Page 116 of Rough Around the Hedges

“Better my pride than a broken heart.”

“You’re gonna get one of those either way, but you already know that.” She shook her head and sat down in the armchair opposite. “Then your only option is to stop seeing him.”

“I am. He’s going to London tomorrow for the weekend, and I’ll be occupied with the market-festival-rave thing.”

“Ah, yes.” She nodded. “It has kind of evolved from its original purpose, hasn’t it?”

I smiled sadly. “Yes, but I doubt it’ll make a difference. He’s not going to change his mind.”

Isa sighed, tucking her feet under her butt and resting her head on her hand. “As much as I’d love to argue with you, I can’t. I think you’re right. If he was going to, I think he’d have done it by now.”

“Agreed.” Shaun walked downstairs and appeared in the doorway, rubbing a towel across his wet hair. “You’re hardly strangers, Ro. If he truly wanted to, he could pull the plug on it today, but he hasn’t.”

Ouch.

“Hit me where it hurts, freeloader,” I muttered. “Go and fix your hot water instead of pestering me, would you?”

“My sentiments exactly,” Isadora echoed. “It’s like he’s deliberately flaunting his abs in the hope I’ll fall in love with him.”

“Shit, you caught me.” Shaun grinned cheekily. “I’ll have to come up with something else.”

Sadly, he wasn’t joking.

A faint pink rose on Isa’s cheeks, and I stared at her.

Oh.

Was it actually working?

I shot Shaun a covert thumbs up and quickly scratched my neck when Isa stared at me. “What? I was just scratching.”

“Mm,” she replied, then turned back to Mr Flaunt-It. “Are you working this weekend?”

“Nope. I’m at Rose’s beck and call,” Shaun replied, dropping into the other armchair.

I finally sat up and threw a cushion at him. “Nobody wants to see your balls, Shaun.”

He adjusted his towel and set the cushion on his lap obediently.

“Thank you.”

He nodded at me, then looked at Isa. “Why? Were you going to ask me out? Have my abs finally convinced you?”

She gave him a withering look. “No. I was merely wondering if you were around to help, that’s all. I’ll be at the petting zoo keeping an eye on the animals’ welfare, and I might need some muscle. Since you keep showing yours off, I thought you might be offering.”

“I’ll even wear my Superman Halloween costume from three years ago.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Superman helping with bunnies and guinea pigs. I’m not sure that’s going to bring the desired clientele to the petting zoo.”

“But will be some cracking Instagram posts,” Isa added. “Give me the login, and we can both go live at points during the day. Video is the best medium to reach people through, and since the audience knows about our plight, they’d probably love it.”

“Not to mention some up close and personal moments with Waffles the Slut himself.”

“I’ll leave the chickens to you, Dr Doolittle. I fear that your relationship with Waffles is too complex for even an expert such as myself to understand.”

Yeah, yeah.

I looked at Shaun. “Wear the Superman costume. The Internet loves nothing more than a handsome guy with fluffy animals.”

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