‘Maybe you need a coffee?’ Maddy suggested.
Mary nodded agreeably. ‘Maybe.’ She chugged her drink.
Eva was going to need the backstory on that one later.
Eva couldn’t tell if Hannah had picked up on the near gaffe, but she was ploughing on regardless. ‘Eva’s turn.’
‘She’s braver than she thinks she is,’ Eva said.
Maddy looked up sharply. ‘Brave?’
Eva nodded once.
‘Social situations clearly make her uncomfortable,’ she said calmly. ‘But she attends them anyway. That’s harder than it looks.’
It was a simple observation, but Eva could see the effect immediately. Maddy’s ears turned pink.
Kelly looked slightly confused.
Hannah looked at Maddy with new eyes. ‘Bride, is that true?’
Maddy shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’
‘I guess you win again, Eva!’ Hannah said, faking a chuckle. ‘Probably time to call it. Eva wins!’
‘What do I win?’ Eva asked.
Hannah frowned. ‘Nothing.’
‘Great,’ Eva smiled.
Hannah checked her watch. ‘We’re getting off schedule. Next, we need to…’
But Eva had stopped listening. Because Maddy had glanced sideways at her. ‘You’re exposing me.’
‘Sorry,’ Eva said. But she wasn’t.
‘No, it wasn’t a criticism. I just don’t understand…’
‘What?’
‘Why I like it,’ Maddy said, looking at Eva. The look lasted less than a second, but it carried something that unsettled Eva more than she cared to admit.
Mary set her empty glass down carefully. ‘That game,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘would be much more interesting if it involved a strip element.’
‘OK, I think we all need to get some food in usquickly,’ Hannah said. ‘Waiter!’
Twenty-Three
Maddy was face down, face squeezed into the cushioned hole in the massage table, trying not to think too hard about Hannah’s icebreaker game. The spa smelled of eucalyptus, and the quiet tinkle of annoyingly soft music undercut by occasional vague water trickles from a fountain Maddy couldn’t see. She assumed it was a fountain, anyway. Perhaps someone had just left the tap on.
Eva was on the next table, tucked under a sheet, the masseuse adjusting her gently.
It was quite a turn of events. Maddy had gone from trying to figure out how to make Eva her friend to being naked under sheets with her. It was a bigger jump than Maddy was ready for. This sort of thing was supposed to happen gradually. You had to do a lot of non-nude activities before you could be in this position with someone. Coffee, movies. Then maybe the gym, where you could gently segue into being naked with a partition between you. And then, only after several years of that, should you do naked table time.
And the silence only made it worse. As the woman working on Maddy kneaded her spine, she thought she’d better break it. ‘So… I think you’re going to want the full story,’ she murmured.
Eva’s voice came back quietly. ‘About the archivist?’
