“Thanks, mate,” Phil says as we head towards my Range Rover. His shoulders finally start to drop.
“You’re welcome,” I reply. “Though this was not on my list of ideal Friday activities.”
Phil gives me a look. “What would you have done instead? Sat on your sofa in your boxers, rugby on the telly, crisps as a main course?”
“That was one time you caught me in my boxers.” Not my fault that he turns up at my house in the middle of a heatwave unannounced.
“It was three.”
I unlock the car. “I have hobbies.”
“Climbing,” he says immediately.
“I have others.”
“Shagging,” he adds helpfully.
I grip the door. “I haven’t had a woman in my bed in weeks, if you must know.”
Phil’s eyebrows shoot up. “Blimey. Should I ring a doctor?”
I huff out a laugh, but his surprise is fair. For years I was the Fellside Casanova. The single bloke who could flirt with anything that moved and walk away without a second thought. Never cruel, never dishonest, but always drifting.
It suited me. Until it didn’t.
“I’m just bored of it all,” I mutter. “The one-nighters. The tourists who think there could maybe be more. It’s empty.”
Phil looks at me like I’ve just admitted I knit jumpers for fun. “You’re actually serious.”
“I wouldn’t mind something real.”
He lets out a low whistle. “Alex Harris, in the market for feelings. Should I alert the Fellside Gazette?”
“Shut up and get in the car.”
He grins. “There he is.”
Cherry Pie Bakery is our first stop. The shop itself is new, all fresh paint, pretty displays and that warm sugary smell that could make a grown man weep. But Lisa, standing behind the counter, is as Fellside as they come.
She grew up two streets over from me, used to run her mum’s tearoom before it shut, and has been talking about opening her own bakery since we were gawky teenagers. I also had a brief, ill-advised one-night stand with her about a decade ago, back when I still thought it was clever to mix cheap cider with questionable choices. We both moved on by breakfast, no drama. But it was the moment I decided sleeping with local women was a bad idea. Too small a village. Too many awkward run-ins at the Co-op. Tourists, who head back down south a week later, are a far safer bet.
Lisa brightens the second she spots us. “You boys want a tin spot?”
“We could be just here for the pastries.” I give her a wink for old times’ sake.
“No need to turn on your charm, Harris!” she laughs. “Pop it right here. Tourists get generous once they’ve inhaled half my pastry counter.”
She speaks with that casual confidence only locals have. Her older brother was part of FMR before he moved to Newcastle, and she’s always treated the team like slightly daft cousins who need feeding.
Before we can argue, she hands us éclairs the size of small artillery shells. “Payment for your trouble.”
Phil clamps onto his like it’s a life raft. He’s halfway through it before I’ve even lifted mine to my mouth.
“Well done us,” he says, muffled by cream.
“Well done me,” I reply. “You just looked pretty.”
He tries to glare but he’s got pastry on his chin and it ruins the effect entirely.
