The Road Trip: The heart-warming new novel from the author of The Flatshare and The Switch Beth O'Leary (ready to read books .TXT) 📖

are piled on enormous tables like jewels spilling from treasure chests, balanced in overflowing piles: mango barfi and fig halwa heaped beside strawberry truffles and miniature jars of feather-light white-chocolate mousse. The fact that Cherry didn’t think they’d have enough food for Kevin is absolutely laughable.

Our table is by far the most raucous, mainly thanks to Kevin. For the first few hours he followed Deb around with pining eyes; then he was introduced to my uncle Terry, and the two of them instantly formed what appears to be a very intense and sudden bromance. Deb’s been entirely forgotten; Terry and Kevin are currently doing shots and slapping one another on the back, laughing so loudly even Marcus is wincing. I’m pretty sure Terry isn’t meant to be on our table, but then, neither is Kevin, I suppose – the meticulously organised seating plan has clearly gone to pot.

It’s all undeniably heart-warming. But it’s nothing compared to the feeling of being near Addie. She’s across the table from me, but our eyes keep meeting over the enormous centrepiece, and every time it happens there’s a little spark lit in my stomach, as though we’re touching hands, not just meeting each other’s eyes. I’m so busy staring at her across the table I don’t notice Cherry approaching until she waves a hand in front of my face.

‘Hello!’ she says. ‘Bride here!’

‘Oh, sorry, hi,’ I say, swivelling to look at her as she ducks down beside me. ‘You got married!’

‘I know! Wild! Hey, have you seen your brother?’

I’ve been worrying about Luke too. ‘No, nor Javier.’

Cherry makes a thoughtful face. ‘Huh. Maybe they messaged – my phone’s in Krish’s pocket.’

I check my mobile – still nothing from Luke, even though I’ve called him a few times now. I frown.

‘Can I ask you a favour?’ Cherry says.

‘Of course. Name it.’ I slip my phone back in my pocket.

‘Will you and Ads go collect my sari and Krish’s tux? They’re in the room with Rodney and I might have mentioned to Krishna that we tied a stalker up in that room and now he’s being delightfully domineering and telling me I am absolutely not allowed to go in there. But we want to change into our evening outfits, and we need a good lead-time, because I cannot get into that sari without Krish’s mum’s help.’

I choose not to point out that it is clearly not a two-person task to collect two garments from a room, and instead lean forward to give my friend a kiss on the forehead.

‘Yes,’ I tell her. ‘Thank you.’

‘No rush,’ Cherry says, winking at me. ‘Oh, and maybe take Rodney a plate of food? What, why are you giving me that face? Not even a pudding?’

‘You should be organising a restraining order for the man, not dessert,’ I tell her, and she pouts.

‘Nobody’s irredeemable, Dylan!’ she says, and she reaches over to ruffle Marcus’s hair as she stands. Her dress billows around her.

‘Excuse me,’ Marcus says, leaning back. ‘Please don’t equate me with that sniffling excuse for a human being.’

‘You’re right,’ Cherry says cheerfully over her shoulder as she heads for the next table. ‘You were a much sexier creepy stalker man. Sexier and drunker. That’s totally better!’

Marcus scowls and sinks down lower in his seat as the guests around us glance his way with interest. ‘Ugh,’ he says.

Deb leans in from the other side of me.

‘Welcome to the standard system of morality, darling,’ she says, pinching the last champagne chocolate truffle from Marcus’s plate.

I look across the floor of the wedding breakfast, scanning for Luke and Javier – and my mother, come to think of it. Instead I spot a woman dressed in a dramatic yellow gown who is making her way over from another table of Cherry’s friends; her hair is dyed pale purple, and her strapless dress shows off the rose tattoo on her shoulder. Grace.

‘I feel . . .’ Marcus gnaws at his lip.

‘Guilty?’ I suggest, looking back to him.

‘Ugh,’ he says.

‘Ashamed?’

‘Stop it,’ he says, scrubbing his hands over his face. ‘You sound like my therapist. What is the upside of this reforming lark?’

I glance back at Grace. She’s had quite the journey of her own these last two years. A stint in rehab, a spiritual awakening, a bruised heart. It’s changed her. Gone is the woman who sabotages the rare moments when she feels complete; never again will Grace settle for less than the whole heart of a man she loves.

But she’s still Grace – she’s still wearily glamorous, still a little too intense, still smarter than the rest of us put together. And her eyes are on Marcus, the way they always have been, even as she tried to make other love stories work for her. Even as Marcus’s eyes were so often drawn to Addie. She never stopped looking at him that way. She never gave up on him, not completely.

‘Dylan?’ Marcus prompts me. ‘Come on. What’s the point?’

‘I think, if you’re very lucky, you might be about to find out,’ I say.

Addie

‘We’ve been in this corridor before,’ I say, spinning around. ‘I remember that portrait.’

I point to an old guy in a crown framed on the wall.

‘Really?’ Dylan tilts his head to the side. ‘I’m fairly certain that’s John O’Gaunt, and I think the last one was Richard the Second.’

‘I forgot how much stuff you know,’ I say, laughing. ‘Well, left or right?’

‘All entirely useless knowledge, I can assure you. Left,’ Dylan says, already heading down the left-hand corridor.

I smile. He catches my expression.

‘What?’

‘Two years ago you’d have asked me to decide,’ I tell him, as we make our way down a corridor I am one hundred per cent certain we’ve been down before. Not that I’m complaining. Getting lost is pretty much perfect right now.

‘You always pushed me to make my own choices,’ Dylan says, falling into step beside me. ‘I never really noticed it until we were apart.’

His hand brushes mine and I take the chance to interlace