Chapter 23
“ W hat does it say?”
“I don’t know. Your fiancé’s instructions are not very clear.
” Zoe squinted at the list of instructions on her phone, trying to make sense of them.
The first clue was something about finding a lake, but she knew there wasn’t so much as a stream on the property.
She showed the screen to Yasmine. “Do you think he means an actual lake? Or is it like a swimming pool or something?”
Yasmine lifted her hands up in the air. “I have no idea. Adam has never even been here, so I doubt he knows either. I asked him how he managed to organise a treasure hunt when he’s not even here, and apparently he hired someone to do it.”
Zoe could hear some tension in Yasmine’s words. The attempt to keep her mood up hadn’t lasted long. “You’re not a fan of treasure hunts?”
“The last time I did a treasure hunt, I was twelve.”
“I think we did one in college, didn’t we?.”
“That was a beer hunt and we were all drunk off our faces.” Yasmine was trying to repress a smile. “You had to help Julie walk all night, it was very fun.”
“Oh god. I can still remember her telling me ‘ I think they put water in this bottle of vodka.’ And then half an hour later, she was stumbling around.” Zoe shook her head at the memory. “She’s really a genius.”
“What happened afterwards?”
“We managed to get back to her place. Then I crashed there.”
“I never understood how you could crash at Julie’s place so often. She snores so loudly.”
“I never noticed.” Of course Zoe had noticed. But she’d always found Julie’s snores to be kind of cute. She wasn’t going to say that to Yasmine, though. “Anyway, what about this lake?”
Yasmine went silent. She bit the inside of her cheek. “Zoe, can I be super honest with you?”
Zoe’s heart skipped a beat.
“Yes, sure. What’s going on?” Had Yasmine noticed something between Julie and her?
“I know that sometimes I’m like this very bossy girl and I can come across as very intense…”
Where was she going with this? Zoe was confused.
Yasmine sighed. “I’m just… tired.”
“What?”
“I know that you have a great thing going on, and sometimes I’m a little jealous.” Yasmine had a distant smile on her face.
Jealous? Was she jealous of her relationship with Julie? Was Yasmine also into Julie? Zoe felt like a jackhammer was pounding in her chest.
“Yasmine… I’m pretty sure there’s nothing to be jealous about.
I think she also loves you just as much.
” Zoe swallowed. What if she’d misread everything since the beginning?
What if all of this weird tension from Julie was because Julie was crushed that Yasmine was getting married?
Maybe something had even happened between them, and Zoe was just caught in the fallout.
After all, so much could’ve happened in ten years.
“She loves me?” Yasmine frowned. “What are you talking about?”
The jackhammer stopped.
“What are we talking about?”
“I’m talking about your wedding with Tom. It seems to be going great. You were saying such nice things about it at the hen do. And I’m a bit jealous because he seems so involved.”
Of course. How had she misunderstood that? Zoe wanted to slap herself. Hopefully Yasmine wasn’t going to insist on knowing who she was talking about. She spoke quickly before that could happen.
“Ah yes. Tom is very involved.” Zoe had almost forgotten about the phone call from earlier. Now all the negative feelings were flowing back. “He’s even a bit too involved, sometimes.”
Yasmine gave her a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just…” Zoe gritted her teeth. “I shouldn’t talk about it. I’m just a bit annoyed at him and it wouldn’t be fair.”
“If you can’t complain about your fiancé with your other soon-to-be-married friend, who can you complain to?” Yasmine took Zoe’s arm in hers.
Zoe sighed. “Fine. He booked the catering service without telling me or asking me.”
“Wait, what?” Yasmine stopped in her tracks. “But… You’re a professional chef.”
“I know! That’s what I told him but he ‘wanted to save me the hassle’. Then he complained about me not being involved enough because I’m on a work trip.”
“Oh girl. I’m so sorry.” Yasmine said in a grimace.
“What about you?” Zoe asked, looking down at her feet.
“Where do I even begin?” Yasmine took her arm away and rubbed her chin.
“Adam likes shiny things. He had a big proposal for me. We were out for dinner, just the two of us, when suddenly he got down on one knee. I said yes, and then the other patrons got up and all started playing instruments. It turns out they were an orchestra that he’d hired for the occasion.
It was all very romantic.” Yasmine smiled at the memory.
“And… that was about it. That was more than a year ago and ever since, he hasn’t done anything more than that for the wedding.
