I delete that too.
Reilly can’t see my inadequacies. Before I can find a way to respond, another text from her comes through.
Come meet me at the beach.
I would love nothing more than to ignore all this and spend the day with Reilly. She has become more important than the very air I breathe.
I can’t leave Neive today. I’m sorry.
I wish I could. I want nothing more than to bury my head in the sand, or better yet in between Reilly’s legs.
I meant with Neive you idiot.
Of course Reilly would be putting Neive first. I brace myself to knock on Neive’s door. I have no idea what awaits me on the other side. Please let her be up for this, I don’t know how else to pull her out of this mood. The buzz of my phone pulls me away from my anxiety.
I’ve called her. She’s packing her stuff and will meet you at the carx
The cloud in my brain clears, knowing Reilly has this covered. Though the seed of guilt creeps in … it should be me solving these problems. It’s not Reilly’s responsibility. It’s mine.
~
Another slam – this time the car door – as she storms away before I’ve even turned the engine off. Clearly Neive is still holding resentment towards me despite her eagerness to see Reilly. She was silent on the way here, grunts and eye rolls being the only response to my attempted conversation.
Jeeves pulls up next to me in his old Jeep Wrangler. Despite his ridiculous salary he insists on running things into the ground before renewing.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, knowing full well the beach is not his thing.
“Reilly texted me,” he responds, as if this is a perfectly reasonable thing to happen.
“You and Reilly text?” I ask, trying to tamp down the undeserved jealousy. His shrugged response as he lifts a duffle out of the car only stirs the caveman in me more. But Reilly’s personality is infectious, and even the darkest beings can’t hide from her light.
My eyes scan the beach following the path Neive ran, the wind whipping up the sand and the waves crashing as they break on the shore. The sun won’t set for a couple of hours, the clouds have cleared and the sky is bright as it often is after a heavy storm. I should have wrapped Neive up a bit more, the wind can be biting this time of year.
Reilly waves me and Jeeves over, as she marks something out in the wet sand, Chip running circles around her. He only ever runs to the right, probably due to his missing leg. Sarah is already corrupting Neive with copious selfies – for a schoolteacher she can be a terrible influence. Jeeves sets his sights on Thea, and opens the bag to hand her a number of small wooden cones. They walk together, setting them out in a large circle. What has Reilly got planned?
“Rounders,” she tells me as her hands slip round my waist. I pull her into my side and plant a kiss on her forehead.
“Rounders? There’s only six of us.”
“Yes. Rounders.” As if that answers all questions.
Sarah’s voice carries across the sand as she yells at Jeeves; I can tell he finds her irritating yet he holds his ire around her. “Jeeves, there’s six of us! Three people per team. You’re only supposed to put out three markers. I thought you were a numbers guy?” Jeeves glares daggers at her, but a gentle touch from Thea is all that’s needed to pull him out of his death stare as they reset three base points.
I point out we are going to need a separate bowler to make this work. Jeeves fixes that with a quick phone call to Charles, who only needed to hear the words “rounders” and “Westcliff” and immediately dropped whatever he was doing, or more likely whoever he was doing, claiming he would be with us in ten minutes.
“So how’s this going to work?” I ask Reilly, the woman with a plan.
“Simple, three on each team, Charles is last so he can be the bowler and we’ll all swap the teams round at some point.” Chip barks in agreement. She makes it all sound so well thought out. Sarah takes her place next to Reilly to address the group.
“Elton and Jeeves are big and strong so you’re on a team each, then me and Reilly on a team each because we are fast and cunning. And Thea and Neive on a team each because, well you’re both here too. I’ll take Elton and Neive.” She wraps her arm around Neive’s shoulder. “Let me show you how it’s done,rookie,” she teases, breaking a laugh out of my troubled teenage niece.
Charles makes his way over, a little flushed in the face, as we are all getting in a few practice swings, Chip helpfully returning the ball each time. He could become a problem in this already problematic game.
“That was fast. Where were you?” I ask.
He winks in answer and I don’t actually want to know.
Reilly
