Page 148 of Never Tell Lies

I admired Riley. I admired his work and his dedication to the craft we both loved, but right now I wanted to grab him by the lapels and shake the hell out of him. He’d listened in silence as I presented my plans to him, waiting patiently until I’d finished, at which point he’d pulled the file in front of him and begun to dissect my work in complete silence. He’d been looking over my plans for a full fifteen minutes and he’d given me nothing. Hejust left me on the edge of my seat, completely oblivious to how close he was to being strangled.

Eventually, a million years later, he sat back in his chair.

“Well,” he said thoughtfully.Well?Wellwhat?‘Well terrible, Lola, get out of my sight and never go near a pansy ever again?’Or ‘Well, excellent work you green-fingered goddess!’

I inched forward in my seat, my hands twisting in my lap as he took a casual sip of his tea whilst still perusing my work.

After a moment, he took off his thick-rimmed glasses and started cleaning them on the corner of his shirt.

“This is good, Lo.” My gaze snapped up to meet his, searching his face for any sign that he was mocking me. “I mean, really good. Well done.”

“Don’t you play with me, Fitzpatrick. If it’s not good enough I want to know,” I said with all seriousness, but he only laughed.

“It’s beyond good enough.” He picked up my sketch for the centre piece and raised an eyebrow. “I like the name too.‘The Evergarden.’It’s pretty.”

“Thanks, I thought it seemed…apt.”

“That it does.” He sat in thoughtful silence for a moment. “Has the big man seen these yet?”

“Only a skeletal version. I wanted to show you first.” I took a sip of my tea. “Do you think he’ll like them?”

“Aye. It’s a unique design but it will blend with the rest of the aesthetic quite well. It’s not too stiff which is perfect. There’s a reason I chose to give you a more secluded plot to work on instead of one of the entrance gardens. The plot is private, a secret, so it makes sense that your design is private too, personal really. Very, very romantic.” The look in his eye told me that he knew this garden was all about Alfie. “Though, I’m not sure the boss is gonna get it straight off. You might need to talk him through it a bit,” he said with a grin.

“I seem to be talking him through a lot these days,” I mumbled, then jerked my gaze back up to his. “I’m sorry, Riley, I really shouldn’t have said that.”

He just shrugged. “It’s fine. He’s a very private person, Lola. Don’t take it personally if he isn’t letting you in.”

“I try not to,” I said, then remembered something that I’d wanted to mention to him. “He did talk to me about Never Tell yesterday.” I watched Riley closely, trying to gauge his reaction. I was curious to know how involved Riley had been in that world.

“What did he tell you?” There was a hint of something in his voice. Concern? Fear? I wasn’t sure.

“Nothing much. Just that he sold most of his shares to his Tellers and one of them runs it now. He said he doesn’t go to any of the parties any more.”

He nodded and took off his glasses again and began cleaning them with another corner of his shirt. It was the kind of thing a tweed-clad librarian might do. Once again, I wondered how he and Alfie could be friends. They were worlds apart from one another. “That’s true.”

“Did you ever…?” My unfinished question hung in the air.

“Yeah, but I can’t talk to you about it. It’s against club rules. Besides, Alfie wouldn’t like it. But I’ll just say, those parties weren't really the place for anyone with a moral compass.” A shiver ran up my spine at his words. The things Alfie must have done were so alien to me I couldn’t even imagine them.

“Do you think he misses it?” I asked and he paused, his expression thoughtful. I could see he was torn between helping me fill in the blanks and protecting his friend’s privacy.

“I reckon he misses the freedom,” he said eventually.

“Then why give it up to run his father’s company when he hates it so much?”

“Lola, you know I’m not going to talk to you about that.” His tone was gentle but firm.

“Of course, I’m sorry I asked.” I wanted to ask him about Alfie’s family too. I hadn’t forgotten about Elliot’s reluctance to call them when Alfie had hurt himself.

“Is there something else?”

“Nothing you can help me with without breaking your vow of secrecy. I’m just worried about him. He acts so strangely sometimes. It scares me and I don’t know what to do or who to talk to about it.”

“Well, I can’t speak on that but what I can say is the other night at the bar, when you disappeared with your friend after she announced you might be leaving with her and not him. Well, I’ve known him a long time, nearly twenty years, and I’ve never seen him look like that before.”

“Like what?”

“Scared, love. He looked scared. Are you really not going to leave with him?”