I laugh. I lie my cello and bow down gently, then stand and walk over to flop down next to her on the couch. She turns so that she can watch me.
“Flattery will get you everywhere, you know,” I say.
“Is it flattery if it’s true?”
“Difficult question. I do, however, think you’re being way to generous with your praise, Robs.”
“Lexi. God’s own truth. I’ve got all the pieces I’ve ever heard you play on my Mac. None of those cellists can touch you for the emotion you put into your music.”
Say what you like about Robyn, one thing she does have is a good ear for technical ability. I feel gratified that she thinks I’m that good, even if the truth is far from it. I can hold my own but I don’t have the dedication to be great.
She reaches out and wraps her arm around me, and I let her pull me in against her. I love the feeling of her arms around me; Robs may be the younger of us but being like this with her always makes me feel like I’m sixteen. Her skin is slightly sticky from dried sweat, and her natural scent is strong… and suddenly, just like that, I want her.
I lean my head on her shoulder.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Just gone eleven.”
“I want to try to sort out our garden a bit today. I’m sure we could grow some tomatoes if we put them in pots in the sunny corner.”
“I’m all dirty already, need me to be manual labour?” she asks.
“If you would, that would be lovely. I’ll reward you richly.”
“I like the sound of that,” she replies. “Are we talking pat-on-the-back types of rewards? Or something more… generous?”
I raise my right hand and gently trail circles on her right thigh.
“More along the lines of half my kingdom type of reward,” I murmur.
“Only half your kingdom?” Robs answers with a smile.
All of it, all of me, always, is what I want to say. I guess my face changes because she stops smiling and raises a puzzled eyebrow.
“Lexi?”
“Mm?”
“Are you ok?”
“It’s… yes. Yes, I think I’m ok.”
“Think, or know?”
“Think.”
She pulls slightly away from me, the better to meet my eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Just hoping I never… that I never lose you.”
“Alexis Julia Blake,” she says, as she pulls me hard against her. “Quite apart from anything else, I’d die if I were ever apart from you. I need you like the air I breathe.”
An ache builds in my chest. I try to answer, to say something, anything… but instead I find myself burying my face in her neck, desperately trying and failing to fight back the sobs, my eyes squeezed tightly closed.
“Lexi… what… Oh.”
I feel her shift, feel her arm under my legs, and the next thing I’m really aware of is that she’s scooped me up onto her lap and has locked her arms around me so that she can just hold me there against her.
Slowly the tremors ease. Robs, my angel, just strokes my hair and neck and back and lets me calm in my own time. She’s always known how to read me. Always known what to do for me. And right now, this is what I need; her as close to me as my own skin.
I never know what’s going to trigger this. Rain follows sunshine so quickly in my world. Mum always called me her storm-child, and would manage my moods with distractions. After I lost her things got tough.
I take a long, shuddering breath.
“Talk to me?” she says, quietly.
I swallow. The hurt has eased slightly, but I’m still on a knife edge.
“You never cry in front of me. What’s going on?” she urges me.
“Just… years worth of stuff slowly leaving. I think. I hadn’t realised how much I was carrying around with me. It’s… it’s only now that I feel safe that it’s coming out. Sorry.”
“Never apologise to me for needing to vent, ok?”
I say nothing. I feel her sigh, and she tightens her arms. “Tell you what,” she says. “You and I are going to do that bit of gardening work so that you can get some fresh air. Then I’m going to rub your back for you. Then I’m going to get you drunk. Then you’re going to talk to me about it… I mean, really talk about it.”
She gently lifts my chin. “Lexi?”
I sniff, and scrub my face, then open my eyes. Robs is frowning. I don’t like it when she frowns.
“Mm?” I manage.
“This is the bit where you say ‘That sounds lovely Robyn, I would love you to run your hands all over my body and get me drunk and seduce me.'”
I can’t help myself. I choke, then laugh helplessly. Robs grins at me. “Thought so. You minx.” she says.
“Can’t help what you do to me.”
Robs kisses me, once, then just holds me more.
“Better?” she asks, after a while
I make some sort of affirmative noise, and she helps me off her lap. Pity, I was enjoying both being on it and the brief interlude of not having to be an adult. Robyn stands and stretches, then offers me her hand. She pulls me up and into her embrace, giving me a crushing hug. When she releases me she gives me a playful slap on my bum. I snort, and scrub at my face again.
