Matt sat in the seat he’d been assigned by one of the ushers, taking in the glorious view and sunshine. The peaks around the lake were a lush, verdant green. The sun reflected off Lake Windermere, the surface so calm it looked like glass. A complete contrast to the churning in his gut.
We could let this mean something instead of pretending it doesn’t.
They’d barely spoken another word to each other since then. Izabel had pulled away from him, splashed water on her face, and then slipped into her nightdress while he’d used the bathroom. He’d made her drink one of the bottles of water and take two paracetamol to start an early defence against the hangover she was bound to have after drinking so much and then crying like her heart would never recover.
Too exhausted to think about where to sleep, he’d grabbed one of the soft plush robes and slept on the other side of the bed on top of the covers to prevent any accidental spooning. By the time he woke, her side of the bed was cold, and he was as stiff as a board after sleeping with his arms crossed tight over his chest like Dracula in his fucking coffin. By lunch, he’d jerked off thinking about her lips on his, showered, and had a pint to take the edge off his hangover.
But Izabel’s words still rang through his mind.
Over and over and over.
He forced himself to look at her, more fucking beautiful than the view outside in the pale lavender gown with its sweet halter neck.
She was looking at him with a longing that ate away at the marrow of his bones. Her hair was half-up, half-down, blonde curls spiralling down her back. Her make-up was soft, natural even. No sign of a hangover. But the look in her eyes. Men had died for a look like that.
Goddamn.
He was fucked.
He should go home. Leave her with the cash to get the train back in the morning. He could take all her work bags home with him and dump them at Luke’s, so she only had her case. But then he’d have to explain to Luke why he left her.
The buzz began to fill him. The one he needed to work out, fight out, or fuck out of his system. Dressed in a suit, the former was impossible. The only person he wanted to fight was the brother of the groom which was not cool at a wedding. And the woman he wanted to fuck was the root cause of all his emotional turmoil.
Izabel kept her eyes on him as she walked by, her hand on Harry’s arm. As best-man and maid-of-honour, it made sense they left together, but Matt ground his teeth as Harry grinned in his direction.
Yeah, fighting away the tension he felt was looking better every moment.
Matt waited for his turn to peel out of the row and found Izabel waiting for him just outside the door. The nervous smile she gave him made him want to pull him into her arms.
“Hey, Matt. You scrubbed up well.” Her voice wavered as he spoke. He knew she hated conflict and he could only imagine how hard it had been to wait for him when he’d not given her any indication he wanted her to.
Ah, fuck it.
He opened his arms and she stepped into them. “You look lovely, Iz.” He ran his fingertips softly along her exposed skin.
“Lilac isn’t really my colour,” she muttered, her face pressed against his shoulder.
“I thought it was more lavender. Perhaps with a hint of mauve.”
He felt her chuckle rather than heard it.
Izabel shifted slightly so she faced him. “I’m sorry. About last night.”
“It is what it is. There’s nothing either of us can do to change it. But I guess we both understand what happened better.”
Izabel shrugged. “Doesn’t fix anything though, does it?”
Matt tucked an errant piece of hair behind her ear, the little gold bee she always wore glittering in the sunshine. “No.”
She turned her head into his hand. “Can we pretend it fixed everything? Just for a little while longer. You said you wanted forty-eight hours to see what it could have been like.” She placed a kiss on his palm.
Matt ran his thumb along her lower lip, then, in defiance of his best instincts of self-preservation, he leaned forward and kissed her softly. He traced his tongue along her lip, enjoy the sweet flavour of her. Her body leaned into his, pliantly almost submissively. Matt wrapped his arms around her, pulling her body flush to his as he savoured her sigh.
“Umm. Not everybody needs to see this, and Izzie, we’re needed for pictures.” Harry’s voice pierced the moment.
“What did I say I’d do to you if you kept calling her Izzie?” Matt said, his eyes still firmly on Izabel’s face, his thumbs brushing her cheeks.