Whenever I even ask him for an opinion, he just says that whatever I say goes, because I’m his princess. ”
“You don’t like that? You seem like you’re doing a pretty good job.”
“I like it. But I’d rather go taste cake with my fiancé than with his personal assistant or Julie, you know? He’s been on tour for a year.”
Zoe smiled. “I understand. Tom’s the same. He’s always busy with work. I’ve been waiting for him to have some time off for a year now and he never did. Now he has some and suddenly he wants to organise everything when I’m busy.”
“I guess that’s the dark side to dating famous attractive men.” Yasmine chuckled. “I feel bad bitching about Adam, and at the same time… he doesn’t even know what flowers I picked for the wedding because he didn’t have time. But somehow he had time to dream up some stupid treasure hunt.”
“That’s rough. He’s coming tomorrow?”
“With his entire family. And he won’t have time to take care of anything then, either, because his mum will be there, and this man loves his mum.”
“I guess there’s that!”
They both laughed. Talking about wedding troubles made Zoe feel better about Tom. All couples had rough patches, after all.
“You know, I always thought that weddings were so straightforward. You just find someone you love and then you marry them.” Zoe looked up at the sky. “I’d never imagined how complicated it could get.”
“Same. It’s supposed to be the most beautiful day of your life. But that’s, like, the least it can be. It’s so much work!”
Zoe nodded silently. She’d never imagined that Yasmine was going through the same questioning as she was. Everything looked so perfect from the outside.
“Have you ever had second thoughts?”
“About marrying Adam?” Yasmine looked straight at Zoe, a hint of worry in her eyes. “Have you ever had second thoughts about marrying Tom?”
They looked at each other for a moment.
“We got it!” Shouts came from the field on their left. Leila and Sarah appeared, carrying a small wooden crate.
“Well, we got there first but they beat us to it.” Julie was trailing behind them, pouting.
“How can you be there first but still be beaten to it?” Sarah asked.
“That’s what you did. You should know.” Alice gave them a pointed look.
“You were fast. Zoe and I were still deciphering the first direction.” Yasmine nodded towards Zoe.
“So what’s inside the box?” Zoe was having a hard time switching from the intense conversation they had earlier to light-hearted small talk. Her blood was still pumping in her ears.
“I don’t know, but it’s got some weight. Let’s open it back at the house.” Leila suggested before walking towards the yard. Yasmine followed closely, hounding her two cousins with questions about the treasure hunt’s directions.
“Have you seen Maria and Marion?” Alice asked Zoe.
“We barely made it out of the yard, you’re the only people we’ve seen.”
“This is how people get murdered in movies all the time.” Julie frowned. “Getting lost in the countryside at night…”
“Don’t worry Julie, there’s a statistical chance that they’re not the ones getting murdered but the ones doing the actual murdering.” Alice smirked. “I’ll call them.” She took her phone out and walked away, leaving Julie and Zoe to follow.
“That would be an interesting twist…”
“Do you think about anything else other than horror movies?” Zoe shot her an unimpressed look.
“Yes.” Julie looked offended. “I have a huge diversity of thoughts.”
“Like what?”
“Uh…” She rubbed her neck. “Sometimes I also think about cute girls.” Julie said, staring straight at Zoe.
Julie’s blue eyes were sparkling against the violet evening of a sun that had just set. Zoe shivered.
“I mean, other cute girls.” Julie added, probably noticing the change of expression on Zoe’s face. “Not that I mean you’re not cute… I mean you are but you know what I mean. Anyway, let’s go see what that treasure is all about.” Julie turned and stiffly walked towards the house.
Zoe trailed behind, having a hard time matching Julie’s speed. She wished for a second that they could’ve spent more time, alone, on this road - just like yesterday - but she shook the thought away.
“ Oh putain!” Julie suddenly screamed, jumping backwards.
Zoe stopped in her tracks. She peered into the darkness in confusion as Julie hurried backwards towards her.
“What was that?” Julie asked her fearfully.
“What was what?”
“Didn’t you see it?”
“Oh come on. That’s not funny.” Zoe rolled her eyes. Julie could be so childish sometimes.
“I’m not joking. There was something big that just ran past me.” Julie put her arm out in front of Zoe as if to shield her from some imminent danger.
Zoe’s breath quickened as she realised that Julie was being serious.. “Really? What did it look like?”
“I didn’t get a good look, it was fast. Some sort of animal or something. Maybe a boar? Oh I hope not, they can be really aggressive.”