Dev managed to drag his eyes away from Lizzy’s face when Tadgh and his dad came into the room. So this was what being in love felt like. Not casual love. Not friendship love. Not shagging the bloke from Fake Twat love. Real love. Forever love. In-freaking-credible love. The only way to describe it was that it was like a dam breaking, causing a tsunami. Lizzy had knocked one brick out of his wall and suddenly it had crumbled, and he’d been carried along on a wave of sheer fricking delight.
She loved him. He loved her. It couldn’t be more obvious. And it couldn’t be more perfect because it was real. There was no pretence, no acting, no fake crap that turned up later. They already knew everything about each other, so they didn’t even have to worry about there being ugly surprises down the line. Although… the fact that Lizzy had covered her feelings up for a lifetime was a bit of a concern. She’d done it so well he was fairly sure she could be a Cold War spy and he wouldn’t have a clue.
He climbed off the sofa and shook Tadgh’s hand, then did the same with his dad, before introducing Lizzy.
‘Holy crap, are you the guy from Home?’ she gasped, wide-eyed.
Dev groaned on the inside. Of course, she knew him – Dev had sent her a link to the band’s website earlier and she’d thought he was gorgeous. Great. He’d just realised she was his forever love and now she’d met someone who was exactly her type, with that whole rock guy image and…
He stopped himself. He wasn’t doing this. After nearly thirty years of knowing each other, Lizzy had declared her love for him. He was enough. They were good. She wasn’t suddenly going to run off with a rock guy because he had good hair. Besides, if he wasn’t wrong, there was definitely some chemistry between Tadgh and Hayley.
‘Yeah, I am. Or I was. I think I just decided to go solo.’
Tadgh and Jack sat on the sofas, gratefully accepting a couple of beers from Hayley, then Jack spotted the view of the setting sun on the terrace and went to investigate. There was no awkwardness, just easy chat, until Tadgh said, ‘I don’t know if you care, but I can tell you what happened with the whole Cheryl thing?’
Dev didn’t even get a chance to answer, when Lizzy jumped in, ‘Yes! Or to be honest, he doesn’t really need to know, but I do because I’m shallow and nosy and generally think people are weirdos. What’s the story?’
‘It wasn’t Cheryl, it was her sister, Cindy. She gave you Cheryl’s name because she felt guilty – she’s married.’
‘Shit,’ Dev whistled. ‘I should have known. It was all too good to be true.’
Lizzy nudged him with her elbow. ‘Eh, I’m too good to be true, thank you very much.’
‘You are, babe,’ he agreed, nuzzling into her neck. He still couldn’t believe this was happening. He was nuzzling Lizzy Enid Walsh’s neck and she wasn’t threatening to break his legs or burn his Tottenham Hotspur poster collection. This was love. True love and devotion. And there hadn’t been a single minute in his life when he’d been happier.
‘Tadgh!’ That came from Bernadette as she came out from the bathroom, her newly dried red hair wavy, her eyes bright.
Dev watched as Tadgh got up to greet her with a hug.
‘Okay, give me bullet points because I don’t want you to have to repeat yourself and I caught snippets of what you said from the shower. Cheryl?’
‘Over,’ he replied, and Dev thought it interesting that there didn’t seem to be any sadness there. It obviously just wasn’t meant to be. Not like him and Lizzy. And if that sounded smug, he’d be suitably repentant just as soon as he stopped feeling like the luckiest guy on the planet.
‘Are you okay?’ Bernadette asked him.
‘Surprisingly fine,’ Tadgh answered.
‘Excellent. Well, welcome to the Surprisingly Fine Club. I just made that up, but it’s pretty apt. You. Hayley. And I’m even remarkably fine, considering I got stood up and I’m not here with my best friend.’
‘Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. So, I don’t know what your plans are, but I figured you might have a bit of free time over the next two weeks, and I know you said that you didn’t fancy doing much on your own…’
‘How come I’ve got a feeling this is leading somewhere, Tadgh?’
‘Because I was just thinking that… if I stick around for a few days, and Hayley does too, then maybe we could plan some stuff.’
Bernadette smiled at his suggestion but shook her head. ‘That’s very lovely of you to think of me, but I’m not going to be the old dear traipsing round in the middle of you young ones.’
‘But that’s the thing,’ Tadgh argued. ‘You wouldn’t be in the middle because…’ He searched behind him, to each side, then grinned as his father came back in through the terrace door.
Beside him, Dev could feel Lizzy almost fizz with excitement as she saw exactly what was going on here.
Tadgh held his hand out, gesturing to his dad. ‘You won’t be in the middle because my da would be with us too. Bernadette, this is Jack Donovan. Da, this is Bernadette.’
‘Very pleased to meet you, Bernadette. And if you don’t mind an old git like me spending some time with you all, I’d love to join you for a day or two.’
Dev couldn’t take his eyes of Bernadette’s face as it transcended a whole range of reactions that, if he was reading it right, went from surprise, to interest, to appreciation, to agreement. And somewhere in there, he was pretty sure that she probably registered that Jack Donovan seemed like a very attractive, very engaging, very friendly guy. Classic romcom opening. Dev made a note to include it in his book. Not the one he was writing before. The new one, where the guy chased the girl, then discovered that his best friend was the right one for him all along. Yes, it had been done before, in almost every romcom ever written, but at least this time he got to live the ending instead of just watching it.
Besides, this ending came with definite perks, one of them being a suggestion Lizzy had come up with about half an hour before, when the sun first started to go down.
‘I think there are quite a few interesting things going on here in the next week or so,’ he hinted to Bernadette, Hayley, Tadgh and his dad, drawing them in.
‘Really? What kind of things?’ Bernadette asked brightly, her demeanour so different from the drawn stressfest she’d been when she’d boarded the plane that morning.
‘Well, Lizzy and I were just thinking about putting a small dinner party together. With a bit of live entertainment thrown in. So if you’re not doing anything next weekend…’ He did the romcom pause, the one where everyone knows what’s coming but they milk the ending for dramatic effect. ‘We just wondered if you fancied coming to a wedding?’