Page 54 of Rough Around the Hedges

Who was this woman, really? She was surely some kind of supernatural being to be bewitching me like this.

Since when had I ever given a shit about the way someone’s laugh sounded?

Since Rose Bloody Matthews, apparently.

The single-track road in front of us was illuminated by car headlights, and we both turned our attention in that direction. I winced as the light glanced across my eyes, but Luke’s car was easily recognisable as he pulled up.

“Is that the snoop?” Rose asked, pointing at his car.

“That’s my assistant, yes,” I replied.

“So, the snoop.”

“Your words, not mine.”

“I don’t hear you denying them,” she shot back. “Hello, Mr Snoop! We finally meet in person! I know for a fact I don’t need to introduce myself to you, since you probably know everything about me down to my bra size, so I won’t bother. I won’t ask for your forgiveness, either, because I don’t flippin’ care for it.”

She grinned as if her smile alone could get her out of jail.

Maybe it could.

Her best friend was a police officer, after all.

“Rest assured I know nothing about your personal measurements, nor do I want to.” Luke slammed his car door shut and glared at her. “My name is not Mr Snoop, it’s Luke. Mr Butler, to you, Miss Matthews.”

“The only people I refer to like that are my old teachers, my clients, and people I like. As a half-baked Sherlock Holmes, you fall into none of those categories.” She smiled as she crumpled up her empty can of wine, then hopped out of the back of the van. “With that said, Luke, I return your wayward fancypants boss to you before you think I’m so crazy that I’ve kidnapped him.”

“Well, you do dislike him greatly,” Luke replied. “So, if he goes missing, don’t blame me if you’re my number one suspect,Rose.”

“Ha.”

“Ha? What’s ‘ha?’”

“How easily you use my name as if you didn’t just kick up a stink about me using yours,” she said flatly, then turned to me. “What are you waiting for, Mr Fancypants? Get out of my van and take your cheap beer with you.”

I jumped up. “What did I do?”

“You brought this nosy bloke to my doorstep.”

“We’re in a park, Rose.”

She motioned to the back doors of the van, then the step she’d just jumped down from. “My door. My step. Thus, my doorstep.”

Luke cleared his throat and nudged me. “Is she drunk?”

I shook my head. “That’s just her normal thought pathway. It scares me a little that it makes sense to me.”

“Well, if we’re done here, I’m going home.” Rose slammed shut the van doors and wiped her hands on her shorts. “Thanks for your help today. Let me know if you want to volunteer to get mildly verbally abused by some five-year-olds again.”

With those words as her parting shot, she hopped into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

“She’s not big on manners, is she?” Luke asked dryly.

“She’s not big on anything other than tormenting me,” I replied. “You should have seen her laughing this afternoon when I was being bullied by children.”

He clapped me on the shoulder. “You’ve become pathetic since moving here, Oli. You’d never stand for her attitude in the office.”

“Yeah, well, this isn’t the office, and she isn’t my employee.” I shrugged off his hand and rubbed the back of my neck as I headed for his car. “And I will be tied to this place for the rest of my life. Rose and I will probably never be friends, but it won’t kill me to be civil with her.”

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