You're the One That I Want(20)

I was used to Rob winding Maddy up in this way, but never had he said something quite so sexually suggestive. It shocked me. To my horror, I started to wonder if I wasn’t the only one to harbour feelings for our best friend – although, if that was that case, I wondered if Rob would really choose to be so blatant about it. Surely he was just winding her up, I hoped. Nevertheless, my paranoia started to return.

A second or two seemed to pass with me gawping at the two of them while Maddy widened her eyes at a smirking Robert in disbelief.

‘Argh, you’re so gross!’ she eventually whined, much to my relief, as she pulled one of my pillows from the bed and flung it at him. ‘What’s this?’ she asked, holding up a scruffy stuffed toy rabbit by its ears. I’d brought it with me and quickly hidden it under there when Robert had gone to the loo earlier. I didn’t expect Maddy to come in and find it mere moments later.

‘Erm …’ I hesitated.

‘Wait, I recognize it,’ she said, as she brought it round to face her, ruffling its shabby lilac hair. ‘I got you it for your birthday. Years ago.’

‘Yeah …’ I raised my eyebrows and sighed, shaking my head and acting as though I was as confused by its appearance in our Parisian hotel room as she was.

Maddy had given it to me on my tenth birthday and at that time it was the most precious thing I owned. It’s not like I went to bed with it every night or anything, I’d only done that for the first year, but when I was packing to go away I saw it sitting glumly on my bedside table and thought it might be a nice thing to have with me – my lucky mascot, if you will. I wrongly thought it would go unnoticed.

‘I’ve no idea what it’s doing here. Mum must’ve put it in my bag. You know what she’s like,’ I said with a quick shake of the head and a roll of my eyes.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Nutter …’ I added without much gusto. I wasn’t used to talking badly of Mum.

‘And who put it under your pillow?’ she asked after a pause.

‘What?’

‘Your pillow?’

‘Huh?’ I heard her the first time and knew exactly what she was getting at.

‘It was under your pillow, so somehow it hopped out of your suitcase and dived into your bed before either of you noticed …’

I looked at her with my mouth wide open, willing my brain to form some sort of an explanation. Nothing came. Suddenly I was the rabbit, caught in the big flaming headlights of embarrassment.

‘Leave him alone!’ yelled Robert, coming to my aid and throwing the pillow back in Maddy’s direction. ‘Are you trying to tell us that you’ve not brought one yourself?’

Maddy covered her face with her hands, unable to stop a girlish giggle from escaping.

Later on that night, once Maddy had left to go to her own room and we were lying in our beds, one topic whirled around inside my head: Maddy and Robert.

‘Do you fancy Maddy?’ I asked, much to my own surprise. I couldn’t stop my mouth from opening and the question firing out as the overriding urge to quiz Robert fought against my brain’s resistance.

‘Huh?’ he questioned, sounding half asleep, even though we’d only just turned the lights off.

‘Maddy?’ I couldn’t face asking the whole question again, so I hoped he’d heard the majority of it, and opted to just repeat her name instead. I was so thankful that I’d waited until the lights were out – I could feel my face burning up, making me feel flustered.

‘Oh … not that I’m aware of,’ he laughed, sounding more awake. ‘Why?’

‘You were being quite flirty with her earlier.’

‘Was I?’ he asked.

‘More than normal,’ I said, in what I hoped was a laid-back tone of voice.

‘You know what she’s like,’ he sighed. ‘She gets so uptight and bashful, I was just winding her up.’

‘That’s what I thought …’ I nodded to myself.

‘Did I take it too far?’

‘Maybe …’

‘I hope I didn’t offend her.’ He sounded genuinely worried at the idea.

‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ I reasoned, mentally bashing myself around the head for having said anything in the first place – one thing I’d started to understand about love was that it made me feel more suspicious than anything else ever had. It was torturous.

‘Still, I’ll apologize tomorrow. I was only messing around … it’s nice that you’re protective over her,’ he added after a brief pause.

‘You are too.’

‘I guess we can’t help it.’