“I’m a mess, Robs,” I say, quietly.
“No. You’re just slightly bent, like I am,” she answers. Then she flushes and I smirk at the inadvertent pun she made. I love her; love the way she says the most hilariously inappropriate things at times.
“Sun’s out again,” she says, and I know she’s not talking about the weather. There’s nothing I can say right now in reply, so I just give her a peck on the cheek and a quiet, heartfelt “Thank you.”
—
Watching Robs digging soil in her running pants and a sports bra does a lot to lift my spirits.
It’s like my own soft-core porn movie, and I’m pretty sure this isn’t lost on her because she spends more time bending over than I’m sure is strictly necessary. Soon she’s covered in a light sheen of sweat again, and her hair is all over the place.
She’s put together four mismatched pots of soil for me, and raised them on old bricks in the sunny part of the kitchen garden. I’ve been amusing myself weeding the rest of the herbs, and so all I need to do is scatter some tomato seed and rake the soil over with my fingers. Robs brings me a watering can and I dampen everything down.
While I do that I have the opportunity to get some solid perving in. When I was at school we called lycra pants like the ones she’s wearing ‘Scandal pants’ – so tight you could see the lips moving.
And God, is Robyn only hot in them. I swear she’s got no spare weight on her; just supremely-toned thighs and a bum to die for. I bless my lucky stars that she’s not into guys, because if she was she’d have her pick of them. Instead, she’s with me… and I know I got the better bargain there.
She reaches out absently to scratch my back, and I smile a small smile at her. She’s been spending time outdoors in the good weather, and her freckles have darkened. They, coupled with the ponytail and her slim build, make her look even younger if that’s possible. She adjusts her sports bra unconsciously, and I find myself thinking about her breasts.
Suddenly, I realise I’m spilling water on myself. I squawk, and Robyn laughs at me.
“Caught you,” she says, smugly.
I give her a shamefaced look and hang my head. She laughs again, then steps in to wrap her arm around my waist and pull me against her. “I should start charging you per hour.”
“I’d pay, gladly,” I answer. “But I’d prefer to pay in kind…”
She takes the watering can from me and sets it aside. “Alexis Julia Blake, I do declare that you are a harlot.”
“Confessed, convicted, confined.” I sigh, offering my wrists. “Shackle me and drag me off to my punishment. What is my punishment, anyway?”
“Mm. Let me think about that and get back to you. Firstly, I need a shower, and then I seem to recall offering you a backrub.”
“You did. Silly girl. Major tactical blunder, that.”
“It’s all part of my cunning plan to get you naked.” she responds, deadpan.
“Oh, really?” I say, with a salacious grin. “Does that work with all the girls you try it on?”
“All of the ones I want to see naked, yes,” she returns.
I blush. God only knows why, she’s seen all of me already. She grins at my discomfort, enjoying the easy point she just scored. We tidy up the debris of our gardening, and Robs goes to shower while I throw together a Greek salad for lunch.
—
I set us places at our weather-ravaged plastic garden table and pour us both a glass of the half-finished bottle of chardonnay we opened last night. I sit down to wait, closing my eyes and enjoying the slight breeze and the sound of birdsong.
Robs takes her time, but it’s worth the wait. She’s dressed herself in a short blue and white cotton sundress. I give her an appreciative wolf-whistle and she strikes a pose for me in the open French doors. I mime taking a photo and she blows me a paparazzi kiss. Then she saunters out to join me.
“Hey, sexy,” I murmur as she sits down next to me.
“Hello, lover,” she returns with a smile. “Thanks for making lunch, Lexi. I’ll do dinner, ok?”
“Deal,” I answer. “Sorry, it’s pretty basic.”
“Looks good to me,” she says as she dishes for us. I take a sip of my wine and watch her.
Not for the first time, I find myself wishing I were a painter. I know that I will carry this picture of her sitting here in the dappled midday shade with me for the rest of my life. She’s in her element; strands of stray hair wafting gently, unselfconsciously eating a slice of cheese, unfocussed for now on guarding her grim battlements against the world outside.
My Robyn. My lighter half. I hope I’ve done right by her.