Page 45 of Vine

His answer took a long time to come. While I waited, he patted Noir some more. “Hardly ever. My anxiety was much better controlled. But I did towards the end, when I realised that he was cheating.”

“Why are you still here with him then.”

His sigh sounded like vine leaves rustling. “That’s an excellent question, Max. Some days, I’m not sure it would matter to anyone if I wasn’t.”

My heart clenched. “It would matter to me.”

An even longer pause. We were the opposite sides of the same vine now— Noir lolled in an untidy black heap between our feet, his tongue hanging out. Caspian snipped a shoot, and it floated down to land on his silky head. “So does this mean we’re friends again, then?” Even though French wasn’t his first language, Caspian asked questions beautifully, each one lilting up at the end.

“I want to be.” Mon dieu, how I wanted to be. “I want to trust you. Except I’m still cross you didn’t tell me.”

“I’m cross about that too.” He sighed. “I… don’t know why I didn’t. Perhaps I thought you’d probably heard enough of my sagas. My fucked-up head.”

“I would tell you if I had.”

He huffed a laugh. “Yes, I should have realised that.”

“I don’t mind your mental health issues, Caspian. I like things that need extra care. My dog only has three legs. My tractor needs a new rear tyre.”

He made a sound like politely stifling a sneeze. Pollen countshadincreased with the warmer weather, and Caspian was exactly the delicate sort of person I would imagine at risk of hay fever. “I’m… um… well, yes,” he managed, like he was trying not to sneeze again. “I’m grateful for all four limbs, I suppose.”

His fingers snaked between the vine leaves, searching for mine. Recognising this as one of theromantic opportunitiesdescribed inPerfect Peach, I went one better and parted the foliage to locate his face. I only found thin air the first time, being approximately 32 centimetres taller than him. Bending my knees solved the problem.

“Boo,” I said as my head popped through, to make him laugh, and he almost did. Our hands got tangled up in the vine, and that nearly made him laugh too. One of his broken-off hedgehogs wrapped itself in my beard, and a cluster of grapes tickled my ear. But none of that mattered when his lips and my lips met in the middle.

I breathed in the sweet, ripe earthy scent of the foliage all around us. Caspian’s mouth tasted even sweeter, and he was panting when we parted, like he wasn’t ready to stop. We would, though, because my knees had begun to ache from bending awkwardly. And I had to go to work.

“I’m bringing you on a date, Caspian,” I informed him. I think he liked it when I took charge. “At the weekend, when I’m not working. Away from here.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It will be a good one, I promise. I might even dig out my red sequinned waders.”

That got a laugh out of him, a real one where his eyes joined in too. He picked a leaf from my hair. “What should I wear?”

I looked him up and down. Today, he was dressed in the grey jeans that made my belly lurch and a long-sleeved pale blue shirt with the top two buttons undone. The forecast for the weekend predicted mean temperatures of 21 degrees Celsius with a twenty-percent chance of light drizzle on both Saturday and Sunday.

“Something warm and waterproof.”

CHAPTER 16

CASPIAN

Even the air smelled different now the vines paraded their lush green foliage. A pleasant aroma of course, nostalgic even, though I couldn’t pinpoint why. Evocative of freshly mown grass perhaps, playing cricket with my dad on my childhood garden lawn. Of hopeful, happier times.

Anyhow, as I stood on my little doorstep with a mug of tea in my hand and the sun’s warmth blessing my face, I admired the rows of neat plants I’d had more than a passing role in cultivating. A sense of wellbeing I hadn’t relished for quite some time filled me. I’d cleared up my misunderstanding with Max, and we were going on a mystery date. Since our make up last night, my urge to cut had receded to a vague whisper.

“Casp? There’s something I need to tell you. I think we should sit down.”

I ushered Emma inside. “Sure, come in, there’s still some tea in the pot.”

I braced for her news, glad I was in a reasonable frame of mind to take it. She’d made up her mind about exploring a relationship with Stella. Now she’d come to tell me I’d face theremainder of the summer without her. As self-centred and self-obsessed as I was, I was happy for her. And a little envious she had the gumption to follow her heart.

“My sister texted me very early this morning,” Emma began.

My spidey senses twitched. In my experience, early communication from family members generally heralded the birth of a baby or bad news, and as far as I knew, Emma did not have any heavily pregnant close relatives. “She spotted something on Twitter relating to me that… um… well, you might not like.”

I frowned with confusion. “Sorry, thatIwon’t like?”

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