auggie: bring me back some scottish heather honey please x

angie: good morning to you too :)

auggie: good morning! :D scottish heather honey, please! :D

angie: is that tween for i miss you

auggie: it's tween for i need an organic, non-fat sweetener (and i miss you a lil bit)

auggie: how's the weather up there?

angie: shit – don't know how the scots deal with it

angie: miss u more munchkin :p

auggie: 🥺 💞 🍯

Mental note: find Scottish Heather honey somewhere in the Cotswolds.

I mean, it's half true... At least that's thought I comfort myself with as I slide my phone back into my pocket. I do miss her... but this weather's a beauty. The bouquet-ball sun has floated its way up again, and its low enough to make the topiary a shamrock-green under its rays, but high enough that I didn't need to take my jumper this morning.

Eric's still asleep, all tuckered out from an evening of "drinking his defeat", as Lolly called it; a shot of the good stuff for every winning goal she scored against him. Somehow, she turns goading into a good time, and shameless arrogance into allure – I don't know how she does it. In that sense I couldn't do much but sit on the arm of his chair and peck the back of his neck every time he made that yeurgh sound you make when you drink alcohol that tastes like bad medicine and liquorice, but on the 5th tiny glass, Lolly's raking honey eyes turned to me, and made my throat dry.

You're not going to let your beau swallow his penalty all on his own, are you, Jelly? Eric said I really didn't have to, but when she put it like that, squeezing my eyes shut and letting her pour it down my throat made sense; the burn as it ran down, however – that put things in perspective. But he watched, enrapt, with an open mouth, and when Lolly cheered and her girls giggled when I kissed him right after, with the taste of liquorice lingering, I felt... like some kind of party girl enchantress, under all the eyes and the low evening lights.

Seconds? Lolly swirled the dark liquid in the shot glass, and something in what she said snapped Eric out of the trance - alright, Lolly, I think you've given her enough of a taste.

For today, she'd laughed, before she tipped it down her throat and opened her mouth wide to show her pink tongue to the girls watching her with eager eyes. All gone.

Ugh, God, I sound naïve. Whatever.

It's 8am now, 8:12 exactly, and Lolly isn't the Macklin in my head anyway – it's Kitty, Eric's mum. I thought I'd be able to get her out of there if I went walking on the grounds, but now I'm just freaking out about meeting Eric's mum from further away.

This place really is miles from ...anything. At least it feels that way after walking for 7 minutes and not coming across a single neighbour or stray cat or roaming football from some boys next door. It just seems like too isolated a place for happy people to inhabit; although, maybe you don't need neighbours when you've got people waiting on you hand and foot and a social life at the country club that doesn't begin until you walk in.

A mellow, though insistent, clearing of the throat grabs my attention, makes me jump, and I swivel in its direction, half-expecting it to be Eric's mum materialised, with crossed arms and a judgy stare. Instead, it's a hooded back. 'The back' is sat picking at grass, pulling out perfectly planted patches from their roots and leaving little lumps of soil in their place. I can't see a face, but the nails are painted black, the Dr. Martens are black too, and sturdy, and the and the jeans are light in colour, loose and tattered. Something about the back feels... kindred.

"Is defacing property a hobby of yours?" I ask, teasing.

Without any sign of startling, 'the back' turns, and has a face, sort of. The hood's obscuring most features, but his eyes are light and amused, his nose is straight and strong, like a tree trunk, and his lips are curled into a tentative smirk of a smile. He gives me a once-over, before turning around and scoffing, still picking at the ground.

"Isn't it mental that people can claim ownership of literal grass?" Ooh, how anarchist.

He doesn't ask like he wants an answer or an opinion, but I think he's sort of right. We're stood in a patch of green, at least two hills away from the house – it seems odd to say that it belongs to someone.

"Hm." Taking his point, I sit opposite him, with one knee stacked on top of the other, picking bits of grass, although a little more tentatively. He stops, for a second, looking at me curiously. I don't look up and acknowledge it. When he snorts quietly, and resumes, I smile inside.

Maybe it's the ownership of grass thing, or maybe it's the Doc Martens and matching nail polish, but he doesn't seem like a big talker, so I decide I won't say anything unless he says something first. 

"Won't your skirt get dirty?" He asks mockingly, without looking at me.

I answer the same way,

"Not if yours hasn't." My head stays down, but when I hear his soft laugh, I bite my cheek, holding back a grin.

