I opened my mouth. Shut it again. Emma had barely left the bungalow in weeks, but if she had the stones for helping Harry out, I had a whole fucking list of—
Harry put his hand on my arm as he got out of the car. The contact was brief, but enough to stop my inner tirade in its tracks. He found my eyes and tilted his head subtly to one side. I had no idea what he was trying to say, but figured it was something along the lines of “don’t be a dick about this.”
Easy for him to say. He hadn’t been the only one driving every man and beast around for the last fuck-knew-how-many years. Roll on Toby’s driving test—if only the little shit could pass it first time.
Harry took a box of green nonsense from the boot of the car and disappeared inside. I watched him go and then turned my attention to Emma as she got out of the car too. Not being a dick about whatever I was missing was tough, so I kept my mouth shut as she came up to me and slipped her arms around my waist.
“Don’t be cross,” she whispered. “I didn’t know I could do it until I did it, and I don’t know if I can do it again.”
Of course she could do it again. She could do anything if she’d just fucking let herself. But I didn’t say it, because what did I really know? Anger, resentment, grief—they were all my friends, but I’d been spared the debilitating anxiety that had plagued Emma for as long as I could remember. Sometimes I thought I understood, but I didn’t. How could I?
I wrapped my arms around her, seeking comfort in her slender embrace, as much as I offered it to her. “How did you end up in Captain Harry’s car?”
Emma giggled. “Don’t call him that. I know you fancy him.”
“What?”
“Come on.” Emma turned a knowing, watery gaze on me. “You’re so vile to him, it’s obvious.”
“I’m vile to everyone.”
“Not like you are to him.”
“Piss off.” I glared down at her, picturing Harry’s cut arms and kind eyes. “I don’t fancy him. I don’t fancy anyone. Dead inside, remember?”
Emma’s humour faded. “No, you’re not. None of us are. We’ve just had a bad time of it. Things can change, Joe. We don’t have to be this way.”
I heard Harry in every word and wondered just what he’d done to convince her to get in his car. Then wondered why it mattered and where the fluttering in my gut had come from. Anything that rescued Emma from her bubble of introspection was fucking awesome. So why did I feel like crying?
Emma nudged me. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “Just woke up weird. And alone. It was strange finding everyone gone. What’s up with that?”
Emma took my hand and led me towards the house. “I came over early because I couldn’t sleep. Harry was up and offered to help around the yard. Then Lacey brought one of her mates down, and there didn’t seem any point waking you. You’re allowed a morning off, you know.”
“That’s not what you said a few weeks ago when you dragged me home from the police station.”
“That’s because you were acting like a twat, and you know what? Until today, I hadn’t left the farm since then, so how about we forget that day ever happened?”
Fine by me. I trailed Emma into the kitchen and sat at the table. Despite my luxury lie in, I was still profoundly tired. I slumped with my head on my arms, watching Emma do her best impression of our mother, until Harry reappeared a little while later.
He didn’t look at me, but his arm brushed mine as he passed me... I think, if the resulting goosebumps were anything to go by.
I sat up slightly, eyeing the bag of spinach he passed Emma. “What are you doing with that?”
Harry shot a grin over his shoulder. “Stick around and you’ll find out. It must be my turn to cook for you by now.”
He was getting better at eating the dinners Sal put in front of him. He pushed them around less, and he’d stopped hiding potatoes in his leftover pie, but that didn’t make whatever he had planned for me any more appetising. “It’s not that green slop you drink all day, is it?”
“Nope. But it will have green in it. Won’t do you any harm to get some more iron in your blood if you are as knackered as you look.”
He had me there. I put my head back down and observed him and Emma through hooded eyes as they moved around the kitchen like an old married couple. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was jealous, but lacking the energy to figure out why, I pushed it aside and focussed on the parade of weird shit being tossed in the wok my mum had never used.
A plate of rainbow food was presented to me a little while later. “No bacon?”
Harry chuckled. “Nah, but I did fry your eggs to ease you into the spinach.”
“So I see.” Fried eggs, teeny tomatoes, and giant mushrooms all sat on a mountain of spinach. I wanted to bitch about it, but I was too hungry to wait and too dazed to figure out a way of denying how good it looked.
