When you look back at it, even years later you can't quite believe how long it took you to figure it out. I mean come on, the gradual decrease in animosity between the two, the lack of name calling and biting off of each other's heads. But then again if you hadn't noticed the lack of arguments, you couldn't really be expected to notice the longer wandering looks or the charged energy about them. No, it took, stumbling -quite literally- onto them making out in the tack room for it all to come out.
It had been a hot summer's afternoon. Ash was home for the holidays and had brought Em, Ricki and Claire with her. The summer had been going great so far. With the six of you (including Pree) hanging out all day every day, the summer had been packed with fun and adventure.
That day you were working a shift at Shady Trails -after spending the morning at riding club- with Pree. You had just finished a lesson with a pair of grinning seven year old twins and were leading the ponies back to their stalls for a quick rub down before they could be turned out. You held the lead of a cute little grey dappled pony and lead it into its stall carefully, while Pree did the same across the aisle with her own palomino. Em, Claire and Ricki had gone off some time ago on a trail ride with Jodi and Julie and Ash had disappeared straight after riding club ended, her only explanation being that she was, "busy."
You weren't too bothered by this disappearance, although a small part of your brain was puzzling over it. It wasn't the first time in the last year that Ash had run off for hours at a time when she was home. You were starting to get curious but not too much to actually ask her about it. You doubt that she would tell you anyway.
"You know where Ash is at?" Pree asked suddenly, pulling you from your concentration from the pony's hindquarters.
"Uh, not sure. She hurried off after riding club when I told her we were working."
"She didn't go with the others for a ride?" Pree asked, chewing on her plait -which she had grown out again- thoughtfully.
"No. I don't know why she didn't." Now that you think about it, that was strange although you didn't really think about it much then.
"Hey stop me if you've heard this one," the conversation took an abrupt left turn as Pree remembered a joke. Her brilliant teeth flashed as she grinned. "What do you call a scary female horse?"
The tell-tale clip, clopping of horses hooves interrupted Pree in the middle of her telling you how her little brother had earnt himself a month's worth of detention. Apparently installing a gameboy emulator on your calculator and proceeding to play pokemon every math lesson for a month is against the school rules.
Em, Ricki and Claire wandered towards you, pulling three tired horses behind them. You shovelled another load of horse manure and straw into the wheelbarrow.
"How was the ride?"
"Great."
"Awesome."
"Beautiful. I always forget how breathtaking it is around here," Em had an awed look on her face that made you and Pree exchange smiles. The girls untacked their horses while you and Pree finished your last stall.
"You guys remember where the tack room is?" Pree asked from beside you at the sink, where you were both furiously scrubbing at your hands. She was answered with a chorus of "yeahs" and "of courses". You turn, drying your now pink hands on a towel to find Ricki pointing to the left, Claire pointing to the right and Em looking between them bemusedly.
You let out a laugh and jerk your head to indicate that they should follow you. Claire was partly right, with her direction but it's still a maze of corridors and rooms and you didn't trust them not to get lost.
"You don't have to come with us," Em said anxiously.
"Yeah we would have found it eventually," Claire added.
"I mean, I don't want you to get into trouble with your boss or anything," Em continued, puffing from the exertion of lugging the heavy saddle. You took pity on her thin frame and plucked the extra weight of the tack from the pile of leather in her arms.
"It's cool," Pree said, taking Ricki's saddle from her before she toppled over. "We're done now anyway. Mucking out the stalls was out last job."
"Hey, hey. Why did the man stand behind the horse?"
"I don't know, why?" Em smiles.
"Cause he was hoping to get a kick out of it," Pree tipped her head back and let out a loud laugh, causing you and the others to laugh also. You're by the tack room door at this point and were reaching for the handle when you first heard it. A quiet moan. Your mouth dropped open as you stared stunned at the door. You turned to Pree who stared back at you wide eyed.