In his peripheral vision, he saw Harry take a few steps back. “Izabel, we need to go for photographs.”
“Better. Go,” he said, releasing Izabel from his hold. “Because it’s looking like a beautiful day.”
She took a step towards Harry then stopped.
“That’s funny, because I was stumbling over what to say.” And her words and smile told her she’d understood his message all wrapped up in Elbow’s One Day Like This lyrics.
One day like this.
It was all they had, because soon they would be back in Manchester which right now felt like a world away.
What felt like an impossibly long hour later, Izabel looked for him amongst the wooden tables sat outside on the lawn overlooking Bowness and the lake. From his spot at the table furthest away from the hotel doors, he watched her share a smile with people as she passed or pose for the occasional candid photograph.
Her smile softened as she reached him, and he tugged her to stand between his legs. Cheekily, she reached for his pint and took a sip. “Are you going to finish my pint off again?”
She grinned as she swallowed. “Maybe. What is this, like your third?”
“It’s my second. And I don’t intend to drink more.”
“Why not? It’s a free bar today thanks to Gemma’s Dad. We should drink all the champagne dry.”
“You don’t like champagne.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the point. Who knows when I’ll get to spend all day drinking champagne again?”
“They sell Prosecco at Aldi for like a fiver. I’ll buy you four bottles next birthday and you can day drink all day.”
“But this is the good stuff because for all Gemma is lovely, her dad is a stuck-up knob from Alderley Edge who thinks as soon as you cross the border from Cheshire into Manchester your net worth and IQ drops by half. He had the hotel buy this super expensive vintage Dom Perignon or something. It’s like two hundred quid a bottle.”
“Fine, you get pissed on champagne and I’ll be your guard dog.”
Izabel grinned. “Yay. But why aren’t you having a drink?”
“Because we have one day like this. I’ve thought about what you said last night, about what we said after the service, and the lyrics of that song. It’s about waking up, slightly hungover, and really looking at someone for the first time. And the chorus, when he sings one day like this a year’d see me right? See, that’s today. This is our one day.”
With her heels, and his seat on the stool, his legs stretched out either side of her, they were about the same height. His slid his hands down to her arse and tugged her closer.
Intimately closer.
He kissed the side of her neck then whispered in her ear. “If I only get a single day of this, I want to be sober and lucid enough to remember every fucking tragically glorious moment of it.”
Izabel shivered in his hands. The tiny hairs on the side of her neck stood on end.
“Maybe just one glass of champagne,” Izabel said, breathlessly. “I want to remember it too.”
She tilted her neck to one side, and Matt took the hint, dropping a line of kisses along her skin. He scanned the lawn, from their position on the far table, nobody was paying them any attention. People were more interested in photographs and the view over Lake Windermere. They weren’t doing anything to inappropriate. Not like Gemma and Ollie who were so into each other that Gemma’s dad had stopped trying to get her attention.
“This day. Will it be everything we’d be like together?” Izabel asked. Pink tinted her cheeks, and he knew what she was asking. Would he sleep with her? He knew she’d ask, he knew he’d wrestle with whether he could after knowing his brother had slept with her, but the truth was, he loved her. He loved the way she listened to him and never expected him to be anything other than himself. And, if it had just been his relationship with his brother at risk, he’d have proudly gone back home and told his brother to fuck off. So, yeah, he wanted it to be everything.
“That’s your call, sweetheart.”
Izabel stepped back and inch and he missed her heat immediately. She threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled his lips briefly to hers.
“Show me what everything feels like with you.”
She was going to have sex with Matt.
Izabel watched him from the top table as she enjoyed crab and mango, salmon with rice and kimchi, and a dark chocolate mousse so rich it was to die for. Harry and Ollie’s dad had been way too interested in charming Gemma’s mum rather than turning to talk to her.
