Chapter 22

 

“Now this one is my favourite,” Steph announced as she squinted at the map.

 

“Eh?”

 

“Cardiff – it’s my favourite city and my favourite arena.”

 

Karen nodded her head, “I completely agree with that.”

 

As the little ford fiesta continued to dash up the motorway in a westerly direction Mel ignored all the conversation around her, choosing instead to stare out of the window and continue to devise her plot.

 

“You’re deep in thought,” Steph looked at her with interest, “you haven’t said a single word for ages.”

 

“What kind of reputation has Christian got?” Mel asked suddenly, ignoring Steph and plucking a completely different topic out of obscurity.

 

“Pardon?”

 

“Christian – what do people think of him?”

 

“Erm…he’s foreign?” Karen helpfully offered.

 

“Apart from that,” Mel snapped back, “what’s the main thing that everyone knows about him?”

 

Both girls sat in silence; unable to give Mel the answer she was looking for.

 

“OK, I’ll give you a hint,” she continued, “what was he like before he met Ella?”

 

Steph groaned, “this game is much harder than do or die, is that the last clue we get?”

 

“This isn’t a game, its research,” Mel said matter of factly.

 

“Before Christian met Ella he was a bit of a erm …” Steph looked over at Mel, checking her facial expression to see if she’d be aloud to continue with the inevitable.

 

“A what?” Mel pressed.

 

“A bit of a slapper,” Steph finished reluctantly, half expecting Mel to jump to his defence like she usually did.

 

“Exactly,” she said smiling, “and how do we know that?”

 

“Because there were kiss and tells on him in the tabloids every week?”

 

“Yep,” Mel replied, “Christian was after anything in a skirt.”

 

“Good job he met Ella then really,” Karen said quickly, “I heard that he shagged a fan once.”

 

Steph shuddered at the thought, “ewww imagine Christian coming on to you?  Thank god there’s no chance of it happening anymore.”

 

“Yeah but,” Mel said sitting up in her seat, “how do we know that it wont?”

 

“Because he’s in love with Ella,” Karen said, “I just can’t see him doing it anymore.”

 

“Ahhh, but some leopards just don’t change their spots,” Mel turned back to the window to hide her ever-growing smile from her friends, “given a bit of a time the spots can return.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

The question hung in the air unanswered as Karen suddenly let out a little shriek from the front seat.

 

“What?” Steph asked, looking through the gap in the seats and half expecting to find a body in the road.

 

“Look ahead,” Karen said, taking a hand off the steering wheel and pointing at the large car that was driving in front of them.

 

“It’s a prev,” Steph said, still not understanding the fuss.

 

“Yep, and what’s the registration number?”

 

Now it was Steph’s turn to squeal as she tapped Mel’s arm enthusiastically, forcing her to leave the window and look at her.

 

“Mel! We are following a1!”

 

Mel followed Steph’s gaze and sure enough just in front of them was a1’s prev, the one that they always used, there was no doubt it was them.

 

“How on earth did that happen?”

 

“Who knows, they must have left Sheffield after us, and of course Del drives like a loon so they must’ve caught up.”

 

“And overtaken us,” Mel chipped in, “somehow they got in front of us.”

 

The prev in front suddenly turned on its left indicator and moved into the lane ready to exit the main road.

 

“Anyone fancy a loo stop?” Mel asked grinning.

“Yep, do suddenly need the loo,” Steph smirked as they followed the prev off the road and into the service station car park.

 

They followed them closely the whole way around the car park.

 

“Oh mi god, don’t park right next to them!” Steph screeched out as Karen began to manoeuvre into the space next to the parked prev.

 

“They’re going to see us get out and it’ll be so embarrassing.”

 

“Yeah, park over there and we can pretend that we are here with them by accident,” Mel urged, not wanting to look stupid anymore than Steph did.

 

“Too late,” Karen said as they came to a halt and immediately hid behind her map book until everyone had cleared the next-door vehicle.

 

“You think they saw us?” Steph asked as she scrambled up from off the back seat.

 

“Think we’re safe.”

 

The girls quickly locked the car and rushed into the service station – hoping that the whole thing was going to look like coincidence.

 

They were immediately met by Paul.

 

“Oh mi god,” he said, pulling his sunglasses down onto the tip of his nose and looking out at them.

 

“Hullo,” Steph said weakly giving Paul an uneasy look.

