A. Michael - Nice Day For A White Wedding

‘I think that’s the other way round, babe.’

‘Nope.’ Chelsea’s mouth set, lips pressed together. ‘I get to decide. And I have decided that this is one more horrific fucking adventure on Chelsea’s road to awesomeness.’

‘You get to decide,’ Ruby nodded, loosening her grip, ‘but someone has to make sure there’s justice.’

‘I’m not going to the police, Ruby.’

Ruby raised an eyebrow and looked unimpressed. ‘You know me, right? And I know a very important man named Jez.’

‘Jez who runs the estate? Who keeps the gangs sorted? I don’t even want to know why you know that guy.’

Ruby grinned. ‘He’s a sweetie really. All the oldies are. London gangsters, old school. They break the legs of bad men, but they look after their women.’

‘I’m not their woman. I’m no one’s fucking woman.’ Chelsea felt the rage building up, her hands shaking from anger or shock, she wasn’t sure.

They sat in silence, Ruby waiting for an answer, waiting for permission she was sure Chelsea was too proud to give.

Suddenly Carly’s shriek of laughter cut through the house, matching the noise from the television. Chelsea’s eyes hardened.

‘Give me his name, Chelsea. That’s all you’ve got to do.’ Ruby’s eyes held hers, wincing a little at the sound of that screeching laughter, like salt in the wound.

Chelsea gave her the name.

***

The flight was easyJet, and there was something immensely comforting about that. Kit apologised, said it was the only thing he could get last minute. She stuck out her tongue and called him a snob. In retaliation he ordered a bottle of Heisdeck, which Chelsea assumed must have been one of the few times anyone did that. Why pay half the price of your flight for a bottle of Champagne to drink it from plastic cups? And who’s the snob now, she laughed to herself, and thought about what Evie and Mollie would say when she told them about this trip. They were already convinced Kit was a Disney prince, and so far he was only adding fuel to the fire.

He wasn’t perfect, he had flaws, Chelsea had to remind herself as her eyes traced his face. He was human. He…ate noodles with a fork instead of even trying chopsticks…and he always called the waiter over in restaurants if she didn’t like something, even when it made her cringe…and she couldn’t think of anything else. Maybe that would change when they moved in together. Maybe the way he hummed the tune from Oklahoma! when he used the bathroom in the morning would start to grate. Maybe him insisting on making complicated dishes each night and refusing to drink five pound bottles of wine would start to irritate her. But somehow, she couldn’t imagine him being less than perfect. Which was terrifying.

He’d asked her to move in years ago, and she was there most of the time anyway. It would be the smart thing to do. But the idea of leaving her little dingy flat with the damp walls and mismatched furniture for his modern, sleek home seemed like the final step. She’d be leaving behind the last little part of Chelsea from the estate, leaving behind the last speck of proof that she wasn’t a middle-class London executive. And she wasn’t sure she was ready to let her go just yet. She didn’t want to forget.

‘Hey, where’d you go?’ Kit looked into her eyes, his finger stroking her cheek.

‘I just feel like I’m standing on a cliff edge.’

‘The altitude?’ he frowned.

‘No. I just…’ She struggled to find the worlds and downed her glass of Champagne. ‘I just have this feeling like everything’s building up. Like everything is about to change.’

‘Change can be good,’ Kit said carefully, topping up her glass.

She smiled at him. ‘In my life, it always has been.’

He looked at her, his head cocked to the side as if he wanted to ask more, as if he was storing that nugget of information for another day.

And then the captain’s crisp voice came over the Tannoy to announce that they were about to land in Venice.

Chelsea threw herself on the kingsize bed and giggled, watching how Kit just stood there in the doorway and looked at her, a bizarre smile on his face.

‘What?’

‘It’s nice to see you relaxed, that’s all,’ he shrugged and moved to the shuttered windows and door at the end of the room, opening them and walking out onto the balcony. It looked out onto the Canal, and Chelsea joined him, slipping an arm around his waist as the plush heat of the summer afternoon soaked into their skin. They watched in silence as the boats swished through the water, the smaller ones silently gliding, the larger ones offering a low thrum of engines. Everything was vibrant and alive, there was blue everywhere and Chelsea wanted to jump in and float. She leant her head against Kit’s shoulder, wiping her forehead against his shirt.

‘Oi!’ he laughed, pulling her closer.

‘Not sorry!’ she sighed against Kit’s mouth, tasting his smile. Twenty-four hours ago she’d been anxiously getting on the train to Badgeley, prepping herself for the jibes and the screaming and the jokes at her expense. And now here she was in Venice, surprised by someone who loved her. Maybe it was time to leave the old Chelsea in Badgeley, and finally live her life.

Kit was like an excited puppy at times, which was an impressive feat for a six-foot-four lawyer who looked like a Viking.

That evening he dragged her through the city, high on everything. They skipped over bridges and tripped on cobblestones, and everything was ‘more, more, more!’ The little candles on outside tables, the greetings from hosts outside every restaurant, the fairy lights in hidden courtyards and ice cream shops offering expanses of colour – everything made him giddy. And he’d been here before, she knew, he told her about a trip to Venice with his family when he was fourteen, after he’d been kicked out of his second boarding school. Or was it the third? Something comforted her about Kit being a bit of a trouble maker at school, like her. Except in his versions it was taking someone’s dad’s Lamborghini for a drive that got him expelled. It wasn’t quite the same.

‘Baby, you’ve got to calm down,’ Chelsea laughed, pulling back on his hand to slow him from charging ahead to some restaurant he was desperate to try, ‘we’ve got a couple of days here, right? We don’t have to do everything this instant!’ He looked at her, holding her hand even more tightly. He looked like he’d been told off, a puppy who’d been tapped with the newspaper. She’d hit a nerve, and she suddenly regretted her comment. Why not let him be an excitable child for a weekend, before he went back to his high-stress job? Why did she always have to be serious, boring Chelsea?

Kit took a deep breath, shaking his head and leaning back against the stone railing as they looked out on one of the canals. The water was dark and comforting, the cobblestones lit by old-fashioned street lights, and the warmth of the evening settling around them as the smells of coffee and delicious pizzas filtered through the air.

‘You’re right,’ he said distinctively, ‘there’s only one thing I want to do tonight and I’ve been focusing on everything else! It’s not good to procrastinate, you’re always saying that, Chels.’

He was starting to babble and Chelsea frowned at him.

‘There’s just been one thing I wanted to do here.’ He grinned at her, suddenly adorable and dangerous. The same look he had when he turned up at her flat at 5am and told her they were climbing the O2 centre, or he jumped in and started jamming with a busker in Covent Garden and the whole crowd cheered for him. He was going to do something ridiculous.