Matt was seated at a table with five much older ladies, all of them with white or grey hair, and the same style of dress. A collared V-neck with short sleeves. Izabel wondered curiously if they shopped from the same place and had called dibs on their favourite print. She’d seen him leaning forward, annunciating exceptionally clearly, to one of the ladies who was obviously hard of hearing.
If Harry had asked Ollie to put Matt on an uncomfortable table, he couldn’t have failed more. Matt had been raised by his nan. He had the ladies eating out of the palm of his hand in no time.
As soon as dinner was done, she hurried from the top table to him. Like he used to do, he pushed his chair out and pulled her onto his lap.
“Ladies, this is my girlfriend, Izabel. Izabel, these pretty ladies are all members of Gemma’s grandma’s church. Margaret and Glenn taught Gemma in Sunday School. Sheila and Ann taught Gemma in primary school. And Doreen taught Gemma piano.”
Izabel grinned at the way the women all turned to putty at Matt’s introduction. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all. I met Gemma at Uni and we’ve been friends ever since.”
“Well, you looked lovely today,” Doreen said. “The colour quite suits you.”
“You know,” Matt said. “We had quite the discussion today about the colour. Izabel thought it was Lilac. But I felt it leaned more toward lavender, perhaps even mauve. What do you think?”
Izabel bit back as smile as they descended into heated discussion.
“It looks mauver now, but in the light, it leaned more lilac,” Margaret said.
“Definitely lilac,” Sheila offered.
“Sheila, don’t be daft. It’s definitely mauve,” Glenn added.
Matt nodded thoughtfully, and she ran her fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp gently. “So,” Matt said after a few minutes passed. “I think the summary of our discussion is everyone agrees with me, except Sheila who agrees with Iz.” He squeezed Sheila’s shoulder playfully then kissed Izabel chastely on the lips. “As much as I love you both, you’re wrong.”
They stayed at the table, with Matt occasionally doing a bar run for them all. Izabel had gotten her glass of champagne and within the first sip had realised Matt was right. She didn’t really like it. So, Matt had gone back to the bar and gotten them both sparkling water. The ladies had switch to Harveys Bristol Cream and the sherry made them even more hilarious.
Eventually, Matt tapped her butt and moved to stand. “As much as I’ve loved chatting with you ladies, I think it’s time I danced with Iz.”
“We’re dancing?” she asked, as the ladies said their goodbyes.
“Why not?” he said, leading her to the dance floor. “I get to pull you close and pretend I’m not actually grinding my dick against you under the dim strobe lights. It’ll be like the high school disco all over again.”
He spun her as they reached the dance floor before doing exactly as promised. “Plus, I didn’t want to share you with them for another minute. As soon as they started to ask me why I hadn’t proposed yet, I felt we needed to run before they found a priest and married us off tonight.”
Izabel laughed. “I think they felt responsible for you.”
“Glenn suggested next time we’re all at a wedding together, she’ll iron my shirt for me if you don’t have time like you didn’t today.”
Izabel looked shocked. “Because I’m the woman in our relationship I need to do your ironing.”
“Apparently so. And if you don’t, Glenn is just biding her time to pounce on your guy. She mentioned she makes a mean Shepherd’s pie, too.”
“Right, that’s it. I’m going over there to tell Glenn to keep her hands off my man.” Izabel pretend to storm toward Glenn, laughing when Matt slid his arms around her waist and pulled her to him. Her back to his chest.
“There’s only one woman I want in this ballroom, and right now her delicious arse is pressed up against my dick.”
Izabel slowed down, pressed back a little harder, swaying her hips from side to side. “Better.”
Matt pressed a long wet kiss to her neck. “Unless you want me to fuck you in front of Gemma’s grandma, you need to turn around.”
Izabel did as he requested, sighing as he took one of her hands in his, and tightly wrapped his other arm around her waist. She couldn’t find the right word to describe how it made her feel. Safe. Treasured, maybe. Definitely wanted.
