His Second Chance

Chapter Eight

We pulled up to the church where the wedding was set to take place. It was quite a big one, just off the road that ran through the small town, with large windows and a door that was wide open, welcoming its guests. It was certainly dressed for a wedding, as there were red and white flowers, ivory banners and a glistening white car waiting outside to take the newlyweds back to the large country house where the reception was being held. We'd driven past it on our way here, and it was certainly a grand old thing.

I jumped out of the backseat, followed by Elliot and Archie. Elizabeth was our designated driver today; between her, Chloe, Archie and I, whenever we went out somewhere we knew we would drink, we took turns in driving so that the other three could have a drink. Unfortunately for Elliot, he was still underage and couldn't drive yet.

"Where are we sitting?" I asked as I studied the church and its surroundings.

"Not sure, anywhere I assume," Chloe replied, leading the way towards the church.

We were all dressed up in our attire; Chloe and I in our dresses, Archie had an old suit on, Elliot in his new one and Elizabeth who had a long flowing flowery dress.

"This reminds me of my wedding," Elizabeth said.

"Did you get married here?" I asked, walking alongside her.

"No, we got married in the Caribbean," Elizabeth replied," But I had similar looking flowers. Chloe was six months old when we went, she looked so sweet in her little white bridesmaids dress."

"I can't imagine Chloe looking sweet," I laughed.

"I reckon she could if she tried," Elliot said, joining us.

"My ears are burning," Chloe had stopped by the gate for us.

"I was just telling Amy about our wedding," Elizabeth said, sighing as she reminisced on the past.

"Don't start talking about weddings, Amy will start getting ideas," she said with a sly grin.

I pulled a face as we entered the church. It was even larger on the inside, with huge stained-glass windows and an array of religious statues. We sat down between the middle and the back. Although Chloe of course knew the bride, they hadn't spoken in years and we didn't want to take up space for those who knew them better. I always hated this phase of waiting for the bride. Even the groom took his time, and ended up coming in about fifteen minutes late.

He was quite tall, although not as tall as Julian, with dark blonde hair like Archie's and green eyes. He was wearing a tight suit with a white rose tucked into his breast pocket. He looked nervous, but then I suppose all men would be nervous on their wedding day. I shuffled in my seat impatiently. Where on earth was the bride? I looked over at Archie who was sitting to my left on his phone.

"What are you doing?" I whispered.

"Why are you whispering?" he asked, looking up at me," You know the wedding hasn't actually begun."

"Sorry," I said sarcastically, before repeating my previous questions.

"None of your business," he replied with a sly look.

As much as I wanted to know what he was doing, I didn't want to start an argument in a church, at a wedding. With nothing else to do I looked over at Chloe who was sitting on the aisle in my right side. She was also in her phone, but doing some research on illegal Spanish horse fights.

"Anything interesting?" I said.

"Nothing that we didn't already know," she replied," I'm going to get someone to come and look at his teeth, try to determine how old he is."