Page 2 of Three's a Crowd
‘That shop keeper accusing you of stealing,’ Sam chipped in from across the table where he’d abandoned his conversation with Daisy’s dad about A level subjects.
‘Oh yeah. He grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go. I thought Zach was going to lamp him, he was so angry.’ She felt hot and tingly at the memory of it. The look on Zach’s face had stayed with her for a long time after that. He’d been ferociously protective of her, which had surprised her.
‘Ah! Skinny dipping in the freezing cold sea,’ Adam cut in, his smile wide.
She frowned. ‘I don’t remember that.’
Adam shrugged. ‘I must be wishful thinking.’ There was a strange look in his eyes now that made her a little uncomfortable. Was heflirtingwith her?
How weird.
She changed the subject fast. ‘Ugh, and Zach bought those soap sweets from the joke shop and handed them round to us like they were real ones. They were disgusting.’
Adam looked a little fazed by her sudden conversational curve-ball, but he seemed to pull himself together quickly.
‘He got his dad with those back at home and got belted for it,’ he said grimly.
‘Seriously? I didn’t know that.’ Her stomach gave a strange flip, bringing with it a rush of nausea. Poor Zach. He may have been a troublemaker when he was young, but he definitely didn’t deserve to be treated like that by his own father.
Adam had met Zach near the end of primary school, when the latter had joined after being excluded from his last place and ever since then, Zach had practically lived at the Carmichael’s house. His mother had died when he was young and his father didn’t pay him much attention, sometimes neglecting to buy food and instead using his money to fuel his alcoholism, which he’d suffered with since his wife had passed away.
Adam had let this all slip to her when they were fourteen, telling her that Zach would go home with him every day after school, so as not to be on his own in his house for hours. Sally, who had despaired at Zach’s thin appearance and dirty clothes, would feed him and provide fresh ones, folding him into their family until he was considered as much a part of it as Adam and Sam.
‘He’s lucky he ended up with you as a best friend,’ she said, giving Adam a conspiratorial smile.
‘Yeah. He was out of control when I first met him. Loyal friend though. He got me out of a lot of scrapes.’
Her body gave an involuntary shiver. The way he’d made her feel whenever he was around had always had a strange vibe of danger to it. Not that she could put her finger on why. She knew he’d never physically hurt her or let anything bad happen to her. It wasn’t in his nature.
‘When did you last see him?’ she asked tentatively. She didn’t want to appear to betoointerested in the ins and outs of Zach’s life. She got the feeling Adam wouldn’t be pleased to hear she had a weird love/hate thing about his best friend. Not that he’d said anything of the sort. But now she thought about it, there was something in Adam’s manner towards her, ever since they’d arrived here, that made her suspect there was a little more to the way he felt about her than just brotherly love or plain friendship.
She wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that.
‘I met up with him in London about six months ago,’ Adam replied, pushing his fingers through his short, blond hair and making his fringe stick up in messy peaks.
He was a pretty sexy guy, Adam, when she considered him properly. Good looking. And smart.
Stop it, Daisy. That’s too weird to think about right now.
‘It must be going on for two years since I’ve seen him… It’ll be good to see him again,’ she said, not able to look Adam in the eyenow as she tried to divert her thoughts away from the unsettling direction they’d been heading.
Standing up, she clapped her hands together awkwardly, needing to move about. ‘Right. Well, I’m going to go and chop some fruit for dessert,’ she said, even though she was pretty damn sure no-one was going to be able to eat it, judging by all the food everyone had left on their plates.
But she needed to do something to quiet the nervous tension that was making her limbs twitchy.
‘Um. Okay. Want a hand?’ Adam asked.
‘Nah. I’m good, thanks,’ she said, already moving away from the table. The introvert in her needed a few minutes on her own to recharge before Zach appeared. ‘Back in a mo.’
She strode off towards the kitchen of the holiday house before anyone could say anything else. Something made her glance back at the table though and she saw with a start that Adam was watching her with a wistful look on his face, which he quickly changed to a smile.
Weirder and weirder.
Entering the cool of the kitchen, she leant against the work surface, making sure she was out of sight of the people in garden. She didn’t want to be caught looking anything but composed by either Adam or Zach – when the latter finally deigned to turn up, that was.
Gathering the fruit and a chopping board, knife and a bowl, she thought back to the last time she’d seen him. They’d all come on holiday to Fowey for a week during the school holidays and, as usual, Zach had joined them.
He’d been strange with her for the whole week. Sort of withdrawn when she was around and even more sarcastic and eye-rolly than usual whenever she spoke. When Sally had found her having a cry about it in her bedroom after a particularly cutting remark Zach had made to her, she’d reassured her it wasnothing to do with her. Boys Zach’s age weren’t great at relating to girls and often hid their confusion behind cruelty. She should just ignore him.
