Page 61 of Once Bitten, Twice Fried
“OK Dave, I’ll leave you be. I’ll go with Adam to go over the questions.” She put a hand on Adam’s shoulder and led him inside the house.
Good. That meant that Julie didn’t have to spend more time with Camille. She turned to talk to Yasmine and was surprised to find that she wasn’t there any more. She scanned the yard and spotted her in the middle of the garden with David, and they were both laughing. Yasmine waved to Julie when she saw that she was looking.
“David, this is my best friend and bridesmaid Julie.” She was still laughing. “Julie, this is David. He used to work with us but then left to do something more important.”
“By‘more important’she means that I left for a bigger contract in France.”
“That is absolutely more important. Don’t waste your talent on Belgian public television.”
“Don’t you ever think that French public television is better.”
They both fell into laughter again. Julie laughed along, not really grasping what was so hilarious. She felt like there was some private joke going on that she wasn’t aware of. Her own laughter died away after a moment, but David and Yas kept setting each other off again. She smiled at them in bemusement for a moment, then excused herself to go back inside. Yasmine just nodded between giggles and turned back to David. Julie walked back inside the house. She could hear Camille and Adam on the sofa, deep in discussion. As Julie strolled by, she could see that Camille was scribbling something in her Moleskine notebook. Because of course she was.
Having nothing better to do, Julie wandered around the open space of the main floor of the house for a bit. She knew Zoe was hidden somewhere behind the white wall panels which were movable to give more space for the catering team to walk in and out. Everything was remarkably closed off, giving an impression that this was an extra room in the house. Julie walked towards an opening between two panels - serving as an entrance to the area - and poked her head inside.
Zoe was in an intense conversation with one of the chefs. She carelessly tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and Julie wished she could keep that vision engraved forever in her mind. Zoe was at her most beautiful when she didn’t realise how pretty she was. Zoe turned around and met Julie’s gaze. She licked her lips for a second then turned to talk to the chef again. Her cheeks were slightly rosy.
It was enough for Julie who decided to move away before she became more of a distraction to Zoe. Julie looked at the clock on her phone. The florist would arrive soon with more exotic trees, but until then she wasn’t really needed anywhere. She sat downon the stairs and reread Claire’s message, before she started typing.“I don’t know! It just happened. There’s been a weird tension between us since I arrived here. Then yesterday, we were talking in my room and we kissed.”
Julie saw that Claire was immediately typing an answer back.
“This is so crazy! What about her fiancé? Wasn’t she supposed to get married to a hot famous guy?”
Julie groaned. Claire’s definition of ‘helpful’was very special but she wasn’t wrong. As excited as she was by what had happened last night, Zoe was still engaged to Tom and all of this was very unfair to him. Julie felt bad for the guy, but was also flooded by an immense wave of jealousy. She had to settle for secret late-night kisses while he got to wake up next to Zoe every morning for the rest of his life. Still, what they were doing was wrong. She couldn’t even imagine how guilty Zoe must be feeling right now, yet she was able to act like everything was fine.
“Is everything alright?” Julie looked up to see Sarah standing above her on the staircase.
“Oh, fine, yes,” Julie answered distractedly as she looked Sarah up and down. Her long dark hair was tied up and she was wearing… A swimsuit? “There’s a swimming pool?”
“Yasmine didn’t tell you? It’s in an entirely different part of the villa.”
“Oh. I guess that’s where that door next to the entrance leads to.” Julie hadn’t really thought about it. She’d been way too involved with the wedding and Zoe.
“You should come with us, I feel like you’ve been working your ass off for the past few days.”
Julie grimaced. “I wish I could… but the florist is coming back soon.” And also she had a secret rendez-vous with Zoe in the garden shed.
“My cousin is really overworking you, isn’t she? Ah well, you know where to find us! We got Zoe to prepare somemargaritas for us but she couldn’t come swimming either. She said something about a meeting.”
Julie’s heartbeat went faster. The fact that everybody was none the wiser about whatever was going on between Zoe and her made everything a notch more thrilling. But after the wedding, the magic would disappear and all that would be left was confronting the aftermath. She had to be firm with Zoe and tell her that nothing else could happen, for their own sake.
“I see. I’ll catch up with you guys later then.”
“Sure thing.” Sarah walked away.
Chapter 26
The garden shed looked just as grim in broad daylight as it did at night. Julie was pacing inside, being careful not to knock over any gardening tools or disturb any spiders. A ray of sunshine was coming though the only small window, shedding thin light on layers and layers of dust. Clearly, the shed was not a priority for the wealthy owners of the villa. Julie and Zoe were probably the first guests to have even ventured into this place.
It wasn’t the most romantic place - hell, it wasn’t a romantic place at all - and that was perfect for Julie. She didn’t need to get any more temptation to get close to Zoe. She was going to focus and let Zoe know that whatever happened last night was a one-time occurrence and that they couldn’t let another kiss destroy their friendship - or more. That was the right thing to do, even though it wasn’t what she wanted at all. They needed to get it all out in the open once and for all, so they could put it behind them forever.
She kept pacing back and forth, from the old rusty watering can to the shelf where they’d found the garden shears the other night. Zoe was eight minutes late already. What if she didn’t show up at all? Julie kept checking her phone, but there was nothing. Zoe might’ve gotten cold feet and left Julie in this dirty shed, just like she left her that morning ten years ago.
The door slowly creaked and Julie froze mid-pace.
Zoe peeked inside and smiled upon seeing Julie.
“Hey, sorry I’m late, we couldn’t find the vanilla extract for the crême brûlée and I wanted to make sure everything was dealt with before seeing you.” Zoe gently closed the door behind her, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear they were there.
