“I’ve been a groomsman a few times but never the best man,” I answered truthfully. “What about you? Many bridesmaid dresses in your wardrobe?” I joked. It made me think about how we’d never become social media friends. Facebook or even Instagram, I had never added Helena, had never wanted to see how well she was doing without me.
Maybe that hadn’t been a very mature response. Or maybe it was quite the opposite and having your ex as a friend on social media wasn’t something that grown-ups did. I had no idea. It didn’t seem like the right sort of thing to ask Helena, of all people.
“I was a bridesmaid at Kate’s wedding, obviously,” she said. Like a flash, it came back to me, the day she’d told me her sister was getting married. But it was safer by far not to think about that now.
Instead, I let her carry on. “And Lisa, do you remember her?” Frowning, I nodded. Lisa had been one of Helena’s friends at school. Like Charlotte, I hadn’t kept up with what she’d been up to in the years since. I hadn’t even known she’d gotten married.
“This is my first time being maid of honor,” she said. “So that’s exciting. And a lot of work!”
“Oh, is someone getting you to help them build a house?” I teased.
Even though it was a little weird, Helena and I being the maid of honor and the best man, it wasn’t as weird as it might have first appeared. We got on just fine, it seemed. And that shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
Helena had been my closest and my best friend for over four years. There was obviously something that had drawn us to each other. Ten years down the line, we still had that connection. But perhaps that was a dangerous line of thinking to go down.
“Not that I’m not happy to help,” I added, shaking my head. “It’s a very impressive wedding present.” And that it certainly was. Not all men could say they built their new wife a house!
Helena’s blue eyes widened, a finger coming up to rest against her lips. “Ssshh! It’s a secret!” For a second, she sounded so genuinely scolding that I blinked. Pat had admitted to me that Charlotte basically knew, even if she was pretending not to for the sake of the surprise at the end.
Then Helena laughed - this time, letting the sound ring out until there was no other noise in the room for me. “Sorry, I forgot you don’t have experience of my ‘lawyer voice’. I was kidding.”
“She does know, right?” I asked somewhat worriedly. “I mean, she has to know, Lunengrove couldn’t keep a secret even if it tried.” It hadn’t occurred to me that the house itself was a secret from Charlotte. From the way Helena’s eyes glistened, I could tell she was pleased by having had me on with her joke.
I shook my head, reaching to take a sip of the drink that I had almost forgotten since we started talking. “I went to see it yesterday. It’s a great house. Pat is doing so well. Have you seen it?”
The question made Helena’s eyes glitter even more. “Oh, yes. Charlotte took me to see it the minute she found out.” She giggled, looking so delighted with herself that it was impossible not to smile. “She won’t go inside it, though. That’s how she’s keeping up her end of the bargain.”
That seemed fair. The whole inside of a house was still a pretty big surprise. “I just hope Pat doesn’t spend loads of money on new curtains that Charlotte won’t even like,” she admitted. “Not that she’s hard to please but… well, I don’t know if Pat’s ever actually chosen how to decorate a room.”
I had to shake my head at the thought that Charlotte had shown Helena the house that was going to be given to her as a ‘surprise’. Except, of course, it wasn’t actually a surprise. Pat wouldn’t, and truthfully probably couldn’t, keep something like that from Charlotte. It was sweet, how much he wanted to share with her.
At the moment, much of the inside of the house was still unfinished. Pat wasn’t anywhere near getting curtains yet. “He’ll probably ask you,” I shrugged. “As Charlotte’s best friend, you know about curtain preferences, I expect.”
First, though, we needed to get the house ready for curtains!
Helena smiled. “Oh, yes,” she agreed. “I know all about curtain preferences. Just let Pat know I’m willing to help however I can.” Pat hardly needed me to tell him that, but I nodded anyway. In case Pat hadn’t thought to ask Helena for help, I’d pass the message along.
“Have you done anything like this before?” Helena asked. “I mean, not built a house, exactly. Probably not a lot of people have experience with that. But renovating or extending?”
It was strange to realize that Helene knew nothing about my house in Salt Lake. She’d never been there. By the time I picked it out, we’d already been broken up.
It was a thought I pushed to one side. How we could have picked together, how we could have decided what to do with the house together. As it was, I had made most of those choices on my own and then later on with Becca.
“Somewhat. I did an extension on my house, but that mostly involved paying someone else to build it.” I shrugged. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go into the discussion of my house. It just made me think about how, once upon a time, I had hoped that Helena would be the person I made those decisions with.
I was saved by Charlotte’s mom appearing. She wanted to discuss something with Helena, which gave me
