In This World (Harry Styles)

29

(DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. It's important to remember this is all totally fabricated, embellished, and exaggerated for entertainment purposes.)

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Stay with me, you're all I see

Just Breathe – Pearl Jam

That evening, after a successful rehearsal, my spirits were lifted for having watched him interact with his extended family and brothers again. I'd sat on the sidelines of the beautifully bedecked terrace area at the historical Lancemore mansion, getting a first glimpse at the formal proceedings and catching the kisses he threw at me on occasion from the head of the assembly. Strangely, I couldn't stop envisioning him in the place of Archie, and myself sauntering down the long, flagged aisle towards the vision that awaited. The man of my dreams watching me approach with tears in his eyes, looking dazzling in an elegant white tux before the alter. My dear, my darling...my world, my love, my loon.

Entering the crowded yard for the rehearsal dinner that evening, in the final whispers of the light of day, I felt like a hog being led to slaughter. There was a long, luxurious tent set ablaze with warm lights strung about its ceiling, the entire setup overlooking miles of blue skies and the mountain range in the distance, which had grown purple in the dropping sun. A long, marvelously adorned dining table housed the entire wedding party and their plus ones, and the matriarch was sat square in the center across from the bride and groom to be. Gray's name card had been set beside his mum's as she wanted to keep an eye on him, I presumed, and I had been seated across from them at the last minute, not too far from the groom. As ever, the woman was toking on a massive, aromatic cigar, her face lost beyond its reeking smoke.

"Couldn't have bothered to arrive on schedule, like everyone else, my boy?" she nagged, once we arrived a few minutes late. "How is it that those traveling from across town managed to arrive before you two?"

"I'm sorry," he uttered. "It won't happen again."

"I should hope not. And what are you drinking tonight?"

"Nothing, mum. I'm sober. I'm clean."

"Right...you and me both, fella," she chuckled, toasting the air and tossing back the remainder of her cocktail.

The dinner speeches quickly turn into roasts of the bride and groom. Noah's speech was predictably hilarious and equal parts scathing, prodding at Archie for marrying someone half his age, particularly with it being his third wedding. Cryptically, he told the bride Ester to never ask about Puerto Rico if she valued her marriage, then shuddered and made the table erupt with laughter. There were also loads of 'third time's a charm' jokes thrown in there too, which never grew old.

"Don't lick the silverware, it's boorish," Mrs. Cain hissed beneath her breath, as Gray finished his first course. "What are you? Some kind of bloody primate?"

"Actually...I am," he quipped, with his trademark grin. It was quite disarming. "And so are you."

"Oh stop it! Such nonsense," she scoffed, sipping her drink. When he continued to make a show of licking his fork, likely just to annoy her, she snatched it from him and sat it on the far side of her plate. "I suppose you did always suffer from a sort of Freudian oral fixation. The doctors promised you'd grow out of it, but were clearly mistaken. Nice to see you've finally found a way to satiate those...urges," she remarked, clearly making a vulgar fellatio innuendo that involved me. Fuck's sake.