Page 35 of Once Bitten, Twice Fried
Nicki had finally come back from her Swiss vacation. She was still taking time off, but for whatever reason she’d called Zoe, and Zoe couldn’t not pick up. She’d missed talking to her assistant, maybe a little more than she should have for someone who worked for her. “So, you were telling me about the race track event?”
“It’s going well. I met up with the catering team from Antwerp and we found a way to set everything up at the race track yesterday evening. They were excited to work with me.”
“It’s not just happening at the track, right? I remember seeing another location on the spreadsheet.” The line cracked alittle at the last word. Network reception was not great in the area.
“Indeed, I’m also doing private catering afterwards for a littlesoiréein a castle that the client rented.” Zoe said quickly before changing the subject. She didn’t want to talk about work with Nicki, who was still technically on holiday. “How was Switzerland? Did you two have fun?”
“Do you have everything you need for the castle? If you need a different hotel that’s closer to the location, I can book you one.”
“Nicki! You’re supposed to be off work!”
“Fine. Sorry.” Nicki chuckled. “Switzerland was great! Alma and I had loads of fun. My legs are still sore from all the hiking though.”
“That’s good to hear. Did you visit or see anything in particular?” Zoe felt less bad about not knowing a lot about Nicki’s personal life, considering how vague Nicki was about it.
“Yes. We went to the mountains, near St-Moritz. Beautiful place. How did the hen do go? I saw your message but didn’t have time to reply. Julie had a crush on you!?” Nicki said, sounding both delighted and scandalised.
“Oh god.” Zoe put her forehead on the steering wheel. “Yes, she did. That’s why she was being so weird to me all these years. She was scared of getting hurt and ended up hurting the both of us.”
“Oh! That actually sort of makes sense, even if it still wasn’t cool. How do you feel? Are you mad at her?”
“Of course not! I’m more than happy to leave it in the past. We hung out the entire weekend and it’s just so nice, Nicki. It’s exactly like I remembered it to be. Thanks for making me do it.”
“You were the one who made the decision. But I’ll take the credit.”
Zoe smiled.
“You have to give me more details, though. How did you find out she had a crush on you?” Nicki was too invested in this.
“We had a conversation and I just asked her.” Zoe bit her lip. Should she tell the whole truth to Nicki?
“That’s it? You asked her and she said that?”
“Well, I told her that I was incredibly hurt and sad that we weren’t friends any more, then she told me. Julie cannot lie to save her life. That’s a nice thing about her.”
“Wow. Okay. I don’t think I would tell anyone I had a crush on them twenty years ago. It takes some courage.”
“It was ten years! We had this conversation already.” Zoe paused to think about her next move. Maybe this was silly, maybe she hadn’t meant it, maybe it was just wedding stress… “I confessed to Julie that I had a thing for her back then as well.”
A deafening silence filled the car, except for the distant sound of cars on a nearby highway.
“Sorry, what?”
“Forget about it. It was silly. It was very late at night and we went clubbing-”
“No, Zoe.” Nicki took a deep breath. “You can tell me. I won’t judge.”
Zoe spoke before she could overthink it. “I told Julie that I also had a crush on her back then. But it’s all in the past now. It’s fine. I told you it was silly.”
“What did Julie say?”
“Nothing. She’s definitely over it. We’re friends again now, it’s all good.”
“So you were both into each other ten years ago, then you kissed and never talked to each other again and now you’ve both met again for the first time in a decade and confessed your mutual crushes to each other?” Nicki sounded unimpressed.
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds…”
“…like there might be some unresolved feelings?”
