Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 121898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“I will. That hasn’t messed up your day, has it?”
“Nope. It means I’m done and can handle emails at home instead. Do you need anything while I’m in town?”
“No, but I think Gramps was saying about there being no milk.”
“All right. I’ll swing by and grab some on my way home. Are you still there?”
“We’re meeting Julian’s parents for dinner. Was everything okay with the venue?”
I talked her through what had happened before that irritating meeting with Thomas, assured her everything measured up and Julian hadn’t messed it up when he’d done it initially. After we went over everything, I stopped in the food store for some milk and some other things I wanted and headed back to the house.
I’d been non-stop since I’d arrived last night, and I was looking forward to lying in bed for two hours under the guise of answering emails.
I wasn’t going to do that.
I was going to eat this sharing size bag of Quavers crisps and at least half the box of Maltesers while binge-watching something ridiculous on Netflix.
Then I’d answer emails.
I didn’t get days off. Being self-employed was one of life’s greatest pleasures, but it was more full-time than a full-time job sometimes, and days like today when I was exhausted was when I remembered that little fact.
Still, I was grateful that I could set my own hours—within reason. I was also thankful that past Sylvie had thought to tell her clients that she’d have a delayed response for a few days and set up an autoresponder in her email.
Autoresponders meant I could eat my weight in Maltesers and not feel too bad about it.
If it wasn’t an emergency, I wasn’t interested.
And if it was an emergency sent via email, then it wasn’t much of an emergency at all.
Gramps’ car wasn’t in the driveway when I got home, and I was a little happy about that. I adored my grandparents more than anything, but I was looking forward to some time to myself. It wasn’t something I even had at home in Dorset thanks to the house share I lived in, so I was all about this.
I put away the few groceries I’d purchased, making sure to keep my treats purely for myself. Gramps was a sucker for Maltesers, and if I left them out, he’d eat the box I bought him and mine.
Since mine was bigger, I was hiding the bugger.
I made a hot chocolate and went up to my room with my goodies. After mindlessly scrolling Netflix for five minutes, I settled on the classic that was Friends, grabbed my laptop from the bedside table, and checked my phone.
There was an emergency voicemail from one of my June brides citing hen party drama with her mother trying to take over the plans and she needed me right now.
I sighed.
So much for that relaxing.
***
“Did you get it sorted?” Nana asked, shampooing the pig in the kitchen sink.
It was like a train wreck. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It definitely wasn’t on my Castleton bingo card, that was for sure.
“Started to,” I replied, finally dragging my attention away from the pig salon to the freshly boiled kettle so I could make tea. “Elouise comes from an upper-class family, whereas her fiancé is more mechanic than millionaire, if you get my meaning.”
“Let me guess. Her mother is a snob?”
“Something like that,” I said vaguely. “They met at university five years ago and she fit in with his friends right away. She’s aware she has more money than them, so she wanted to keep her hen party something fun and relatively cheap, so her maid of honour decided on Blackpool.”
Nana nodded sagely. “A classic.”
“Indeed. Her mum got the invite and freaked out saying it was too ‘low brow’ for her daughter. Elouise thinks Barbados is more honeymoon than hen night. They’ve spent the last week arguing over why Elouise wants Blackpool over Barbados.”
Nana looked at me. “Does anyone want Blackpool over Barbados?”
I mean, I’d rather Barbados, but it wasn’t my hen party.
I dropped two teabags into the mugs. “Well, Elouise does,” I replied. “I believe she agreed on the condition her mother pay for the entire party of twelve to go out there, and her mum refused, so they were at a standstill. I’ve spent the entire afternoon on the phone with the maid of honour while we got the property in Blackpool locked in, and then I had to call Elouise’s mother to reason with her.”
“I can’t imagine it’s possible to reason with anyone that insane.”
This was coming from the woman who was currently rinsing shampoo off a pig with a gravy boat in the kitchen sink.
I supposed she was rather the authority on ‘insane.’
“It did take a while,” I agreed. “Eventually, I pointed out that her refusal to listen to her daughter will cause problems longer-term and that Elouise could potentially see it as a refusal to accept her husband because of his social class.”