Page 28 of Date Knight (Roll for Romance #2)

The podcast was also a necessary distraction because I knew how easy it was to start thinking about Phil when my mind was unoccupied, and given that I didn’t have construction timelines to distract me or tarot cards to tell me what to think, I felt that topic was better left unexplored for the day.

I was about a quarter way around the pond when the digger’s air con gave out.

I had my water bottle with me, and Mum came to check on me and bring me a refill after an hour or so, but by lunchtime, I was so delirious that not even real-life murder could hold my attention.

Instead, my thoughts drifted first to Ethel, wondering what crystals I should source next from the website I used.

I was almost sure I’d become their biggest customer over the past couple of months.

And she needed a boost; this week they’d given her a hydrocortisone injection in her back, because apparently she’d started showing symptoms of arthritis there.

But of course, it wasn’t a very big leap at all from thinking about Ethel to thinking about Phil.

He’d seemed more anxious than usual this week.

I figured it was probably because of the festival coming up; yes, there were the costumes to finish, but I also knew he didn’t love leaving Ethel overnight, especially with her back hurting.

Or maybe he was stressed about the trip for the same reason I was: the sleeping arrangements.

I’d had Fatima send me the listing for the house they’d hired just a short walk from the festival, and I’d pored over it trying to figure out what the sleeping arrangements were.

There were two king beds and two superkings, and both the superkings could be unzipped to be two beds each.

I had already packed a bag with single fitted sheets so we could discreetly take the bed apart, but I didn’t even know for sure if we’d be in the one remaining superking after Fatima and Grey split one.

Surely Chloe would be in a king on her own, which should have meant there was a fifty/fifty chance we’d get the one that zipped apart, but I also knew Phil had planned to be alone when they’d booked it, so did that mean we’d have a smaller bed?

Not that a kingsize was small, but that extra width made a huge difference when I thought about spending two entire nights next to Phil.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to share a bed with him.

No, the problem was that, on a deep, physical level, I very much did want to.

It was nearly all I could think about, and when I did…

well, let’s just say imagining that had kept me busy more than one night in the last week, and I’d made good use of the memory of him kneeling down to take my measurements.

But I was almost certain Phil didn’t feel the same.

Not only had he proven five years ago that he didn’t feel the same way then, there had been plenty of opportunities this summer for him to make a move if he’d wanted to.

And every time our performative PDA escalated, I felt him clam up like it made him uncomfortable, like last weekend at the arcade with Chloe and Lauren.

But still, I wasn’t imagining the chemistry we had, was I?

I hadn’t dated many people, but I’d been with enough to know what good chemistry felt like, and I’d never had it with anyone as strongly as I had it with Phil.

Every time we were around one another, it was like we were magnetised.

Like we couldn’t possibly not brush against one another, or stand that little bit closer.

Even before this summer, when we’d yelled at each other about stupid things or gotten overly competitive at a family barbecue, there had always been an electricity between us; an undercurrent that I couldn’t have ignored even if I’d wanted to.

And honestly, I didn’t want to anymore, especially as I got to see new sides of him.

He’d always been Jack’s funny best friend to me, and though I’d known on some level that he was a nice guy, I’d seen firsthand all summer that he was the most selfless person I’d ever met.

He put the people he cared about first, and he worked tirelessly to take care of them.

I’d seen his practical side right alongside his goofy side.

For the first time, I felt like I knew him as an entire person.

And unfortunately for me, I liked that entire person more than ever.

And yeah, okay, he was hotter than ever with that goddamned beard. He’d been growing his hair out for the festival, too, giving him an unkempt look that was unfortunately really doing it for me.

So if we happened to be sharing a bed at the festival, would that be the worst thing? Would it be horrible if his hands found me in between the sheets, or mine him, and if our bodies drew together in the darkness? I could almost feel his breath on my skin, his weight on top of me, his?—

I snapped myself out of my heat-fuelled delirium when I realised I’d been digging in the same spot for a good few minutes, creating a hole nearly a metre deep.

