Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Charlotte Butterfield

on Lucy’s bridal folder. And telling me about the bridesmaid dresses you’ve already got?’

      Leila had never seen the physical manifestation of the phrase ‘blood draining from face’ before, but before her eyes it happened to both Nick and Olga at the same time. Nick retrieved his arm from Olga’s tight grip, coughed and pushed his chair back. ‘I need a smoke, back soon.’

      Leila pushed open the door to the terrace and walked over to where Nick was lighting a new cigarette from the dying embers of the last one. ‘I told the waitress to keep your lamb warm, they’re clearing the table now.’

      Nick shrugged, ‘Cheers, but I’ve lost my appetite anyway.’

      ‘So… I take it the engagement was very much in Olga’s head,’ Leila ventured.

      ‘It’s our fifth date. So yes, very much so, although now you mention it, she did insist on meeting Mum after the first one. To tell the truth I didn’t even want to bring her today, but Lucy insisted as otherwise it would cock up the numbers or something. But it’s a massive thing isn’t it, bringing someone you barely know to your sibling’s wedding?’ He wasn’t to know that this made Leila cringe a little. ‘And I didn’t want to give the wrong signals this was more serious than it was, and all the time she’s been planning our wedding.’ He took a deep inhalation from his cigarette and blew the smoke out. ‘Jesus, women!’

      ‘Can I take this opportunity to point out your audience?’ Leila joked.

      ‘Sorry. I’m just fed up of every woman I date trying to fast track from the getting to know you stage straight to the altar.’

      ‘At least yours made the dinner, my date didn’t even have a Pimms before he legged it to a better offer.’

      ‘That makes me feel better. At least I’m not the biggest loser here.’

      ‘You’re welcome.’

      ‘But at least you’re now free to enjoy the party. I have to go back in there, break up with a fiancée I didn’t know I had, and then I am going to have to call her a taxi.’

      ‘But her name is Olga.’

      ‘Oh, that’s a bad, bad joke.’

      They stood opposite each other both looking fittingly solemn. And annoyed. Leila’s mouth began to twitch, and then Nick smiled the start of a bigger smile. Before long they were both convulsed in laughter that didn’t stop until Lucy angrily shouted from the window that the desserts were being served.

      Somewhere between the coffee and the first dance, in that lull that always happened at weddings when the bride and groom often disappeared to ‘freshen up’ while the dining tables were moved to make way for a dance floor, Nick put a tearful Olga in a taxi. He’d spent nearly an hour on a sofa in the reception with her begging him not to ruin her life.

      ‘Double whisky please,’ he asked the barman weakly on his return back to the bar. He perched on a stool alongside Leila, who too had made the transition to hard liquor. ‘What a day.’

      ‘Thank God it’s almost over and we can all get back to our lives.’ Leila lifted up her tumbler and clinked it against Nick’s. ‘Cheers to never hearing the phrase “but it’s my wedding” ever again. I swear I have it on repeat in my head.’

      ‘Why let yourself get so involved though? She’s not your sister. I managed to not get roped in.’

      ‘I know, I’m weak and impressionable. But I’m working on changing that. Spending a whole evening stuffing sugared almonds into tiny pieces of netting only for 200 people to pick them up and proclaim, “I don’t like almonds,” has made me realise I need to be more assertive.’

      ‘It would have been cool being on that table with the woman with the nut allergy. They all had Haribo sweets instead. They lucked out.’

      ‘Indeed they did.’

      They both sat in silence, staring ahead into the mirror behind the optics. As the background lounge music turned into a very loud One Direction hit, Nick leant forward and banged his head hard on the bar three times. ‘Leila, I swear to God, if we don’t find a way to escape this hellhole in the next fifteen seconds, then this is officially the worst day of my life.’

      ‘Come on then.’

      She led him through the maze of corridors through a door marked Staff Only, past a couple of waitresses staring at their phones, and through the spotless lino-clad kitchens. Leila ducked into her parents’ office to retrieve a key from the desk drawer and then pushed open a disabled fire exit door.

      The hit of cool evening air with the lingering scent of salt water was a welcome respite from the stuffy bar and they both took long breaths in. ‘I love the sea.’ Nick’s eyes were closed, his face slightly upturned to the sky.

      ‘Me too. As much as I love living in London I do feel my shoulders dropping a few notches whenever I get back here.’ Leila pulled Nick to the very edge of the driveway and parted some of the thick branches of an oak tree. ‘Come and stand here, in this exact spot.’ Leila moved a foot to the left so Nick could take her place. The whole town was laid out in front of them. The panorama took in the whole of the harbour below, across to the Castle and Naval College on the other side of the town. Down on the water you could see the lights from the passenger ferry’s last journey across the river, taking tourists back to the waiting steam train. ‘Isn’t that view incredible? I’ve tried taking photos of it so many times but it never captures just how amazing it is. I’ve tried painting it too, but nothing does it justice.’

      Nick smiled at Leila’s unexpected burst of sentimentality. ‘Where are you taking me now?’

      ‘You’ll see.’