Page 35 of Three's a Crowd
‘So, we’re okay then?’ she asked, needing to put an end to this conversation now.
‘Yeah. We’re okay,’ he agreed, with a grin.
‘Good,’ she said, ignoring her usual physical response to that heart-melting smile of his. She was just going to have to train herself out of it. ‘See you later then.’
She went back into the room and was about to close the door when Zach called her name and held up his hand in a halting gesture.
‘Before I forget, here are your accreditation badges. You’ll need them to get into the rest of the festival. Like I said, it’s mostly businesses with their stands, but you can go and have a coffee in the UK Film tent or go to any of the showings of upcoming releases in the cinemas, for free.’
‘Great,’ Daisy said, thinking about all the eavesdropping she was going to be able to do. She’d be able to get a flavour of the film scene for the report on the festival that Jez at Flash FM was keen for her to put together.
She looked more closely at the badges that Zach had handed to her. ‘Hang on a sec, where did you get this picture?’ Her badge had quite an old photo of her on it. She was smiling at the camera, squinting slightly from the sun in her eyes.
‘Oh, yeah,’ Zach said, looking at the photo. ‘It’s from Andy and Sally’s anniversary dinner in Fowey. Sally sent it to me after that weekend,’ he said, a cagey look in his eye.
‘Oh, right,’ Daisy said. He’d had it for a long time then. How come she’d never seen it before?
Not that it mattered.
‘Thanks, Zach,’ she said, giving him a nod.
He nodded back and turned to go.
‘See you later,’ she said, closing the door.
Back on the sofa, Adam had fallen asleep with the bottle still in his hand, lying precariously across his body, the open neck just starting to tip downwards.
Daisy rescued it before the frothy liquid poured down the back of the sofa and put it back in the champagne bucket.
She sighed. She couldn’t understand why Adam was acting like this. Maybe he did need to blow off a bit of steam, as Zach had suggested. He had been working awfully hard recently.
But deep in her gut, she had a niggling feeling that there was more to it than that.
By lunchtime, Daisy had already taken a stroll along the seafront, down to the Palais de Festival, soaking up the buzzingatmosphere and leaving Adam on the sofa sleeping off all the booze he’d drunk.
She went and had a quick look around the festival to get her bearings, flashing her badge at the people manning the doors. But Zach was right; unless you were working in the film business, it didn’t hold much appeal.
She found the UK Film tent that he’d mentioned and sat outside in the little makeshift courtyard drinking black coffee in the sun, listening to the hum of business chatter and gossip happening all around her.
From where she was sitting, she could eavesdrop on a number of conversations coming from the surrounding tables and kept herself amused listening in to the pitches for new films that were being presented by enthusiastic new film-makers to the money men and women.
She tried to keep a straight face as the ideas became more and more preposterous sounding.I’m bound to see that appear on the cinema next year though, she thought to herself in amusement.
After polishing off her second coffee, she returned to the hotel for some downtime and to get ready for the evening meal. She’d thought about her conversation with Zach the whole way back, deciding that it was really good to have finally cleared the air between them. She realised that even though she’d been upset at the time and confused about the way she’d lost her virginity to him, she now thought of the episode with a kind of nostalgic fondness.
At least she’d felt passionately about the person she’d lost her virginity to, and it had been pretty good sex for her first time doing it. Not everyone could say that.
On her return, she found Adam still asleep, his face rumpled and a frown creasing his brow.
‘Hey, Adam,’ she said gently. ‘It’s time to get ready for dinner.’
He looked at her through bleary-looking eyes. ‘What?’
She shook her head at him. ‘This is what you get for drinking so early in the day.’
‘Oh, sod off. Leave me alone,’ he said, crossly. ‘I’m on holiday. I want to catch up on some sleep.’
‘Come on. You can sleep later,’ she chided, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. ‘Zach’s booked a place for us to go for dinner.’
