Page 84 of Fundamentals in Flirting

Hedgehog Hannah was coming to the rescue, covering up my hurt with prickly retorts. Normal service had resumed.

“It’s finished for the day. Anyway, given your speed when you ran away earlier, I was sure you’d be entering the charity running race this afternoon. It certainly looked like you were in training for it.”

Teddy’s posture was rigid, his arms folded, and his fingers were drumming an angry beat on his bicep.

Fiona’s head bobbed backwards and forwards between us, like she was watching a tennis match.

“Perhaps, with your great disappearing-act skills, you should offer your services to the magician in the children’s entertainment tent?” Hands on my hips, I glared at him.

Mirroring my expression, he loomed over me. “Perhaps, with your complete lack of communication skills, you shouldn’t be tasked with judging anything.”

“Well, clearly my recent judgement of your character is pretty abysmal – I’ll agree with you on that.”

The hurt and rejection in my tone rang through, stinging my lips with their venom, even though my heart unexpectedly ached as I spoke.

“Thank the Lord, she agrees with me about something!” Teddy said petulantly.

“Ok, ok! Stop! Stop it, you two!J’en peux plus!” Fiona said, exasperated, her French accent thickening in obvious frustration. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you’re behaving like small children. You are both judging and that is final. Sort out your differences, like adults. Kiss and make up or something, but stop being so ridiculous!Non mais ça va pas, vous deux!”

Then she stalked away towards the Victoria sponges, shaking her head, and leaving Teddy and me desperately looking anywhere else but at each other.

“She only ever shouts at me in French when she’s really pissed off,” Teddy said, kicking his toe into the dusty grass.

“It’s a first for me to be shouted at in French. Madame Jourdan only ever told me off in English at school, even when she caught me staring at the rugby players in Year Ten rather than working out how to ask for twelve baguettes and a cabbage at the local market in Rouen.”

A small smile quirked over Teddy’s lips.

“I can’t believe you called me a tosser in front of my own mother.”

I fought my face, determined to keep the grumpiness, but it wasn’t working. “If the cap fits.”

“You’re not going to run off again, are you? I’m not qualified to judge the best animal made out of vegetables on my own, you know.”

“Neither am I.”

Teddy chanced a look at me.

“Don’t we make a good team, usually?”

I couldn’t hold his stare and I focussed instead on the long lines holding the marquee in place, fixing my gaze on where the metal peg protruded from the ground.

“We have, on occasion, been known to work well together.”

“On occasion?”

“Yes. When you don’t abandon me like a regretful one-night stand the morning after rejecting me because of my complete lack of attractiveness and seduction skills.”

There, I’d said it. It hung in the air between us, a blackened piece of my soul suspended on a silken thread, fragile, waiting for his affirmation of what I already knew. I held my breath, waiting to be destroyed.

“You think I rejected you the other night?” he asked slowly.

“Yes.”

“Because I didn’t think you were attractive or sexy?”

“Yes.”

Was he going to make me spell out the whole disastrous debacle again? My cheeks flamed with embarrassment.

---