Meet me out the front.
He smirks and puts his can back to his lips.
The sight of that small, lazy smile makes my stomach do a slow flip.
Head tingling, I get up and go back inside the cottage, walking straight through it to the front door where my keys are dangling from a coat hook. I know I’ll regret this if any of that lot finds out about us, but right now I’m past caring. I want him to myself.
Bonnie Tyler is still building to a crescendo in the back garden, so no one will hear the creak of hinges as I push open the door to the walled garden. Footsteps sound out from behind me on the path. Ash is walking over from the direction of the last cottage. He’s grinning.
‘For a minute, I thought you were suggesting we meet on the roof.’
He still sounds like his old self and I love it. I laugh and lead the way into the dark garden, pushing the door closed behind him and locking it again with the skeleton key, just to be on the safe side.
‘Did you want to say something?’ he asks.
‘Did you?’ I bat back at him. ‘You were the one who suggested we sneak off.’ He’d looked at the outbuildings first.
The wall rises up around us and the light is eerie underthe glow of the stars. The air smells damp and earthy, the grass beneath the apple trees sodden with dew.
He grunts with annoyance. ‘It bugs me that he’s taking you to Pistyll Rhaeadr on a Sunday,’ he says as we duck under a low-hanging branch. ‘It’s going to be so busy. You should go on a weekday at dawn or much later in the day. He’s going to wreck it for you.’
‘Is that the only reason you’re pissed off?’
He pauses beneath a gnarly old tree and hooks his hand over a branch that stretches out past the top of his head. ‘No,’ he mutters as I go and stand in front of him. ‘Ishould be showing you Wales, not him.’
A shiver runs down my spine at the sound of his petulant voice.
‘Don’t you like Evan?’ I wonder if I’m pushing his buttons by asking.
‘He’s fine,’ he replies offhandedly. ‘I’m more interested in whetheryoulike him.’
I feel the intensity of his stare, even in the darkness.
‘Yes, I do like him,’ I reply, but it feels wrong to try to deliberately wound him so I add, ‘We’re friends.’
He stares at me a moment longer. I can just see the glint of his eyes. ‘Have you ever been more?’ he asks.
‘Would it bother you if we had?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you jealous?’
‘Of course I am.’
It gives me such a thrill to hear him confess to it.
‘I was jealous when Siân gave you acwtch,’ I admit.
‘Were you?’ He sounds pleased.
‘Has anything ever happened between you two?’ I ask warily.
‘Siân and me? No,’ he replies firmly. ‘She’s like family. I’ve known her for years.’
I’m relieved. ‘I was worried you might have lost your virginity to her or something.’
He laughs. ‘No, I lost my virginity to Aspen Montgomery when I was sixteen.’
