Forgotten Groom in the Back Alley novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Front Door

Jude walks into the reception and Yvette tells the room he is unwell; the bill is presented and security is called.

The reception was in the next room, under paper lanterns, and every table had a card with my coworkers' names on it.

Nobody had made one for me.

I walked in with grease still drying down one leg and stopped at the edge of the dance floor.

Brodie and Yvette sat at the head table, and two hundred people turned to look at me over their salads.

Yvette put down her fork and smiled.

"Jude, there you are," she said, and then she stood up, took the microphone from the band's stand and held it in both hands. "Everyone, my friend Jude has had a very hard month."

A few people said aww.

My face burned, and I kept walking.

"Yvette, I was your boyfriend for eight years."

The finance director from the front row laughed out loud, and so did three people behind him.

"Honey," Yvette said into the microphone, kindly, "you helped me move once. That's all that was."

More laughing.

Phones came up around the room.

I looked at the faces I had eaten lunch with for years, and none of them were laughing at her.

"I paid for this," I said. "The hall, the band, the dinner. Sixty-three thousand dollars, on my card."

"He's confused," Yvette told the room, gently. "He's not himself. Somebody please get him some water."

Brodie stood up beside her, rubbing the pale stripe on his finger.

He didn't look at me either.

Then Hazel came through the side door in her black blazer, with a folder under one arm and a waiter behind her carrying a tray.

On the tray was a single sheet of paper in a leather holder.

She walked straight to the head table and set it in front of Yvette.

"Ms. Hargrove, I'm sorry to interrupt," she said. "The card on file for your balance has been cancelled by the cardholder. The balance is forty-one thousand, two hundred dollars. We have to settle it before the cake is cut."

Yvette's smile stayed where it was.

She took a card out of her clutch and held it out without looking at the number.

Hazel carried it to the machine at the back of the room.

It was the longest minute I have ever stood through.

The band had stopped playing, and people were whispering behind their hands.

Hazel came back and set the card on the tray.

"I'm sorry. That one was declined."

"There's a mistake," Yvette said, still quiet. "Try it again."

"I tried it twice."

Brodie pulled out his wallet and handed over his own card.

Hazel walked it to the machine and walked it back.

"Declined, sir."

The finance director stopped laughing.

I realised then that Yvette had not planned to pay.

She had planned for me to come in through the back, stay in my corner and let the charge go through at midnight, the way every other charge had gone through for eight years.

"Those are our personal cards," Brodie said to Hazel, low. "We'll sort it tomorrow. Cut the cake."

"The kitchen holds the cake until payment," Hazel said evenly. "House rule, sir. I didn't write it."

She did not look at me when she said it, and I loved her for that, a little, standing there in the grease.

Yvette turned to me, finally.

For the first time all day she looked straight at my face.

Her voice was not loud.

"You cancelled it?"

"I did."

"Jude. You are embarrassing me in front of my whole department."

"You were embarrassing me for eight years," I said. "I just made it public."

Somebody in the back said, "Oh, no," and somebody else said, "Is he serious?"

Brodie leaned in, close to my ear, where the microphone couldn't pick it up.

"Go home," he said. "You were never going to be in the photos."

"Why not?"

His jaw tightened.

"Because that isn't what you were for."

Yvette heard him, and her eyes flicked to Brodie, just once.

Then she turned back to the room and raised both hands.

"I am so sorry, everyone. Jude is clearly unwell, and I should have called someone sooner."

She waved to the two men in black jackets by the exit doors.

They started toward me, slowly, over the dance floor.

"Please walk this man out," Yvette said, her voice sweet again. "I don't know why he's here."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend