer greeting from Mia right behind her. “Sorry we’re late. The guy here yet?”
I’m so glad he is, or Penny would’ve just ruined the surprise.
“Woo!” She whoops at the sight of the buff man in the living room. “Hey, Will, right? When do you take your shirt off?”
“As soon as the bride helps me,” he says, with a wink and grin at Isabella. He’s pretty cute, making me wonder if he has a worried girlfriend somewhere who secretly wishes he didn’t strip for a living.
“No way.” Isabella looks horrified. “Penny, you booked this?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’re doing the unwrapping then.”
Penny’s features break into a grin. Mia turns on some party music and I take photos as Penny scrunches Will’s shirt front and tugs the hem out of his black uniform pants. Mia joins Isabella on the couch, watching the show with a yearning that makes me wonder when her single-mother friend had sex last.
“Are these Velcro or buttons?” Penny wonders out loud, bringing the material close to her face for a closer look. She so needs glasses.
“I’ve got Velcro on everything,” Will says with a wry grin.
“Cool. Including your pants? Do they come away like in those shows?”
“Yep.”
Penny grabs both sides of Will’s shirt in her hands then pulls