We poke and pick in silence for a little while longer, until I get overly anxious and there aren't any patches left that I can pick from without doing actual, noticeable damage like he's doing.

I sit up on my knees and, with a flat hand to shield my eyes, look over at the house. Eric's out on the pebbles, barefoot, bare-chested and scanning the gardens until he spots me, waving his long arm in the air exaggeratedly. I giggle at the sight of him, and wave back. The boy looks up at me, then turns to look at Eric, and settles with his knees to his chest, and hands planted out behind him, watching us.

Eric cups two hands around his mouth, and shouts something I can't make out, then pulls out his phone for a second attempt.  When my phone lights up with a picture of Eric pressing a kiss to my cheek, and starts playing Love Really Hurts Without You, I look at the boy shyly, but he gestures to it with a smirking shrug – go ahead, pick up. I don't mind.

"Do you know how disheartening it is for Freddie's face to be the first one I see in the morning?" Eric says once I put the phone to my ear, his voice still raspy with sleep.

"Aww," I laugh quietly, trying to sound as un-stupid-teenager-in-love as I can in front of the black-nailed boy, "I'm sorry..."

"Where've you been hiding, then?"

"Went for a walk."

"That I see. Hope my brother's not holding you hostage out there."
"Your brother?" I ask, confused until the boy with the black nails and hood waves at me in my peripheral.

"Phillip Macklin. Honour to meet you." The boy whispers. He smiles, proud of his little omission, and pushing his hood back, and oh shit, now I see it. He's the boy from the picture I saw online, of Eric and his brother on the Duchess' lap – he's older, maybe my age, and taller now - more obviously handsome. The golden curls haven't changed a tendril.

I feel my cheeks colour as I answer Eric,

"No, no, we're just... getting acquainted now."

"Alright, don't let him keep you too long... I've missed you." He says, and his voice is dangerously low.

"I won't. I'll be back inside soon, promise."

He laughs, and I'm sure knows why I'm keeping things brief; he always sees right through me.

"See you soon, my love."

When I end the call and turn back to 'Phillip', his smile's grown into a cheeky grin, and he sticks out a hand,

"Friends call me Pip."

"Angie."

"Aubs' lady friend. I know."

Tires crunch on pebble behind us, calling our attention over by the house.

"Parade's arrived." Pip says simply with a sigh, and the trail of sleek cars arriving, with flying Bs attached to their hoods really does look like some kind of stately silver parade.

Suited young men in tan shoes get down first, but their silence, and intent eyes tell me they're not who we're waiting for. When they open the silver doors backwards, and cream Jimmy Choo pumps hit the pebbled ground on one side, and navy boat shoes on the other, I gulp and tug at the bottom of my thrifted white tee.

The 'parade' begins in earnest; coloured corduroys promenade and Coco Chanel-coated lips plant symmetrical air kisses as people begin to file into the house, with an air of wealth rising and surrounding them, like a silk bubble of sorts.

"Christ," I gawk, "are all Macklins minted?"

Pip laughs and shit, I forgot he's a Macklin. I forgot he was here at all, to be honest.

I cringe,

"Shit, sorry, that was direct."

"No, no, fair play," he shrugs, still amused, "ripped jeans don't make me any less Macklin."

When he says that I wonder if it's an act – the black nails and the grass-pulling – some sort of way to rebel against elitism without losing his trust fund, or whatever the principal benefits of being a Macklin are. Then, I wonder if Eric rebels. If his life, our life, in London is some grand act of grass-pulling: self-satisfying but unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

"I didn't realise there'd be this many people..." I whisper. The parade's yet to stop, and the prospect of meeting 10 of Eric's relatives is very different in my head to that of meeting 100. The cars keep coming and the heels keep landing and I still can't feel my feet.  

"Well, we Macklins are go big or go home, as they say."

There's a silence between us for a moment, and I think about how small life on the hill is, but it's broken when Pip grunts, stands, and stretches his palm out to me.

"Come on," he says, brushing the dirt off his light jeans with the other hand. When he follows my eyes to the small crowd, he grabs me by my arms and pulls me up,

"It's warmer once you're in."

When I cross my arms over my chest, doubtful, he changes strategy, and nods his head towards the patch of newly unrooted grass,

"Would you rather stay at the scene of the crime?"

I scoff, but it makes me laugh, and I link my arm through his outstretched one as we walk back to the house.