I managed a half-smile and nodded. ‘You, sir, make a very good point.’
‘You look beautiful, by the way, white is your colour.’ Kekipi reached out to brush one of my semi-tamed curls back behind my ear. ‘You get a pass.’
The curl he had tried to tether sprang back in front of my face and Kekipi rolled his eyes. The rest of my hair had been bullied into something like a bun, although there were so many curls involved it looked more like a Danish pastry gone wrong. I had to stop believing I could do something just because I’d seen it on YouTube. The hairdresser had given up after an hour and I really, really should have taken her advice and left it well alone.
‘I think you look very handsome,’ I said with a mini curtsey, ignoring my mullet. It was true, he did. His bronze skin shone and his hair, usually slightly wavy and a little bit wild, had been brushed into a very dapper side parting. ‘You should wear a suit more often. Especially one with so many sparkles.’
‘Love the sparkles, hate the suit,’ he confided, tugging at his stiff collar. ‘I still think this whole thing would have been much easier if we’d gone with my suggestion of a beach wedding.’
‘Well, bear with me.’ I held a finger up in front of my false eyelashes. ‘We could ditch these outfits, jump out the bathroom window and run away to Hawaii together?’
‘Tempting,’ Kekipi replied. ‘Very tempting.’
‘No one is running away anywhere without me,’ a sharp voice called out from behind the toilet door. ‘Do you know how long it took me to get her in that dress?’
‘How long?’ Kekipi whispered.
‘Too long,’ I replied, breathing in. ‘I should never have let her loose with corseting.’
Amy, my dresser, and my best friend, emerged from the toilet with a very serious pout on her face and a very silly unicorn T-shirt on her back. ‘I mean it,’ she said, a pair of jeans in her hand. The girl was so afraid of missing out on something she had run out of the bathroom, half-naked. ‘You’re going nowhere.’
‘And may I ask why you aren’t dressed yet, dearest Amy?’ Kekipi leaned in with a kiss for each of her pink cheeks, eyes averted from her pants. ‘I do believe the ceremony starts in fifteen minutes.’
‘I’m putting it on now,’ she muttered, eyeing me with defiance.
‘Ever since the hot Ribena and holy communion incident of 2001, Amy isn’t allowed to wear nice dresses for very long before an event,’ I explained as Kekipi watched a look pass between us. ‘Amy spills things.’
Kekipi blinked. ‘Say that again?’
‘AMY SPILLS THINGS,’ she repeated loudly. ‘I’m putting it on now. I can’t fuck it up in the next fifteen minutes, can I?’
I fought the urge to raise an eyebrow. As she had proved to everyone a million times in the last three months, Amy was not a child. Not that she was doing a much better job of passing as a grown-up than I was. I watched as she hunted around the bodice of the bridesmaid dress hanging on the back of the door with her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth, looking for the tiny covered zip. Eventually she found it, pulled it down – and leapt back as the entire dress fell to the floor in a silky puddle.
‘Tess?’
The door to the dressing room opened again and a tall, beautiful blonde, wearing the same dress Amy was attempting to gather up off the floor, peeked inside.
‘Are you in here?’
I held my breath.
‘We’re all in here,’ Kekipi replied before I could grab anything appropriately stabby. Could you bludgeon someone to death with a can of hairspray? Probably, if you were motivated enough. ‘Paige, you ravishing beast,’ he went on, ‘let me get a look at you.’
‘I was looking for you too!’ A shining smile lit up her anxious face for a moment as she became the latest recipient of Kekipi’s kisses. ‘I couldn’t find you out front – oh, you look fabulous.’
‘Oh, hello,’ Amy said across the room. Her stern tone might have carried more weight if she hadn’t been stood with her hands on her hips, wearing nothing but mismatched underwear and a frown. ‘What a lovely dress you’ve got on there – are you going somewhere nice?’
‘Amy,’ I said quietly, ‘don’t.’
Paige pressed her lips into a thin line and shuffled her shoulders. I kept my eyes on the floor.
‘Oh, the tension!’ Kekipi said, settling into an overstuffed armchair by the window to watch the show. ‘If you two were gay men, I’d send you into the bathroom to bone and get it over with.’
‘I don’t know what else to say, other than I’m sorry.’ She fussed with the full skirt of her dress. ‘I didn’t want to miss today.’
‘You’re such a twatfink,’ Amy said with a low growl. ‘Bros before hos, Sullivan.’
‘Are they Mr Men knickers?’ Paige asked, squinting over at Amy.
‘Yes, they are – what of it?’ Amy braced herself for a fight. ‘I swear, Sullivan, just give me a reason.’
‘Look, can we not?’ I jumped in between my friends, hoping the ridiculous whiteness of my dress might blind them both momentarily. ‘Paige, I don’t really know what to say. I was a bit worried you might not show up and I would have felt horrible.’
‘And I would have been furious at you messing up my Charlie’s Angels bridesmaid theme,’ Kekipi interjected.
‘I’ve been feeling horrible.’ Paige grabbed my hand and wrenched me across the floor into a hug I wasn’t ready for. ‘I should have talked to you, this really wasn’t how I wanted you to find out.’ I felt her arms tighten around me.
‘You’re both ridiculous.’ Amy threw herself into the group hug, burning rage beaten out by overwhelming FOMO. ‘Daft cows.’
Even though being the meat in a silk-and shiny-hair sandwich was wonderful, I still felt weird. So much had happened, so much had been said, and there was still so much to sort out.
Suddenly, the dressing room door slammed open, hitting the wall behind it and making everyone and everything in the room jump.
‘You shouldn’t be in here!’ Amy said, charging directly at the door and attempting to close it on Charlie’s bewildered face. But his six-foot-something versus her five-foot-nothing held its own quite nicely.
‘Charlie!’
My arms instinctively wrapped themselves around my body, I felt so vulnerable in my dress.
‘Charlie?’ Paige said, her perfect hair whipping back and forth between the door and me.
‘Charlie!’ Kekipi cheered, tucking into another chocolate chip cookie as we all turned to look at him. ‘Sorry, nothing to add, just didn’t want to be left out.’
‘I came to talk to you,’ Charlie started, eyes darting around the room while Amy recommitted to her Mighty Mouse efforts to knock him out of the room by charging directly at his midriff. He didn’t even flinch.
‘Me?’ I asked.
‘Tess?’ Paige asked.
Charlie nodded. He looked rumpled and rushed, his tie not quite straight, his hair all a mess.
‘Can I have five minutes?’ he said, stuffing his shirt down his trousers. Typical Charlie, never tucked in properly. ‘Just, want to explain everything. I’ve been a real tit.’
‘At last,