AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s code word for stuff, like rehearsals and performances and work.”
“And bonking,” he laughs, grasping the chain for my swing as he pulls back in his. “Look, your face is all red, Cinders.”
Releasing my swing, he pushes my back to propel me forward, and when I swing back, he launches himself ahead of me. We’re like two pendulums swinging in opposite directions.
“What have you been up to?” I ask him when we cross in the middle.
“Nothing much. It was my birthday last week, so I’m finally legal.” The cheeky wink he gives me makes me laugh. “You can pounce on me anytime you like now. You don’t have to worry about jail.”
“Oh my God, Alfred! Stop!”
“You sound like my mum,” he guffaws, pushing my swing as it starts to slow. “Seriously, though. What I lack in age, I make up for in size.”
With a waggle of his brows, he jumps off the swing midair and gyrates his hips in an exaggerated thrusting grind when he lands on his feet. While he’s clowning around, a small booklet falls from his pocket. He doesn’t bother picking it up; instead, he nudges it to the side with his polished shoe and carries on making a show of himself in front of me.
“It’s never going to happen.”
“Never say never.” Alfie catches my swing suddenly, propelling me off it before he catches me. “You’re throwing yourself at me already,” he rasps into my ear, wrapping his arms around me. “Anything’s possible, Cinders…unless you’re dead. Then it’s really game over.”
There’s a sad lull to his voice that causes me to stop myself from pulling completely away as I wriggle out of his hold.
“What’s with the black suit?” I ask him, staring to the side as I focus on the booklet that fell from his pocket.
“It was my aunt’s funeral today.” He shrugs in reply as if it’s not a big deal, but when I look back up, there is something in his eyes that says he feels some kind of way about it.
“I’m really sorry. Is your mum all right?”
A deep, wry laugh vibrates his chest. “Yeah, my mum is great. It was my dad’s sister, and her and Mum hated each other, probably more than Mum hates my dad.”
“Oh, well, that’s…” I blow out a breath, unsure of what to say to that.
Clara and his dad have had some pretty bad arguments that I’ve heard through the floor. One time, I thought he was beating her with the way she was screaming and the banging around in her flat. Turns out he trashed the place in a drunken rage.
“Speak of the bastard,” Alfie groans as his sister runs to the man striding our way and throws herself at him.
“Alfie,” the man calls across the courtyard.
“Stay here, yeah?” Alfie nudges me back to the swing. “Don’t watch. Don’t say anything. Pretend there’s no one here. Just you on that swing.”
His dad stops outside the playground. In spite of the sneer on his face, he looks every bit the doting father with all the kisses he peppers to the little girl’s head before he puts her down and sends her back inside the playground.
“Why aren’t you watching your fucking sister?” he barks at Alfie with a slap to the back of his head.
“Sorry,” he replies as the man’s ringed fingers wrap around either side of his skull and he touches their foreheads together.
“You’re a man, now, Alfie,” I hear the man say as I pick up the booklet from the ground and pause. The woman looks familiar and younger in the photograph than the forty-two years it says on the memorial book.
“You hearing me, Alfred?”
My eyes snap up at the echoing sound of a slap that cuts through the man’s yell. I can’t see Alfie’s face properly from here, but I imagine that his eyes are watering from the strike.
“Yes, Dad.”
“You need to be looking after your sister, you understand me?”
I watch their foreheads grind together as Alfie’s dad reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out a small handgun, and shoves it into Alfie’s hands.
It’s then I look away. Fear shoots from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, chilling me completely.
