Page 43 of Once Bitten, Twice Fried
“Seriously? The night at the castle? With Colin?”
“Ah!” Julie had a hard time focusing. Zoe’s freckles were still visible in the dimmed light and it had her mind going all over the place with other situations where Zoe would be in dimmed light. “You’re welcome. I never liked that guy’s movies anyway.”
“Really? You didn’t like the one where he’s a single father-”
“Oh come on! He’s supposed to be a single father struggling to make ends meet but you see him with his kids for less than three scenes in the movie. He’s riding a motorcycle in all the others, or he’s shagging the hot woman from the bar. If that’s what it takes to be a single father, I could be one as well.”
“Well, when you put it like that… It’s true that it was a silly movie. But his performance was good!”
“I can’t separate the performance from the movie, Zoe,I’m sorry.”
“Fair enough.” She paused. “I just have fond memories of that movie because that’s the first one Tom and I went to see. It was a premiere and I got to meet Colin afterwards.”
Julie’s heart sank, but she didn’t let it show. “Was he just as charming back then?”
“He was… okay.” Zoe thought for a second. “Maybe that was because Tom was there.”
“Yikes.”
Julie could finally see the silhouette of the shed in the night. A small wooden structure that didn’t match the fanciness of the villa. They walked without a word and Zoe opened the old creakydoor of the cabin when they reached it. Everything was dark inside, and there was no sign of a light switch.
“Okay, this is spooky.” Julie frowned.
“My offer to hold hands still stands.” Zoe chuckled.
“You’re not scared?”
“A little. But I remembered you liked watching horror movies, so I think your imagination might be running a little wilder than mine.”
It was true. Julie loved watching scary movies but Zoe had never wanted to watch them with her. The one time she had, she’d hid her face in Julie’s sweater the entire time. Julie waved the thought away and dug in her pocket for her phone. She turned the torch on.
“To be fair, this looks exactly like the set of a movie I’ve seen. It’s called ‘Garden Shed Massacre’ and one of the characters gets murdered with garden shears in the shed.”
“Julie, this was not an invitation to try and spook me. Stop it.”
Julie giggled. “Sorry, that was too tempting.”
“Instead of being mean to me, can you shine your light over there?” Zoe pointed at a shelf in the left corner. Julie obliged, illuminating the various gardening tools stored there. Zoe stood on her tiptoes to reach the back of the shelf, then waved the garden shears triumphantly.
“Got them! Now let’s get out of here before your creepy movie murderer shows up.”
As they headed back towards the house, Julie looked at Zoe. She didn’t really want to know the answer, but she asked anyway. “How are your wedding jitters?”
Zoe paused for just a split second before answering. “It’s going okay. Tom has started sending me stuff he’s considering and it all looks pretty good. And I have to say, being here for Yasmine’s wedding makes me a bit excited about it.”
Julie knew she should say something in response, but her mouth was dry and she couldn’t swallow. The narrow dirt path somehow felt darker than before.
A word escaped from Zoe’s mouth but she stopped. She started again. “You really never had any idea that I was into you?”
Julie almost stumbled in surprise.
“Why are you asking?” She asked cautiously.
Zoe stopped walking. She was shifting a little on her feet. “I don’t know. It’s just… Walking at night with you. It just reminded me of that conversation we had on the beach.” She looked at Julie. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
Julie hesitated. This could be the perfect opportunity to have all of her questions finally answered. Like why had Zoe left the morning after? Why did they barely talk to each other in the weeks before Zoe left? At the same time, Julie didn’t know if she could deal with whatever Zoe had to say about this. Either her heart would be broken, or she would get her hopes up and then her heart would be broken.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make things awkward.” Zoe was giving Julie an uncertain look.
