Page 103 of Take Her On

“Oh, yeah? What flavour?”

“Sweet and sour is my favourite. What about you, Maddie?”

Without cracking a smile, she answered, “Bombay bad boy.”

“My alter ego.” Chris nudged Alex, before breaking out into bellowing laughter.

Maya didn’t even know how to respond to that. Hannah looked about ready to empty the boiling kettle on his head. Whether he ate the sandwich or not, it looked like game over. Thank the lord.

Time to rip off the plaster and get this over with.

She jumped up from the sofa, shifting Jamie’s legs off her. “Who’s up for a sandwich, then?”

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She glanced at her watch. Mum. She was probably wondering how Millton City got on. Maya would call her back. There was no way she wanted to miss this.

The members of the Pot Noodle Club huddled by the counter, constructing their culinary masterpieces and trying to contain their giggles. Chris and Jamie shifted awkwardly, trying to peek over their shoulders while Alex looked on from the other side of the room.

“Should we be afraid?” Jamie asked, a bite of laughter in her voice.

“Maybe,” Hannah teased. “Depends which path you choose.” She offered up her hands, one with a sandwich and the other with the Pot Noodle.

Chris shook his head. “Hard pass.”

Jamie locked eyes with Maya, shaking her head. “I’ll take the sandwich, I guess.”

“A good choice.” They saluted sandwiches and each took a bite.

“You really not going to have anything?” Hannah asked Chris.

He scrunched up his nose. “I’ll eat at home.”

“Knew it,” Maddie muttered next to Maya. “He’s out.”

Maya lowered her voice. “He was out as soon as he started heckling the ref.”

As Chris left to “lay some pipework” in the bathroom, Hannah sank down onto the sofa with a sigh, twirling a fork in her noodles. “That’s it. It’s official. I’m going to die alone.”

“At least you have a spare Pot Noodle now,” Maddie commented. She shrugged when Hannah gave her a death stare. “What? It would be wasted on him.”

Alex chuckled, flattening down the brown curls on his head that had shifted out of place. “You guys and this theory. It’s nuts.”

“What theory?” Jamie asked, through a mouthful of noodle sandwich.

Hannah and Maddie shared a look but didn’t answer, stuffing their mouths full instead.

Jamie turned to Maya, but she just shrugged, the ghost of a smile playing on her lips. Her phone vibrated again, and she pulled it out and answered.

The soft, shallow breaths on the other end of the line made Maya’s stomach turn over.

“Maya?” The wobble in her mum’s voice cut through the air in the room. “It’s Grandpa…I need you to come home.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Maya

The strong smell of carnations made Maya’s nose wrinkle as she placed them with the others on the table. Bouquets of roses and chrysanthemums, orchid plants, and peace lilies—all lovely gestures, but sickly sweet with the reminder of death.

Her mum’s fake lily in the kitchen didn’t seem so bad now.