It Started With A Tweet(50)

‘What are you doing?’

Alexis’s sing-song tones carry across the courtyard and I try not to bang my head on the well roof as I stand back upright.

‘You look like you are going to jump down it.’

He’s wrinkling his forehead in confusion, which he does a lot. It’s mostly reserved for when he’s trying to understand what Rosie and I are talking about, either if we’re talking too quickly for him to keep up, or if we’re using words that don’t make any sense.

‘No, no, just making a wish,’ I say, shrugging my shoulders.

I’m met with more brow wrinkles.

‘Um, it’s tradition that you make a wish in a well – that’s why they’re sometimes called wishing wells. You know, like when you throw a coin into a fountain.’

‘Ah,’ he says nodding, the brow unfurrowing. ‘You threw a coin down there.’

‘Uh-huh,’ I say pretending. That’s much simpler to explain than what I was actually doing.

He looks wistfully down the well. ‘Any time I make a wish, I wish that my dad was still alive,’ he says, closing his eyes for a second.

‘Your dad died? Mine too,’ I say. ‘How old were you?’

‘I was fifteen, and you?’

‘I was only four, but fifteen, that must have been so hard. You would have known him so well.’

In some ways, I’m jealous that he has more than the few fleeting memories that I have of my own, but in other ways, I can’t imagine the pain of loss that comes from losing a parent when you’re old enough to understand it fully.

‘It was, but my older brother is very good, very like my father.’

‘And your sisters, they’re a help too?’

‘Um, yes, yes, my sisters. But I don’t speak of it too often. Painful.’

I rub Alexis’s arm as I watch him blink back a tear.

We stand there looking into the emptiness of the well, silent for a few minutes, presumably both thinking of our dads.

‘How was your walk?’ I ask, thinking it best to change the subject.

‘It was good,’ he says. ‘How do you say – enlightening.’

‘Good. Perhaps I should go on one.’

‘Not now, it looks like it is going to rain,’ he says, pointing up to a dark cloud rising over the hill.

FFS. This bloody weather. I’ll have to go and see Rodney another day.

Alexis starts to kick his boots noisily against the barn wall to shake off the loose mud. He’d better be careful; I’m worried that it might fall down.

‘You want to play cards?’ he asks as he turns to walk to the farmhouse. Any hint of grief having disappeared. ‘I am an expert at poker.’

My interest is piqued. Poker with sexy Alexis: I know what type of poker could make that more interesting.

‘Absolutely, I’m a bit of a shark too.’

‘A shark?’

‘Oh, a card shark, it’s an expression .?.?. I’ll be there in a second and I’ll whip your butt.’

‘You’ll whip me?’ his face lights up and I close my eyes. I forget how confusing the English language is.

I choose my words carefully so that I don’t insinuate any more BDSM habits. ‘I meant, I’m going to win.’

‘No chance,’ he says.

He turns and walks away and I follow him. At least now I’ve got poker to look forward to. I play a lot on my iPhone, so I’m sure that it’s no different in person.

Alexis sits down at the kitchen table and fills Rosie in on his walk while she stirs the casserole in the slow cooker.

‘You’re just in time,’ says Rosie, as she starts to spoon out ladles of food onto plates.

‘Great.’

I head over to take the plates and give one to Alexis before sitting down myself at the table.

For a moment, the three of us are silent as we devour our food. All this fresh air and hard work is a powerful combination that results in extreme hunger most days. We practically inhaled the homemade cake during our coffee break this morning.

‘Well, that was really good,’ I say as I polish off the last dregs on my plate.

‘Thanks. I even impressed myself. So, Alexis, you missed all the excitement here earlier,’ she says, raising an eyebrow in his direction. ‘Daisy was having a shower and Jack’s dog came running in and knocked the cubicle over.’

‘Mon Dieu, my shower is broken?’

‘I’m afraid so. It’s back to the drawing board on that one.’

She stands up and goes over to the slow cooker. ‘Anyone want any more?’

Alexis nods and holds his plate up and she spoons on another ladle full.

‘I’m fine, by the way,’ I say, smiling that he was only concerned about his handiwork.

‘I can see that already.’ He gives me a wink and I smile, satisfied at the attention.

‘Poor old Jack, he practically ran off in embarrassment,’ says Rosie, laughing.

‘Jack was there too? When you were in the shower?’

I can’t tell whether his brow is furrowing again in confusion or whether there’s a flicker of annoyance there now too. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part that he’s the tiniest bit jealous.

‘He wasn’t in the shower with me,’ I say for clarification. ‘He came to retrieve Buster and he arrived just as the curtain went down.’