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She didn’t turn around ‘Pretty hard to ignore that dog’s crazy yapping’

‘That dog has a name’

This ti Zip ‘Your eye looks terrible’

Ja around’

‘The roads are still blocked?’

‘Well and truly’

She didn’t show disappoint Her face was a blank canvas But two of her fingers fiddled with the zip on her tracksuit jacket, the sound of ainst metal as rhythmic as a metronome

Hea few keys to break the silence ‘What was that piece you were playing?’

‘Why do you ask?’

He turned and caught the tail end of her guarded expression ‘I liked it It was’ he searched for the right word ‘stirring’

She walked over to the walnut shelving where all of histhe spines like a child trailing a stick along a picket fence Ja to answer hiers fall away froh he saw rather than heard ‘It’s called An Ode to Archie’

‘You composed that yourself?’

‘Yeah, what of it?’ Her eyes flashed at hier I can’t write ?’

‘Did you write it for the Archie on your wrist?’