“It’s even better,” Matt whispered.
“What it?”
“This. The feel of you in my arms. The way our bodies line up together. It’s magic.”
Izabel stepped back a little so she could look at Matt’s eyes. The DJ changed the song from a slower dance back to an upbeat pop song, but Matt didn’t let her go, nor did he change his pace from the slow swaying they’d been doing.
“Are you ready to show me?” she asked.
Matt sighed, his chest expanding then relaxing against hers. “Yeah, sweetheart, I think I am.”
He took her hand and led her out of the room. She should say goodnight to Gemma, at least thank her parents for a wonderful evening. But she couldn’t force herself to stop. Wasting another moment was unthinkable.
“She doesn’t suck cock, you know?”
Harry’s voice cracked through the air as if he’d physically slapped her. Matt stopped, squeezed her hand, and turned. “You want to say that again?”
Harry leaned against the wall in the hallway, pint in his hand, surrounded by three other men Gemma had introduced as Harry and Ollie’s cousins.
Izabel glanced in Harry’s direction. His words hurt. This was the man she’d once thought she could be happy enough with. “Harry, stop being a dickhead. Please, Matt. Let’s just go.”
“You heard me. Doesn’t give head.”
Matt looked down at her and winked. “Pretty sure that says more about you and your dick than it says about her. You’re just the bitter twat who lost her because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants. Even as you stand there, mouthing shit about her like you hate her, you see her like I do, and it eats you up inside. You know there isn’t a woman here who can hold a candle to her. And, yeah, you compensate for that by trying to make her seem small, try to put out her flame because it makes you feel better about your life choices to fuck Sophia.”
Harry was momentarily flustered. Two of the men around him smirked and edged away. “Better than fucking my brother’s seconds.”
Matt moved toward Harry, closing the gap between them.
Izabel tugged at his arm. “Matt. Not now.”
“Trust me, sweetheart. I’m not going to hit him…yet.”
The way he said yet was ominous.
Izabel could see the panic in Harry’s face as the final man stepped out of the way. In a fight, there was no question Matt would win. Harry was refined and polished. Matt was raw and explosive. Matt placed one hand on the wall next to Harry’s head. “It’s your brother’s wedding. For Gemma’s and Izabel’s sake, I’m not going to lay a finger on you tonight. But be on notice, Harry. First time I find you after this, it’s really going to fucking hurt.”
Harry attempted to shove Matt away, but Matt didn’t budge. “Are you threatening me?”
“Please,” Izabel said, edging her way between the two of them. “Not here.”
Matt grinned, pushing himself away from the wall. “Of course I was. What are you going to do? Call the police? Get them to come tell me off for saying mean words? Get over yourself, Harry. And while you’re at it, get over Iz, too.”
Harry’s mouth opened like a goldfish, unable to come up with a response.
Matt wrapped his hand around her middle and the tightness in her chest dissipated. “Let’s go to bed, sweetheart. I suddenly have a whole heap of adrenaline I need to burn off.”
The look in his eyes made her insides melt. Heat. Fire. Passion. “Thank you for not hitting him.”
Matt rubbed his thumb along the side of her hand as they walked down the corridor. “Our one day shouldn’t have fighting in it, but I couldn’t let his comment slide.”
“I appreciate you standing up for my honour.”
“Always.”
They took the stairs to the room and once at the door, she felt the need to make one thing clear. “I did give blow jobs…you know, in case you hoped our one day would include them.”
Matt placed his hand on her cheek. “You don’t need to if you don’t—”
“No. It’s just…Harry used to do that thing. He’d get carried away. He’d grip the side of my face to hold me in place and…”
Matt cupped her cheek. “You should have let me hit him,” he said softly. “Fuck it, I might just go back down and knock him out for the hell of it.”
Izabel smiled. “You would if I gave the word, wouldn’t you?”
“You’d be surprised what I’d do for you, Izabel.”
She only wished it were true.