“You sure would,” Janie chips in.
“You’ll look fantastic in whatever dress you choose,” I tell the bride to be. “But that one would definitely look stunning.”
We book some dates in before the women leave, and I’m hanging the dress back up when Janie joins me by the rail.
“Which one is it going to be for you?” she asks with a nudge. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”
I’ve thought about it many times over the years, but not with a guy like Ant in mind. It’s always been Jack. My choice is easy, though. A dress we stock has always been my favourite. It’s a gorgeous white silk with incredible diamante patterns down the front.
“Try it on!” Janie says when I point it out, but I shrug off her suggestion.
“We’ve got Nadine’s appointment coming up.”
“Not for another twenty minutes.” Janie sighs. “Come on and do it! Keep the excitement in the room!”
I feel like a fool as I step into our dressing room with the gown in my arms. It’s not that I don’t usually try dresses on, because I do. It’s just that this is different. I’m trying this dress on with someone in mind. A man I want to be walking down the aisle to, even though I’ve barely known him a week. I really am going insane.
The dress fits me surprisingly well considering it’s not tailored to me. The shape is beautiful, and the length swishes the floor just right as I spin. Janie grins and claps her hands together.
“That’s got to be the one,” she giggles, buying into my stupid fantasies.
“I’ve only tried on this one!” I laugh.
We’re both a couple of schoolkids, staring in the mirror at me in a gown. Janie’s barely twenty, and I’m almost a decade older, but I feel as young as she is, with a new lease of life.
“Doesn’t matter,” she says. “That one looks perfect on you. Absolutely perfect.”
I head back to the dressing room, still grinning as I flash her a glance over my shoulder.
“I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to decide.”
She puts her hands on her hips, looking like she knows every single one of life’s secrets.
“I think you might be very, very surprised on that score.”
I’m trying to get my senses back as I slip my skirt and blouse on, but I’m struggling. The rational voice in me is groaning, telling me to get a grip and stop being an idiot, but I don’t want to. I love living in this fantasy after a year of so much pain. It’s fuelled all the more when I wave Nadine off from her appointment and check my phone. There’s a message from Ant waiting for me.
Thinking of you, baby. You drive me absolutely fucking crazy in the very best way. Feel free to make yourself at home at my place.
It gives me a weird lurch to read his words like that, because he’s clearly feeling like I am.
I’m thinking of you too, I reply. I haven’t stopped all day.
The rational voice in me wants to club me with a baseball bat and scream that I should stop being a stupid cow. There’s no way I should be making myself at home at Ant’s place while he’s away, not when we’ve only spent one single night together there and his work is based overseas. That would be ridiculous.
Should be ridiculous.
So why do I pull out a suitcase and start filling it with clothes and toiletries the very moment I step foot in my apartment?
I drive up the side of the hills, heart thumping as I pull up at Ant’s electric gates. I press the key fob and the gates swing open to let me through. He’s not going to be there, but I’m still surprisingly nervous. My shaky fingers manage to open his front door and key in the alarm code successfully, which feels like a strange little victory. I make a coffee with his machine and sit myself down at the breakfast bar to drink it, wondering if this will one day be my home. I picture Ant standing there in his dressing gown on a Sunday morning together, like it will be the most natural thing in the world.
I get a ping on my phone, and it’s another message from him, apologising for his silence after being in a meeting for hours.
I say it’s no problem, and put a heart emoji at the end, expecting another message in return. But of course he doesn’t message me. His incoming call comes through in a beat.
“So, tell me,” he says, with a hint of a smirk in his voice. “Have you used your new front door key yet?”
I can’t resist letting out a laugh.
“Yeah, I’m sitting at your breakfast bar right now.”
“That’s my good girl,” he says. “Make yourself at home. Put your feet up and help yourself to anything you want.”