Page 6 of Crossed Paths
“How’ve you been?” he asks after a while.
I glance sideways. He’s not looking at me, just watching the trees shift in the breeze.
“I’ve been fine,” I say, the automatic answer.
He nods. “Good.”
“And you?”
“The hotel just got awarded its second Rosette,” he grins like when he was a little boy and my mum brought him and Pete an ice cream.
“Seriously? Hunter, that’s brilliant!”
He shrugs, but I can see the pride under it. “Yeah. It’s been a slog. Worth it, though.”
“It’s a gorgeous place. You’ve done something really special with it.”
He glances at me then, and there’s a pause. The kind where something else wants to be said but neither of us says it.
Before it can stretch into something awkward, a low voice up ahead breaks the silence.
“Bernard, love. Come on. Don’t you start again.”
We round a bend and spot Mrs Higgins, bent at the waist, coaxing her beagle, who is flopped on the path like he’s been through some kind of emotional trauma. His ears twitch but otherwise, he’s absolutely committed to playing dead.
“Is he sulking?” I ask.
Mrs Higgins sighs. “He’s protesting. He thinks the hill’s too steep. It’s barely a rise.”
Hunter laughs. “Want us to carry him?”
“You’d have more luck carrying the bench,” she mutters, standing back up with a wince.
As if to prove her point, Bernard lets out a long, dramatic sigh... followed by an even longer, much less dignified fart.
The sound echoes against the hedgerow like a motorbike starting in slow motion.
Hunter immediately recoils. “Oh my—whatisthat?”
I wave in front of my face, already grimacing. “That, my friend, is a beagle with no shame.”
He backs up a step, choking through a laugh. “You’re not even flinching. That’s disturbing.”
“I’ve smelled worse.”
“I refuse to believe that.”
I grin. “Unfortunately, I remember quite clearly the time when I was eleven, and you and Peter were eight, and he held me down while you farted in my face.”
He stops dead, eyes wide with horror. “That did not happen.”
“It absolutely did.”
He bursts out laughing, full and unfiltered, doubling over slightly. “That’s slander.”
“Swear on your fancy hotel, Hunter. I dare you.”
He can’t. He’s still laughing too hard.
