Page 81 of Rough Around the Hedges

“I didn’t ask you,” she shot back.

“I don’t care,” I replied. “You’re the one who demanded my time, yet it’s just being wasted. I have a hundred and one things to do, so if you’re just going to whine, I’m going to leave.”

She glared at me, then grabbed Waffles the rooster, tucked him against her upper body, and leant in towards him. “You see that man there, Waffles?”

He clucked.

“He’s the one I’ve been telling you about.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Oh? You’ve been talking about me? I didn’t know you thought about me that much, princess.”

She twitched as if my words had startled her and quickly sputtered out, “I don’t!”

Isadora leant forwards, grinning. “Oh, this is fun. It’s rare to see the Ice Queen this flustered.”

“I am not flustered!” Rose’s voice squeaked, belying her real emotions, and Waffles escaped her grasp with a weird clucking noise.

“You look flustered to me, bestie.”

“Don’t you have a job to go to?”

I looked on with amusement as Isadora shook her head. “Nope. It’s my day off.”

“Don’t you have your own plot to tend to? Or your mum’s strawberries to check on?” Rose ground out—through gritted teeth, if the clenching of her jaw was anything to go by.

“While you’re losing an argument to this guy?” She cocked her thumb at me, her grin sliding into a smirk. “Absolutely not. This is way more fun.”

Rose carefully removed the chick from her head and set it on the ground, then got up and stalked into her shed where she retrieved a fork from the wall and brandished the prongs in the direction of Isadora. “Say that again.”

“Perhaps we should put the fork down, Rose,” I said dryly. “Like you said, I’m liable to call the police, and I’m sure Shaun wouldn’t mind letting you make use of your cell for a little while.”

She dropped with the fork with a resounding, “Ugh!” before hanging it back up. “When did you two get so buddy-buddy? We’ve been friends our entire lives. I can’t believe he’d side with you over me.”

“I can,” Isadora said brightly.

“Actually, you’re right, I can,” Rose continued. “Shaun has been looking for excuses to get rid of me for years.”

“Well, dead women tell no tales.” Isadora’s voice was far too chirpy for the sentence she’d just said. “Nor do they get put in time-out at the age of twenty-nine.”

I cleared my throat and tapped my watch. “Whenever you’re ready, Rose.”

She sighed heavily and closed the shed door behind her. “All right, all right. But you’re changing your shoes. I don’t want to be responsible for you breaking your toes.”

“I don’t have any other shoes.”

“George!” She leant over a fence. “I know you’re in there! Stop hiding from Susan! It’s not a big deal that you saw up her skirt this morning!”

“Goddamn it, Rose!” An elderly man I recognised as the wearer of a leafy loin cloth during the protest stomped out of the shed in the adjoining plot and huffed in her direction. “Stop telling everyone my private business!”

“Just admit you fancy her and put me out of my misery,” she retorted. “I need a favour.”

“After you were just shouting about how I saw Susan’s bloomers? Absolutely not.”

“Aw, come on. I’ll put in a good word for you.” She reached over and nudged him with her elbow, smiling sweetly.

“I don’t need you to put in a good word for me. I’m not interested,” he grumbled. After a moment, he followed it up with, “What are you thinking?”

Isadora coughed into her hand, almost certainly masking a laugh.

---