“I didn’t need you to pick it up.” Sid recovered and dangled the spade from his tired fingers. “You’re the one manhandling me for no fucking reason.”
“You want me to let you fall?”
“I wasn’t going to fall.”
Without warning, Anna stepped back.
Sid wavered, catching himself on the drystone wall with a split second to spare. “Dick.”
“You wish.”
“Is that an innuendo? Because if it is, it’s freaky as hell.”
Anna grinned. “I know, right? But, no, I’m not throwing penis innuendos at my brother. My point is you wish I was a dick instead of me asking you a perfectly valid question. Here’s another one for you: why are you still so difficult about this?”
“I’m not—” Sid stopped. He could bicker with Anna all night long and nothing would change. She was usually right, and he was usually wrong. “Whatever. Why are you actually here if you’re not tapping Mitch from security?”
“Do I need to think up a reason, or is checking up on you okay?”
“I don’t need you to check up on me.”
“Okay, then we’ll go with a fictitious invitation to dinner next week.”
“You could’ve texted me that.”
“And wait a week for you to read it? No thanks. I’m impatient.”
Sid couldn’t argue with that either. Anna had always been the storm to his lazy Sunday sunshine, though these days, she was a hurricane and he was the muddy puddle left behind.
Puddles aren’t bad. You built a whole garden out of them once.
Edible pond plants.
Frogs.
Dragonflies.
Sid clung to the positive and chucked Anna a bone. “What are you cooking for this fictitious dinner? Or are you wanting me to do it for you?”
Anna snorted. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? So you could complain the whole time?”
“All I want is a quiet life. If I have to cook for you to get it, I’m game.”
“Works for me.” Anna stretched up and planted a kiss on Sid’s cheek. “But I won’t hold you to it. You can always pretend you’re busy with work if you’re not up to it.”
“I am busy with work.”
“You won’t be next week. I heard you’re getting an assistant.”
“Where did you—never mind. I don’t want to know your pillow talk, but tell Mitch from me he has a big fucking mouth.”
“I’d have found out eventually. And I think it’s a good thing.”
Sid’s easy grin slipped. “Lucky you.”
“No, lucky you. Your employer loves you so much they’ll do anything to help you out. It’s not like that for everyone who has your—”
“All right, all right. I don’t need a fucking lecture.”
“You don’t need to say fuck every other sentence to be heard, either.”
“That right?” Sid’s tone turned dry.
Anna poked him. “I know you, remember? So stop hiding from me. Or at least do the rest of us a favour and go on Grindr to get yourself laid. Dry spells don’t suit you.”
She left without waiting for Sid to think up a response that didn’t involve reminding her that he was lucky that his dick still worked . . . most of the time. Heh. Whatever. Anna was his best friend, but even on a good day, he could do without discussing his cock with his little-big sister.
He couldn’t deny she’d planted a seed, though, and the distraction wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
Sid returned his spade to the tool shed, then braved the walk across the manor grounds to his bungalow behind the main house.
Inside, he found his long-neglected laptop perched precariously on top of his weed tin. Coincidence? Or had the man he’d been this morning had better intentions than the wobbly-legged grouch he’d dragged home? Either way, the laptop held the sinister weight of the emails he hadn’t opened, much less read, and he couldn’t ignore it forever.
Score. Leaving the weed tin—for now—he took a shower, scrubbed a day of mud and dirt from his skin, before drying off and injecting himself with the medication that kept his worst symptoms at bay. His left leg still buzzed, but a fat smoke would help with that . . . after he’d opened his emails.
And eaten dinner. Self-care was a discipline Sid had yet to completely master, but he’d learned the hard way that low blood sugar made him want to die, and food prep was his BFF at the weekend when he’d smoked enough weed to stimulate his unreliable appetite.
He nuked a bowl of vegan chilli and took it to the couch. Eating it gave him a five-minute reprieve from opening the laptop, but eventually his time was up.
Sighing, he set his empty bowl aside and reached for the old Dell machine that barely detected Wi-Fi. The keyboard was dusty and scattered with dry grass from whenever he’d last used it. He brushed it clean and squinted at the screen as it booted up, fighting the blur in his left eye, a battle he ultimately lost as it had been there for eighteen months and showed no sign of going anywhere.
At least it’s not getting worse, eh?
Sid absorbed the optimism and opened his email.
His inbox was ridiculous. Most of it was bullshit he deleted, but with tenuous eyesight, it still took half an hour to root out the stuff he’d actually have to read.
Ninety per cent of that was from the press office and weeks out of date. Deadlines missed, events that had passed Sid by. One day, his prize-winning wild lupin display wouldn’t be enough to excuse him from this kind of shit, but he clung onto the hope that he wasn’t there yet.
The last two emails were from Benjamin. Both had attachments. Fucking awesome.
Sid scanned the text of the first message, skipping over the reasoning Benjamin had used to justify hiring a babysitter to keep Sid company. The rational side of him knew he was lucky to have employers who cared and that the garden deserved an extra pair of hands. Then he imagined having to explain the kooky habits he’d developed to manage his ever-growing collection of weird and wonderful limitations, and a hot flush crept up his neck.
A buzz.
A shiver.
A river of acid that raced down his spine.
Sid adjusted his posture, moving his body like delicate glass, searching for the alchemic point where he could just be. Some days he never found it, but it was within reach today, and the fire ants having a party in his nerves went back to sleep.
He opened the second email.
Sid,
Seeing as you ignored my first email on this matter, I’m going to take your silence as agreement. With that in mind, I’ve consulted the trust, and we’ve gone ahead and started the process to recruit your assistant.
Years ago, you may remember that you argued the case for the trust to employ less of my “toff student mates” (your words, not mine) and grant opportunities to local people from disadvantaged backgrounds. I’m paraphrasing, obviously, but I think that’s what you meant that night in the Red Lion when you called me a posh cu*t with a silver spoon up my arse.
Either way, the trust took your advice. Your new assistant will be joining us from the rehabilitation scheme at Manchester Prison on April 13th.
Details attached,
Benjamin
Sid slow blinked, running his scratchy gaze over the email again, but nothing changed. Not that the start date was a surprise, but the rest of it? Sid tried to picture the stuffy board of trustees who controlled the finances of Wilburn Manor agreeing to hire newly released convicts and failed. Spectacularly.