There was a burbling sound from the other end of the line that eventually resolved into “I can’t get hold of him.”
On its own, that wasn’t unusual. Tom’s job often required him to go quiet for a couple of days, sometimes longer. But it wasn’t exactly reassuring. Or at least I wasn’t reassured, and I didn’t think Bridge would be either. I tried to stick with neutral questions. “How did you get the picture?”
“Liz saw them.”
If it had been any of Bridge’s other friends it might have been less damning, because a lot of them were like, well, me. The type of people who jumped from fearing the worst to deciding that the worst had definitely happened without even needing a run-up. But Liz was a legit vicar, which meant giving people the benefit of the doubt was basically in her job description. And since she was actually officiating at the wedding, it didn’t seem likely she’d be maliciously sabotaging it. “Did she say anything else?”
“Just that they were in a café together and they looked…looked close.”
There were still, surely, other ways to interpret an about-to-be-married man with his phone switched off carrying on in a café with a mysterious hot lady who wasn’t his fiancée. I just couldn’t think of any right at that second. “Do you need me to come over?”
“Don’t you”—Bridge gave a sort of noble hiccough—“aren’t you going out with Oliver tonight?”
Yes. Yes, I was. And it was going to be super romantic and special and all the things that fancy date nights with your long-term partner were supposed to be. “This is more important.”
And the worst—or, from another perspective, the best—of it was that I wasn’t lying. Bridge would never have asked me to cancel, but she also didn’t have to. She’d been there for me through a metric butt load of crises down the years—through Miles, through all the self-destructive shit I’d pulled after, through nearly getting fired, and through everything with Oliver—so I kind of owed her one. Hell, I owed her twenty. And even if I hadn’t, I’d still have been there for her because that’s what friends were meant to do and I’d spent way too long not doing it. “I’ll be right round,” I told her.
She made a sad appreciative noise and, after I’d tried to reassure her that everything was going to be okay in six different ways, each slightly less plausible than the last, hung up.
The next bit was going to be awkward. Well, maybe not that awkward. Because Oliver would understand. Even if we did have a table booked and tickets we’d bought months ago. Oh, shit. It was going to be awkward, wasn’t it?
And thank you, life, for manoeuvring me into a situation where I’d have to let down either my best friend or my boyfriend. It was like whatever I did, no matter how hard I tried, the universe wanted me to know that, on some level, I was a crappy person. On this occasion, my crapness manifested partly in not wanting to tell Oliver to his face —or even to his voice—that I was ditching him to hang out with a sad bride. I was two-thirds of the way through my fourth draft of my first text when I realised that I was living down to the universe’s expectations of me. And, more importantly, not living up to Oliver’s.
Fuck. That was the problem with dating a good person. They got their ethics all over you.
So I gritted my teeth and called Oliver.
“Lucien?” Great. He already sounded concerned. Either because of boyfriend telepathy or because I normally only rang if I’d set the kitchen on the fire. “Is everything okay?”
“Not really,” I told him, and then realising that could have meant anything from I think we should break up to My leg’s been bitten off by a shark, followed up quickly with, “I mean I’m fine, but Bridget’s in a hell of a state and… Look, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to bail on this evening.”
For just long enough that I could hear my relationship gurgling down the plughole, Oliver didn’t reply. Then he said, “Oh.”
“Oh?”
Another relationship gurgling pause. “Sorry, I–I know you’re Bridget’s maid of honour, but I don’t often get free evenings and we’ve been planning this for a long time.”
“I know. It’s just…she’s my best friend.”
“And she’s my friend too.” Oliver sounded unhappy. Worse, he sounded like he was trying hard not to be unhappy, which would only make him unhappier. “But you know Bridge… She always has some crisis or other.”