 

“Bit of a coincidence,” he said giving them a huge grin.

 

“Yep a coincidence,” Karen repeated.

 

“Look who it is!” Paul called out to Ben who was standing a few feet away playing a game in the arcade.

 

“Wow,” he said as he came over, “this is spooky.”

 

“Well we are both going to the same place,” Mel argued.

 

“I guess,” Paul said shrugging, “so anyone fancy challenging me to a game on the dance machine.”

 

Karen followed Paul over to the small arcade, dancing had always been one of her strong points and if anyone could challenge Paul it was her.

 

Casually glancing around Mel scanned the area for Chris, eventually seeing him sitting on a little stool in the coffee bar, Ella sat close beside him.  Her eyes narrowed, it was beginning to get impossible to have a decent conversation with him anymore without her being there.

 

“Makes you sick doesn’t it?” Ben commented, following her gaze.

 

“Uh?”

 

“Chris and Ella making puppy dog eyes at each other, believe me its worse for us, he’s always so soppy now.”

 

“Ah uh”

 

“I’m never ever going to get like that,” he continued, “am planning on staying single forever.”

 

“Ah uh”

 

“Mel, you OK?” he asked, noticing that this conversation was very much one sided as Mel was still gazing at Ella and Chris.

 

“Yep fine,” she said, turning to him and smiling.

 

“You coming over?” he asked as he made his way over towards the couple, “you can partake in the challenge of trying to split them up for two seconds.”

 

He grinned as Mel and Steph followed him into the coffee bar.

 

“Yo Chris” he yelled, going straight over to his friend and slapping him on the shoulder.

 

“Ello Ben,” Chris muttered, continuing to look at Ella and reaching in to give her a kiss on her cheek.

 

Mel quickly turned herself away, the image being far too painful to look at, when she finally forced herself to turn back Chris was moving his head away from Ella’s, they had obviously just pulled away from another kiss.

 

“You are soooooooo rude!” Ben announced, “can’t you see we have company.”

 

For the first time Christian tore his gaze away from his girlfriend and glanced in their direction.

 

“Ooh hello” he said, smiling at them, “when did you get here?”

 

“They’ve been here for ages,” Ben said in exasperation, “but you would have seen that if you weren’t so busy sucking face.”

 

“So nicely put,” Chris grinned straight at Ella, giving her a wink.

 

Ella smiled back and let out a little laugh that tinkled daintily in the air, she opened her mouth to speak... for the first time Mel was about to hear her voice.

 

“He’s just jealous,” she announced, “he wants what we have.”

“That’s what it is babe,” Christian confirmed, pulling her into a tight hug.

 

“Enough to make you sick,” Ben muttered.

 

“Sorry,” Chris said, turning once more back to the girls, “have you guys met?”

 

Mel’s stomach jumped up in the air, this was the moment that she had been dreading, she was about to be presented to the bitch from hell and she was going to be expected to talk to her.

 

“Nope,” Steph smiled warmly at them.

 

Christian put an arm round his girlfriend, “this,” he announced proudly, “is my girl Gabriella.”

 

The beautiful girl stood up and moved towards them, smiling, “call me Ella, and you are?”

 

“Stephanie and Melissa,” Steph said smiling back.

 

“Two of our biggest fans,” Chris said, “supported us from the beginning.”

 

“Wow that’s lovely.” Ella said smiling at them again.

 

“Come on guys!” a voice shouted from behind them and Del appeared.

 

“Think that’s our cue to go,” Ben announced, moving towards Del.

 

“Was lovely to meet you,” Ella said, smiling and taking Christian’s hand, “may be we’ll see you in Cardiff.”

 

The group moved away leaving Steph and Mel to go and find Karen.

 

“She’s lovely,” Steph said, “was expecting her to be all stuck up, but she was so nice.”

 

“Uh huh” Mel responded, not trusting herself to say anything else.

 

“Don’t you think?”  Steph pressed.

 

“Yep, great.”

 

“You were very quiet, just shy?”

 

Mel nodded, glad that Steph had given her an easy way out.

 

“Wow, she was rather intimidating, I mean she was so beautiful.”

 

Mel forced herself to smile – personally she didn’t understand where Steph had been during the conversation – Ella had come across as a boring, blonde bimbo who was about as fake as they came. 

 

Nothing was going to change Mel’s mind now – she knew she was going to be doing the right thing – Ella had to go.