The Party Starts at Midnight

And so now he, Leo, could finally think. Finally try and work out what had happened back there in the folly. And what he made of it all.

Abby had said she didn’t expect him to say or do anything, but how could he have? She hadn’t given him a chance. Not that he’d have known what to say even if she had. He’d been poleaxed by her revelation. Unable to think, let alone speak.

But now, with the tension seeping from his body, he could. In a minute. When his head cleared. Not that it seemed to be doing so.

As his muscles burned Leo gritted his teeth. Maybe going through it all out loud instead might make it easier to understand. Maybe his brother might provide the insight he so badly lacked. At least the darkness would provide some sort of protection. He didn’t know if he’d be contemplating this in

broad daylight. He was going to feel pretty stripped as it was. But he had to try something because he was driving himself mad.

After one last pull, he leaned down on the oars, and levered them up out of the water, leaving the boat at the whim of the breeze.

‘The problem is Abby,’ he said eventually, the words sounding oddly loud in the silence of the night.

‘I wondered if it might be.’

‘Things have been...I don’t know exactly...but, well, developing, I suppose. Not without hiccups, but maybe going somewhere. Slowly.’

‘No kidding,’ said Jake, his wide grin very visible in the moonlight and very annoying.

Leo scowled. ‘It’s not remotely amusing.’

Jake’s grin faded. Sort of. ‘No. Sorry.’

‘So half an hour ago I met her in the folly. I thought she was going to tell me she was up for a fling but instead she told me she loved me.’

There was a moment’s silence, and then came Jake’s soft, ‘Ah.’

Leo frowned. ‘Why did she do that?’

Jake shrugged and lifted his hands palm up in the ‘beats the hell out of me’ kind of way. ‘Who knows? But she’s a woman and shifting the goalposts just when you think you know where they are, asking for more when you think what you’re giving them is plenty, does tend to be a speciality of theirs.’

‘Tonight I really thought we were on the same wavelength,’ said Leo, shaking his head in bafflement, ‘but you know, I don’t think we’ve ever been on the same wavelength.’

‘Doesn’t sound like it. But then what man ever is?’

‘She’s big into emotion.’

‘And you’re not.’

‘No,’ he said, waiting for the customary shudder, which oddly enough didn’t come. Although maybe it wasn’t that odd because hadn’t he sort of opened up a bit this evening? And hadn’t it been, well, not too bad? Hadn’t he had a glimpse of how much richer his life could be if he let himself feel, truly feel, and kind of liked it?

‘So, at the risk of sounding all touchy-feely,’ said Jake, thankfully cutting into his thoughts because, given that they represented a one-eighty-degree change to the way he’d lived perfectly happily for the last five years, they were faintly disturbing ones, ‘she’s told you how she feels about you, but how do you feel about her?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘All right, then. How do you feel in general?’

‘Right now?’

Jake nodded.

‘Pissed off. Confused. Like I don’t know which way is up any more.’

‘It all seems pretty clear to me.’

‘Does it? Really? Because I don’t know what the hell’s going on.’

‘Come on, Leo,’ said Jake, a little impatiently. ‘Use your brain and work it out.’