Build-A-Boyfriend

31

"Hendrix, what's a slag party?"

"A what?" I glance up from my essay. Harry is absentmindedly playing with his new golden snitch, a small metal thing that makes an incredibly annoying loud whirring noise when you spin it, which Harry has been doing approximately once every millisecond since it arrived from Amazon.

"A slag party."

I stare at him blankly for a second.

Trying to work out what Harry might actually mean has become second nature to me.

"I need something more to go on." I sigh, placing down my pen and wondering if I will ever get more than 10 interrupted seconds to finish my essay. Harry whirrs his snitch loudly as he answers.

"Well, Juan and Marcia are getting married-"

"THEY'RE WHAT?"

"Getting married." Harry stills the whirring with his finger and smiles at me helpfully. "Marriage is when you-"

"I know what marriage is Harry." I groan wearily. "But since when are Juan and Marcia doing it?"

"Since yesterday. The wedding is next month."

I have so many questions I don't even know where to start.

"Juan got someone to bundle Marcia into a van on her way to work, so that she thought she was being kidnapped. They drove her round shouting at her, but when they pulled her blindfold off, it was just Juan, waiting with a ring."

"Wow. That might just be the most messed up engagement story I've ever heard."

"I think it's a bit romantic."

"Right." I decide to move quickly off this topic, just in case Harry gets any ideas for dressing me as a disney princess and kidnapping me for our next date.

"I had a call from Liam this morning to invite me to a slag party and I said yes, but I don't really know what one is."

"Oh!" A wave of realisation hits me. "Stag party! It's called a stag party, Harry."

"What is it?" I try to ignore the whirring of the snitch as he looks at me expectantly.

"It's a party for the groom. Like a last big party as a single guy-"

"Juan isn't single."

"Well, no, but you get the idea."

Harry looks at me for a long moment.

"No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I don't get it. He's not single... Is he?"

I take a deep breath. I know from experience that it's no use telling Harry to drop it, he likes to understand absolutely everything.

I look into his eager, waiting face with a sigh. We're obviously going to be here a while.

****

Juan and Marcia getting married seems like the most pointless thing ever. Grace secretly agrees but she advised me to just keep quiet and keep my thoughts to myself on this one.

It's bizarre though and I want to know exactly why it's happening. It's not just that it's sudden... It's also that this isn't exactly a normal situation, not considering that one of them was made in a factory... Will the marriage even be legally binding? According to Grace, Dr P doesn't have any objections at all, in fact he's quite eager and will be attending, but that just makes me more suspicious.

Unfortunately I'm not close enough to Marcia to warrant asking her probing questions and the only thing I hear from her is contained within a deep red envelope a couple of days later.