Page 30 of Watching Henry

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Florence's stomach felt like the inside of a washing machine on a spin cycle.

She couldn't believe how irresponsible she'd been. The folder should have been locked up somewhere, the money should have been safe.

And it would have been, she knew, if she were alone. The only reason it stayed out on the kitchen table was convenience, since both she and Hadley needed to use it. And now look what had happened.

She was close to throwing up, she could feel burning in her throat, as she hung up with the credit card company.

“So,” Hadley said, waltzing out onto the deck. “You can call me brilliant.”

Florence quite badly wanted to slap her, an impulse she'd never had even with the naughtiest of children. Dancing around there in her short shorts with her long legs and her shiny curly hair like nothing in the world had happened.

“The card is canceled,” she said, ignoring Hadley's brilliant comment.

“And I've solved the cash problem,” said Hadley, finally taking a seat.

“Yeah. Right.”

“No, hear me out here,” said Hadley, shifting to the front of her seat. “We've lost, misplaced, had stolen, whatever the money and the card. You've canceled the card, so all we need to do is replace the cash and we're free and clear. Sure, we fucked up, but they can't blame us if we fix the problem, can they?”

Florence took a breath to argue with this, then found that she couldn't. She calmed a little. It was odd seeing Hadley take control like this, seeing her take care of things. Odd, but not wrong, not so far. “Okay. So how do we replace the cash?”

“We work.”

Florence sighed. “We're already working.” Her heart was starting to beat hard again and her mouth tasted sour. Of course Hadley couldn't fix this problem. Nobody could.

“We're only working half days,” Hadley reminded her. “We're sharing this job, so all we do is share another job. It'll be easy. We'll earn enough to keep the kids occupied and eating ice cream, which is what the money in the folder was for.”

“Yes, of course,” Florence said sarcastically. “We'll just walk right into another job, just like that, easy as pie.” There was no way this craziness would work out.

“We already have,” Hadley said.

“What?”

Hadley grinned, standing up and stretching so that Florence got a glimpse of tanned, smooth stomach. “I've already got us a job to share. At the coffee shop in town.”

“Right,” Florence said, not at all believing that the problem was going to go away so easily.

“Right,” Hadley agreed. “I have. I met the owner this afternoon, she's lovely, and she's more than happy to help us out. One of us will work a shift at the coffee shop whilst the other is looking after the kids, then we'll switch over. Easy.”

Florence looked up at her, mouth gaping open and Hadley grinned down at her and just for once it looked like things were... fine. Things were working out. The problem that just a minute ago had seemed so insurmountable, career-ending, disastrous, was now suddenly... fine.

Okay, not perfect. But still. Fine. Fine was enough. Fine she could live with.

Then she was standing up and throwing her arms around Hadley's neck and pulling her in close. “I don't believe it. Thank you. Thank you. Well done.”

“It's okay,” Hadley was saying. “It's okay, don't worry about it. We've got this.”

And then the words were dropping away and they were just standing there, bodies pressed together in the warmth of the night, hearts beating harder and harder as something grew in the air.

Awkwardness, Florence thought, wanting and not wanting to pull away, knowing the contact was different and wrong and not-quite-right and full of something she didn't understand, but not knowing how to break away without tearing her skin and letting her feelings fall out.

“It'll be fine,” Hadley said once more. She was the one to step away. “Just fine.”

Florence sighed in relief. The moment was broken and she was left feeling tired, like she'd been fighting a battle of some kind.

“Okay then, we have a plan,” she said coolly, back to herself.