Page 23 of A Colourful Country Escape
‘And you’re big on consistency.’
Was that a dig? ‘What do you mean?’
The twitchy smile was back now, at both edges this time. ‘Your nose stud always matches your mascara.’
She touched her nose, a little self-consciously. Her theme was blue today, although she hadn’t purposely coordinated with the fortune cookies.
‘It adds a bit of anticipation to the day, wondering what your latest colour scheme will be,’ said Ben.
Lexie pursed her lips, unimpressed he was finding such sport in her careful accessorising. What was wrong with having a bit of order among the chaos? Well, she could addobservantto the list of things she was learning about His Standoffish Highness. Along withdidn’t smell badandeyes that looked a bit like little globes, now she came to think of it.
Lexie reached across the table and collected her fortune cookie, pulling it out and throwing the offending blue packet towards the bin. She’d always loved the messages in these things, but she felt silly reading hers in front of Ben.
‘Go on. I’m intrigued.’ He nodded to the sugary shell in her hands. ‘What’s your fortune? Will you get your own way, or not?’
She let out a huff. ‘I don’t know. What does yours say?’
He took the other packet and opened it, tidying the shiny blue foil into his pocket. They held their shells, not taking their eyes off each other, as though guarding against cheating.
‘Ladies first,’ said Ben.
‘We’ll open them together.’
They cracked their shells, and Lexie wondered what she was even wishing for. She wanted her own way about the home makeovers, branding and going to the conference; but a weekend with narky Ben? On the other hand, it might be better than hanging around here, waiting for his mother to rock up and rollock her.
With a mutual nod they opened their hands, uncurled the tiny slips of paper and read aloud.
‘Alone you are weak, but together you are strong,’ they said in unison.
‘Are they meant to say the same thing?’ asked Ben.
‘Not really. But, you know. It could happen.’ Lexie believed in signs, but she wasn’t going to be laughed at. ‘So I guess we’re meant to go to London.’
‘Because a piece of mass-produced paper says so? Hardly. Anyway, it’s getting late.’ He gathered up his paperwork, not looking at her now. Was he in a mood again? It was always so hard to tell. He was antisocial, and hanging around with her for a weekend was never going to be his thing. But it was for work; maybe he’d come around.
Lexie stood up from the table and busied herself with tidying away the plates.
‘I’ll take those to the dishwasher.’
‘No need; I’ll manage.’ She dropped them onto the draining board, noticing that neither of them had eaten much with all the tension of the evening.
He held up his hands in surrender.
As he bent to retrieve the foil from her fortune cookie and place it in the bin, an idea struck her. Colour schemes. Consistency. Together we are strong. A concept for the first blog post was beginning to quiver to life. She would draft it tonight while the thoughts were still fresh, and hit publish on the website while the beer was giving her courage. It was time to get this ball rolling.
They said their stilted goodbyes and she hurried him out of the door before her muse grew wings and disappeared. And he definitely wasn’t that muse. Was he?
Chapter 12
Lexie was sitting in her camper van feeling like a girl on fire.
She’d survived her first Friday night meeting with Ben. And, despite all the awkwardness of the encounter, it had fuelled her imagination for Carrington Paints’ first blog post. She’d worked well into the night, finalising the website, writing the blog and pressing publish. It had been both terrifying and exhilarating, and she was buzzing on double-strength tea and stale doughnuts as she worked to promote the blog post.
Ben had surely given her a greenish light to get on with things last night. Anyway, this was her domain. He’d probably never even look at the website again. There was no harm in getting on with her job. She passed off the strange internal jittering as elation and excess caffeine.
Lexie pulled back Penny’s dog-eared net curtain and smiled out at the sunshine. Yes, it was a beautiful day. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
She looked back at her laptop and smiled at the stats. The blog post was doing well. She’d been posting it all over social media and drumming up excitement. It was driving traffic to the new website, and people were staying to have a look around. And more importantly, they were being inspired to buy paint. Those precious numbers would hopefully keep Ben off her back if he launched into another of his doubt-fests.
