speak is going to be fired back at you with spite.
I’d forgotten a lot of things.
We talked about work, and our distantly connected social group, and snippets of good in our time together. Painting orc figures and repotting aloe vera and the crazy time we trekked around all-night emergency dentists when she bust a tooth on toffee.
We talked about everything but what I’d done to her. It was aching in my ribs, the desperation to slam it out there on the table and tell the bitter truth and beg forgiveness, but I daren’t. Not with her smile so sweet and her message so clear.
She didn’t want to know.
Maybe she never would.
She cleared the plates before I could protest, finding the dishwasher and loading it up. She downed the rest of her juice and gathered her blouse from the counter top, where the slices of mushrooms were still scattered.
“Maybe you can try thick socks and some of my boots,” I suggested, but she laughed at me.
“I’ll wipe my heels down from a bit of mud, Lucas. I’m sure they’ll survive.”
I wasn’t, and I told her so, but she was giggling determined.
“It’ll be my mission,” she said. “To navigate the swamplands in my work shoes.”
“Whatever you want,” I responded. “You can have one of my coats, at least.”
We got ready upstairs, standing in harmony at the bathroom sink. She used my toothbrush after me and bundled her hair up in a band from her handbag. I found her a warm sweater that swallowed her up and she looked thoroughly swamped in my coat. And it was cute. So fucking cute it warmed me right through.
I whistled the dogs from their room and they bounded on ahead and out into the truck. Anna’s heels were ridiculous, but I couldn’t tell her all over again, so kept my mouth shut.
“I’ve left my phone in the house,” she told me when I’d pulled out of the drive. “I sent a load of messages, but I don’t want to hear anything back from the world today.”
“Ditto,” I said. “Mine’s on silent.”
I parked up at the pull in at the start of the hillside track and it was already muddy as we set off. The dogs bounded off into the distance and I stepped on firm, but Anna was already a picture, taking such neat little steps around the puddles that the grin burnt my cheeks.
“Sure we can’t head back to the house and get you into some wellies?” I paused. “Or even into town to get you some?”
She shook her head pretty sharp at that. “No, thanks. I’ll manage just fine.”
Once again she was being insanely optimistic, but she always had been a stubborn little minx, so I let her be. We kept going, mud turning to grass but still squelching underfoot. She breathed deep and commented on the view all the way, at the surrounding hills, and the woodlands and the villages down below.
It gave me an appreciation of it all through fresh eyes, and it was a powerful thing, gaining that sense of life around a place I loved so much but saw so often.
I knew we were coming to the swampy ascent before we reached it. I told her we could turn around, but she ploughed on regardless, heels already caked in mud. Bill and Ted were waiting for us at the top, and they were covered in mud too, tongues lolling excited as they leapt around and watched us approach.
“We can stop,” I said again, but she shook her head again.
“I can do it, I’ll be careful.”
She started laughing as she took her first step into the heart of it. Her heel sank in deep and squelched loud, her teeter becoming a slippery stumble before I reached out and grabbed her steady.
I adored the giggle that came out of her. “It seems your idea of mud and mine are two very different things.”
I was laughing along with her. “Maybe bring your wellies next time.”
Her eyes were straight on mine. “Next time? That’s not focusing on the present.”
“Cut it out,” I said. “There will be a next time. I’ll have you slopping around this path in better footwear, just like I’ll be taking your ass on the kitchen floor all over again.”
She didn’t argue, just took another tentative step into the mud bath. I kept hold of her arm, but I was squelching too. I’m not sure whether it was the mud or the laughter that made me slide around alongside her, and