Ash texts me at five thirty when we’ve just cracked open a bottle of Prosecco.Celyn’s invited me for a beer. I hope that’s OK?
Of course it is, I reply, unsettled by the strength of the thrill that has just rocketed through me.
Harri knocks on the back door soon afterwards, freshly showered after a day at work. The pots in the greenhouses wouldn’t make it through the weekend if they weren’t tended to, but only one of us is needed for the Saturday–Sunday shift.
‘Are we boys allowed to join you now?’ he shouts over Siân’s finished playlist, squeezing his girlfriend’s shoulders from behind.
‘I suppose we can allow it,’ Bethan replies genially, patting his hand as Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ fades to an end.
The sound of a distant motorbike makes my ears prick up. Ash wasted no time getting on his way.
Evan appears at the back door. ‘Is this where the party’s at?’ he asks.
‘I think it’s outside,’ I respond, getting up from the sofa and smiling at him.
‘I wondered if you might be up for another day trip with me tomorrow?’ he asks, leaning his hip against the counter as I get myself a glass of water.
‘Ooh, is this a date?’ Siân cheekily calls over from the sofa.
‘No!’ I respond, a little more vehemently than I meant to. ‘Never mix business with pleasure,’ I add playfully to lighten the tone of my rebuttal, picking up a tea towel from the counter and flicking Evan on the hip with it.
‘Ow!’ he says, laughing as he bats me away.
The others get up and join us in the kitchen.
‘Where were you thinking about going?’ I ask Evan, trying to sound nonchalant as I hop up onto the counter beside him.
‘There’s a waterfall not too far from here. I thought maybe we could take a picnic.’
‘That sounds very date-like,’ Siân chips in as she tops up her glass with Prosecco.
‘Keep out of it, you,’ Evan replies.
Harri and Bethan laugh at him as they sort themselves out for drinks.
‘What are you guys up to tomorrow?’ I ask edgily.
‘I’m working,’ Harri replies, but Bethan shrugs and says brightly, ‘No plans.’
‘Siân?’
‘Oh, we don’t want to get in the middle of anything,’ she responds to me.
My God, she is such a stirrer!
‘Would you shut up?’ I say fondly. ‘We’re just friends.’ I look at Evan. ‘Aren’t we?’
‘We are,’ he agrees with a smile.
But his eyes aren’t sparkling as much as usual.
‘Are you having another one?’ Siân asks me, holding up the bottle.
The rumble of Ash’s motorbike out the back door makesit hard for me to concentrate on holding my glass still while she pours fizz into it.
‘Well, wouldn’t you know,’ she says significantly, looking past me out the window. ‘It’s the Honourable Ashton Berkeley.’
Harri chuckles at Siân’s tone. I’m not sure if she was being sarcastic, and I don’t like the thought of her taking the piss out of Ash. I feel quite protective as I glance over my shoulder to see him climbing off his motorbike, but then I realise that Siân is out the door and halfway across the lawn.
