Uncommon (BWWM)

Chapter 36

"I'm just gonna take a wild guess and say that that wasn't supposed to happen?" Sam whispers in his brother's ear, getting a stunned nod in response.

The entire room is silent, everyone still reeling in the aftermath of the prince's departure.

Bex is stood at the altar talking to the priest, who looks considerably more upset than she does even though she's the one had been jilted.

Sam looks over at his brother's friends, Elina and Grace, who sport matching expressions of disbelief on their pretty faces. He doesn't know much about them, aside from a couple of brief meetings, but he can safely assume that they were the cause of all of this upset.

He leans past his brother, raising a hand to tap the darker skinned girl on the wrist.

She looks across to him with a dazed look and then says quietly, "Oh. Hi, Sam."

"Don't you think you should go after him?" Sam says, head gesturing to the side door a few feet from them which opened to the outside world.

"My thoughts exactly." The four friends all turn their heads towards the central aisle and are met with the stunning form of Rebecca.

The blond is looking down at Grace, with a soft, expectant smile, "He's probably freaking out."

"He's freaking out?" Grace exclaims in a low, exasperated voice, "You've just been jilted!"

"Does it count as jilting if I told him to go?"

"You told him to go?" Will says incredulously, his Welsh accent thick with confusion.

"Well... not in so many words." Bex frowns, "I knew he'd change his mind about the wedding."

"Not like that I presume." Sam guesses, and when Bex nods, he concludes, "Definitely jilted."

"I'm going after him." Grace blurts to the group. Then she stands quickly, earning a couple of looks from those of the guests who hadn't yet left the building.

"How do you even know where he'll be?" Elina says, face scrunched up in confusion, her lipstick painted mouth drawing closed in a pout.

"I just do." Grace responds, self-assured, then scurries out from the pew and through of the nearest door to the outside.

~~~

The reception, if a gathering of perplexed wedding guests in Westminster Abbey's large celebration hall can be called a as such, has a strange atmosphere.

Bex is still there, flitting around, taking condolences from people that she barely knows, nearly looking as though she had just been publicly heartbroken... and well, to an unwitting spectator, it must look like she had.

Sam clings to the walls of the hall, as well as he can when there are eager waiters at every nook and cranny.

Among his friends and family, he has developed quite the reputation as a people-watcher. His uncanny ability to look at people and read them perfectly is eerie, and almost Sherlock Holmes-like, without the social ineptitude.

Well, maybe a little ineptitude, he is clung to a wall after all.

"Is there a reason you're stuck to the wall like mold, mini-Will?"

Sam jumps, and snaps his head toward the source of the noise. Stood beside him, classic smirk on his face, is Richard, still in his black suit from the wedding.

"Just... observing." Sam replies, "It's much more enjoyable than whatever my brother is trying to do."

He gestures before him, where Will is being flanked by a gaggle of rich older women, all entranced by his soft good looks and charming accent.