Through the Tunnel

Chapter 5: Challenge No. 2

"Where are we?" asks Anne-Marie as I shake her shoulders a little.

Steven is stood at the bar getting coffee for Lauren, it seems like she's okay to drive so we're letting her drive through the rest of the night so Phil has the time to rest for the drive in the morning.

We'll probably get a room in Paris when we get there anyway so there'll be plenty of time to rest then.

Once Anne-Marie is finally awake I give her a hand up and she thanks me in possibly the most awkward manor. I ignore it though and we continue towards Wendy, heading down a couple of decks.

Lauren pretty much downed her coffee by the time we were ready to drive off but Phil went straight back to sleep in the back seats, next to me.

Once Anne-Marie climbed in next to Lauren and Steven hopped in the centre isle again, he handed Anne-Marie hers and Lauren's sandwiches and it wasn't long before we were driving through France.

It took Lauren a while to figure out that she should be driving on the RIGHT. But she got there in the end.

"There should have been a sign!" she says.

"There probably was..." Anne-Marie adds.

But after nearly dying a few times most of us were able to sleep for a while until we reached Paris. With all the traffic and the multiple times that Lauren managed to get us lost we arrived at the hotel by around 4am (in France anyway).

Steven booked us two joint rooms. His French was possibly the funniest thing I've ever heard. I would have been laughing a lot more if it wasn't for the fact that I was so unbelievably tired. I only managed to sleep for an hour or so.

"Ce sera de trois cents euros pour deux nuits" the women mumbled.

"Come again?" Steven said.

Luckily the woman spoke a little English "Tree hoondred?" Her accent was terrible but it sounded kind of sexy, in a weird French way.

Once the rooms were all booked up for two nights we made our way through the hallways, up an elevator and into our joining rooms to settle in.

Steven and Phil will be taking one room and us girls are sharing the other. We agreed to sleep through until about midday to make the most of tomorrow (or technically today).

It wasn't long before Steven was completely out of it and Phil settled into the other single bed beside him. Meanwhile Anne-Marie and Lauren were getting ready for bed in our room. They agreed to share the double so I could take the single. Honestly I think they're both still a little pissed at me for being rude about Anne-Marie being in love with me.

I tried not to think about it too much.

I sat beside Phil for a while until he fell asleep. He had caught up on sleep whilst Lauren was driving but it's honestly not the easiest thing to do when you have her in control of the vehicle.

He was pretty tired.

"Charlie" he whispers.

"Yeah"

"She doesn't hate you" he says. I know exactly who he means but I still think it's a little weird that he knows what I'm thinking. It's a talent that's grown over time.

"It doesn't seem that way..."

"Maybe you should" his eyes are shutting now, and he's not making much sense either.

"What?" I ask, but I know it's no use.

"You're fun and spontaneous" I'm surprised that he's even still able to reply, I'm pretty sure he's half asleep. "You can do it, just... She needs this" he says.