Tracking the lights, I moved to the other fence to catch a better view. The back end of a tired BMW 1 Series lit up the narrow lane, and a feeling I couldn’t identify settled in my stomach. A flutter of relief weighed down with a cloud of dread.
Cole was back.
A week ago, I’d have knocked on his door without hesitation. But now, in the darkness of the coldest night of the fading summer, I climbed the last gate of the farm and went home.
* * *
“Why did you leave Shadow out last night?”
I glanced up from the door bolt I was mending. Joe was standing over me, scowling at nothing in particular. “The same reason I’ve left him out all week. He doesn’t want to come in.”
“Since when does he make the rules?”
“Since forever. Even if I could drag him in, he’d only spend the whole night kicking his door in.”
Joe sighed. “I know. You’re right. But he’ll have to come in after the weekend. I don’t want him on the loose while that festival is running in town.”
“Why? No one’s going to steal him. If they did, they’d soon bring him back.”
“True, but I don’t want to risk him booting some drunk idiot who wanders through his field by mistake.”
“Yeah, okay.” Knowing it would take me a couple of days to bring Shadow round to my way of thinking, I put it on my unwritten list of things to do before I went home that night. And I was going home. Maybe. Definitely. Two nights on the trot, I’d drunk too much beer with Joe and fallen asleep on his couch, and my neck was starting to protest.
Also, I was tired of keeping a sharp eye out for Cole, all the while doing my best to avoid him. It was the weirdest conflict, and it was making my brain hurt.
Never mind the fact that I’d been wildly successful at not running into him. So successful that I had to wonder if he was avoiding me too. Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he’d called me. Or texted me. Given that I still hadn’t put my SIM card into Joe’s old phone, I wouldn’t have known.
The day dragged on. Joe’s mum rocked up on the farm and cooked a roast dinner that had even the casual staff staying extra hours to make sure they got some. I ate mine outside, then took some to Angelo, who hadn’t appeared for a couple of days.
I let myself into the bungalow. He was up and sitting on the living room floor, one leg stretched at an impossible angle, the other curled in a strange position beneath him. “You just missed him,” he said.
“Who?”
“Cole.”
“I wasn’t looking for Cole. I brought you some dinner.”
“Oooooh.” Angelo brought his stretched leg down and winced as he straightened the other. “Sorry. Did I put my foot in my mouth?”
“Is that even possible?”
“Not today. Cole came by to help me loosen up, but as magic as his healing hands are, I’m still stuck down here.”
“You want me to help you up?”
“Nope. I’ll get there eventually.”
Angelo grinned, letting me know that he really was okay, and I’d learned to believe him. I was jealous he’d had Cole’s hands on him, though. I hadn’t realised they were that friendly. The Cole I knew was always alone. And maybe that was the problem—I didn’t know him at all.
That’s not true. You’ve spent loads of time with him. You know what makes him laugh, and smile, and frown. You know what makes him shiver and groan.
I also knew that he’d been back on the farm for days and I hadn’t seen him, and my ability to cope with that was fast depleting. It was as if I’d never lived my life without him. How did a single mad summer change someone like that?
“Earth to Toby?”
“Hmm?” I blinked. Angelo was grinning up at me, his expression wise enough that I wanted to punch him. “What?”
He shook his head. “Man, you’ve got it as bad as him, haven’t you?”