I switched off the digger– the rumble of the engine wasn’t exactly helping me calm down.

Jesus, I needed to get laid– by Phil or someone else– stat.

Clearly I was a liability. The digger needed a warning: DO NOT OPERATE WHEN HORNY.

So far, I’d managed to bridge the gap since Chris and I had broken up with just my little blue vibrator and a fantasy of whatever Henry Cavill role– Geralt of Rivia, Clark Kent, Gus March-Phillipps– did it for me in that moment.

Now though, it seemed the proximity of our fake dating– which was still very much fake , I reminded myself– had made it so I had no filter when it came to my thoughts about Phil.

Every time I closed my eyes at night, I was inundated with the million and one dream scenarios I’d concocted over the years, which I had tried so hard to bury after he’d rejected me five years ago.

The last thing I needed now was getting into bed with him after a few too many meads and a day of blurring the lines between reality and fantasy.

I pulled myself together before switching the digger back on, just long enough to replace the dirt in the hole I’d created, taking care to tamp it down well. Then I turned it off again and climbed out, the midsummer breeze hitting me and giving me instant relief.

I stepped back to admire my handiwork. The pond wasn’t very gently sloped on one side, but I figured that was probably okay as long as the wildlife had some easy ways in. If not, Mum would tell me and I could fix it. But first, I needed to get some food in me.

And maybe douse myself with cold water, based on how dire things had just gotten. Where was an ice-cold reservoir when I needed it most?

I grabbed my water and left the digger where it was as I walked back towards the coach. There I found a woman who must have been at least Ethel’s age hanging out the side of a work van, handing out cartons of food from a cold bag.

“Herbivore or omnivore?” she asked me as I walked up.

“Omnivore’s fine.”

She handed me a brown box with a napkin on top, and I thanked her and walked around to where people were congregating around the trucks.

I saw Morgan and Fatima sat in the back of one of the now-empty flatbeds with their own boxes– Morgan’s brown like mine, Fatima’s white– and walked over to join them.

I climbed into the bed, then opened my lunch to find a ham and cheese sandwich and some salted crisps.

Chloe joined us a moment later with her own identical box, looking even more exhausted than she had earlier.

“Your mum was very thoughtful assigning me to the bee group, but I really hate those bee houses.”

“Really?” Morgan asked through a mouthful of crisps. “Why?”

“They’re the same as those bug hotels you can get with all the tubes, and they always get full of spiders. And I don’t like holes anyway.”

“Honestly, this is gruelling work,” Morgan said, looking down at the dirt under her nails, then ignoring it to reach into her box for her sandwich. “Maybe we should run off into the forest to get out of this afternoon.”

“Oooooh, and live off the land and start a coven,” Chloe said, a bit too excitedly. “Amy can teach us witchcraft.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” I admitted, “but I can do a mean tarot reading.”

We did ultimately get assigned to another task for the afternoon, but Mum must have seen how exhausted we were– embarrassing really, considering how unfazed the older volunteers seemed– as she assigned all four of us to measure for the deer fencing that would be installed to help protect the new tree shoots.

I was almost certain it wasn’t a real job, and that she already had the measurements she claimed to need, but I was grateful, especially since it just required walking around in a specific route with a measuring wheel.

Plus, there was just one wheel, so we got to stay together the whole time.

We started the walk with Morgan detailing the fantasy book she’d just finished in excruciating detail; even if I’d wanted to read it, and it did sound good, I didn’t need to anymore.

“You ever notice that none of those love interests are blonde?” Fatima asked. “Kind of goes against the shadow daddy aesthetic, I guess.”

“Oooh, wonder how Jack feels about that,” I said, then instantly regretted it; nothing like your boyfriend’s little sister yucking your literary yum, right?

But Morgan just winked. “Hey, my book boyfriends are my business. What Jack doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

“How are you guys by the way?” Fatima asked, and again I watched Morgan for any flick of her eyes towards me, or any awkwardness, but she just smiled.

“We’re really good,” she said, her voice almost dreamy. “I’m excited about going travelling together this autumn.”