Laurel drooped. She was absolutely done with today, and she knew her older brother could see.
‘Why don’t you go and get changed, and then go home,’ Jack said gently as Nate picked up the shovel.
‘Jack, I—’
‘And before you say you can’t,’ he interrupted. ‘You absolutely can. As Managing Partner of this farm, I have decreed the rest of the day as “Laurel’s Day Off”.’
Jack wasn’t really Managing Partner at all, he was Head of Farming and partner in the limited company. They were two separate things, but Laurel had given up telling him.
‘Okay, fine. I’ve got nothing else to do anyway. I’m like a spare wheel this afternoon,’ Laurel moaned.
God, she was pitiful today. Nate Daley had completely thrown her off her well-constructed path and it had turned her into some pathetic, whiny thing that she didn’t recognise. What she needed was a large glass of white wine and to wallow in a veritable waterfall of rice pudding.
‘Hey.’ Jack put his arm over her shoulder, and Nate looked anywhere but at them. ‘You alright?’
Laurel nodded. ‘Yeah, I’m fine, Jack. I’m just having a moment.’
‘That’s alright, you’re allowed to have a moment. You’re not superwoman, yeah?’ Laurel nodded again and tucked her head against her brother. ‘I’ll get this shit sorted and I’ll mind the farm. I have been doing it since I was sixteen.’
And there it was.
The subtle dig that he knew better than her, that he could run the farm single-handedly and didn’t need her at all. That he didn’t approve of all the changes she’d made by diversifying and ensuring that they actually had a business, rather than yet another failing family farm that cost more than it made. He even still called it Fletcher’s Farm when it had been rebranded as Little Willow Farm for about five years now.
Laurel sighed. There was a sliver of her that hated what she’d done, prostituting her generations old family home with petting zoos and cafes and a windmill with a flower arch for wedding photographs. But if that’s what it took so they stillhadtheir home, then that’s what Laurel would do.
That’s what she’d promised her mother she would do, and she would sacrifice her own hopes and dreams to do it.
‘Look after the boys, Laurel,’ her mother had said, lying there, pale and thin. ‘Look after them.’
And she was doing her best.
Nate
Jack showed Nate to the bunkhouse after finding a farmhand, who had been hiding from Laurel, to sort the car park. Nate didn’t blame him.
He was right. This ‘bunkhouse’ was not going to be the nicest place to live for the next few weeks. Or it could be months, depending. There was no timescale on things like this. Well, unless the university recalled him.
Nate had given the double room to a couple of postgrads who were thinking of moving in together (right, have fun with that), and the tiny apartment (which was essentially a bedroom and kitchen diner area connected to the main kitchen area) went to a couple who actuallydidlive together. As the only senior member of staff, he could have demanded it, but it seemed a bit unfair. Especially when there were bunk beds available.
He’d always wanted bunk beds as a kid, but being an only child, had no one to share them with. Bunk beds at thirty-four? Sharing with a group of undergrads? No thanks. He’d have to rethink staying on the weekends.
The group of friends that he’d clung onto since university were scattered. Jess and Owen only lived about an hour and a half away, but he couldn’t impose on them every weekend. Paul was in France on a dig, so his house was free, but he shared with three people Nate didn’t know, so that wouldn’t work if he wanted his own space. That would be just swapping one shared place for another.
That left Alex. Now, Alex was great, his best friend since early undergraduate days, but Alex was... well, Alex. He was flighty, impulsive and (okay, he would say it) immature. Nate had grown up over the last ten years, carved out an academic career where he could still use his field skills but didn’t have to be traipsing the globe, unless he wanted to. What he wanted in life had changed.
But Alex? Alex hadn’t changed. Alex was living in a one bedroomed apartment in Oxford (which was fine, obviously), but he still behaved like he was twenty-two, and he really wasn’t.
He had a good job at the British Archaeological Society, but Alex always seemed to want what everyone else had. He’d even asked Nate if it was okay if he asked Lucia out after they’d been broken up a year or so. Go for it pal, Nate had said. It really hadn’t bothered him, he was done. Lucia’s lustre had lost its shine, and anyway her and Alex were more suited anyway.
But still, come on man.
It wasn’t that Alex was in desperate, world-changing love with Lucia, it was that she was everything that he wanted to be, and perhaps some of her shine would rub off on him.
So no, he couldn’t be bothered with playing obscure Yes records until two in the morning, going to shitty gigs of ‘the next best thing’, and hanging out with Alex’s friends who were all ten years younger than them.
No thanks. The shared bunkhouse it was. It wouldn’t be that bad, would it? Perhaps a hotel on weekends.
Jack leaned in the doorway, assessing Nate.
