Chapter 14
“ Hope things are going well in Switzerland! Julie was nice again and we talked about things… It’s pretty crazy, but in short: she had a crush on me back then and didn’t want to get hurt so she didn’t tell me anything and that’s why things got weird between us.”
Zoe dropped her phone on the bedside table of her hotel room.
Nicki was on holiday, but she did ask for news yesterday morning.
She hadn’t answered Zoe’s text but Zoe couldn’t keep this to herself.
She settled on the soft comfortable bed and felt her eyes close.
She had totally forgotten that she hadn’t slept the night before.
She started to doze off when her phone rang.
She rolled over and grabbed it quickly, automatically accepting the call without looking.
“Hi, Nicki!”
A silence greeted her, and Zoe frowned, adjusting it against her ear.
“Can you hear me?”
“It’s Tom calling. You know, the guy you’re about to marry?” Tom chuckled. “How’s it going, love? Haven’t heard from you in days.” Zoe could hear the kitchen hood growling in the background and the sizzling of a pan. Tom was cooking dinner.
“Oh, Tom! I’m so sorry darling, I’d just texted Nicki so I thought she was calling me back.
” She sat up, trying to get her brain to catch up with the fact that she was suddenly awake and talking to her fiance instead of her assistant.
“I’m doing fine! Exhausted, though. The hen do was really fun but, god I’m way too old for this. ”
“Aren’t we all?“ Some clunking sounds followed by swearing. Zoe shook her head fondly, but a bit exasperated. Tom always had far too much energy to do just one thing at a time. She wasn’t sure she’d ever had a phone call with him where he wasn’t multitasking. “What were you girls up to?”
“We did a pub crawl in Brussels on Friday night, and yesterday we headed up to the Belgian coast..”
“Sounds like fun. And today?”
“Today we cleaned the beach house we rented.”
Tom whistled. “Such party girls!” He exclaimed with a laugh.
“Believe me, we partied plenty on Friday and Saturday. The cleaning was the only part that I felt age-appropriate for.”
Tom gave a loud burst of laughter, and Zoe remembered why she fell in love with this man.
“You can organise your entire hen do around cleaning if you want.”
“At least I wouldn’t be exhausted.” Zoe rubbed her face. “I’m already dozing off and it’s not even 8 pm.”
“Did you party that hard?”
Oh god. Zoe couldn’t really tell her fiancé, could she?
That she was mainly tired because her best friend from college told her she had a crush on her and it made Zoe too restless to fall asleep?
Why was she feeling so wrong about it, anyway?
It wasn’t really as if anything had happened between her and Julie.
It was just an innocent conversation they’d had on the beach.
Late at night. Where Zoe had also admitted she’d had a thing for Julie.
Zoe’s heart was racing. She hadn’t thought about all the implications of all this.
Her brain had somehow only focused on the part where Julie confessed her crush to her.
“Hello? Did the line cut or something?” Tom was repeating himself.
“I’m here! Sorry, I’m just very tired. It was a wild night.” Zoe caught herself. “Not too wild though. Reasonably wild.”
“Saving the wild part for your own hen do, eh? By the way, I know you were probably too busy but did you get a chance to look at what I sent you? I think these people could do a bang-up job for the decorations at our wedding.”
“No, sorry, I didn’t have time yet. I’ll check it out tomorrow when I get to the hotel at the racetrack.” Zoe felt bad at the fact that her level of excitement didn’t match Tom’s. Maybe it would catch up when she saw what he sent her?
“Okay, no problem. I just want to get things going fast.”
“Sure, I understand.”
“My dinner’s ready. I’m gonna let you rest, Zo. Is that alright?”
“Yes, thanks. We had a pretty late lunch so I think I’m going to skip dinner and go directly to bed.
“Sleep well. Love you.”
“Love you too.” Zoe sighed and put her phone away.
She was being unreasonable. She wanted to marry Tom.
Organising the wedding was going to make it real.
And Yasmine’s hen do was pretty nice. She could also have that.
She would probably get more in the mood when she’d see Yasmine’s wedding preparation and all the rest. Zoe knew that Julie was working as an event planner and designer as well, information that she got during one of her phone calls with Yasmine to arrange catering.
What did Julie have in mind for this? Julie always had this sensitive and romantic streak behind her aloof exterior.
It would probably look good, Zoe was certain of that.
She got ready for bed and drifted back to sleep, imagining the kinds of decorations that Julie might choose for Zoe’s wedding.