"No way," she breathed, her eyes dancing with amusement. Ricki giggled from behind her, Claire smirked and Em looked scandalised her eyes wide and hand pressed over her mouth.
"Oh God," a voice groaned from the depths of the tack room, evidently male. Pree's eyebrows rose to an alarming height at the sound. They disappeared fully into her hairline when a female voice supplied an agreement.
"No freaking way," Ricki laughed.
"There is no way I'm letting this happen. Not in our tack room," you said taking charge of the situation. And without further ado you shoved the door open and for a just a second got an eyeful of two teenagers entangled together. The pair were stretched out along the large bench that was usually used for cleaning tack but had obviously been put to a different use this time. The resounding bang of the door must have gotten the girl's attention because although the guy didn't seem to notice, her hands came up to his chest - his bare chest, you noted distantly - to shove him off her.
He fell with a dull thud to the ground catching sight of your small group on the way. He scrambled to his feet as the girl threw her hands over her face, apparently mortified by the turn of events and you were suddenly faced with a half-naked Frederick Fowler who was staring very determinedly at anywhere but you.
You're embarrassed to say that the first question that popped into your head at that moment was, when did Flea get so attractive? Something had changed about him over the past couple years that you hadn't noticed until then and judging by the low whistle from Pree she hadn't noticed either. His hair was as messy as ever but now it was an attractive sort of messy that most high school boys tried but failed to pull off. His eyes, you noticed were blue, bright against his sun kissed skin and he had definitely grown taller at some point. His six foot stature was packed with an astounding amount of muscle including an impressive set of abdominal muscles that your gaze had been zeroed in on.
His attractiveness became suddenly unimportant as you looked past him to the girl that he had been until a few seconds ago, intertwined with. The familiar hazel eyes of your best friend Ash peered at you worriedly between the splayed fingers of her hands. Your mouth dropped open even further to a point where you probably looked ridiculous. Somewhere to your right you heard a gasp being sucked in by Em and repeat of her earlier "no freaking way" from Ricki but otherwise the tack room remained in a shocked silence. Ash's shirt thankfully was still on, though it had ridden up to her bellybutton which she tugged down distractedly as she slid up into a cross-legged position and re-buried her face in her hands. Flea was staring between you and her and uncomfortably shifted on his feet.
"Uh, I'm just gonna go…" he said edging towards the door, scratching his neck with one hand and scooping up his shirt which you still had trouble believing Ashley had pulled off of him and tossed blindly across the room. "I'll call you later, Ash?"
You blinked and exchanged a look with Pree. When had the dreaded nickname Spiller Miller been replaced with Ash?
"Yeah, sure Fred," Ash said quietly, rubbing at her forehead tiredly.
And when had Fleabag become Fred? You gaped at Ash even though she still refused to meet any of your gazes. Flea regarded you cautiously as he made for the door, pulling on his shirt as he did and finally disappeared, no doubt wanting to put as much distance as he could between himself and the explosion that was bound to occur.
"That was Flea Fowler," you finally managed to choke out after a near minute of silence.
Ash peeked up at you through her eyelashes. "Uh yeah."
"King Creepketeer," you continued as though she hadn't spoken. "Fleabag Fowler, any of this ringing a bell Ashley?" Your voice had risen with each word until you were practically in hysterics. Pree laid a comforting hand on your shoulder and guided you over to the bench next to Ashley.
"Maybe we all should just calm down and then Ashley can explain what the hell she was doing making out with who we all thought was her arch enemy," Pree cried dramatically. Ash shot her look and she instantly took a deep calming breath and nodded for Ash to speak. The other three who had been basically silent up until then gathered around instantly eager for the explanation.
Ash sighed. "Well you remember my thirteenth birthday and Fred - uh Flea came and you two were going on about how you thought he liked me and all that," she began.
You couldn't control yourself at that. "Oh my god, since then? You've been keeping it from us for four years?"
Ash screwed up her face. "No, god no. Well kind of. Well a couple of nights later we ended up out in the back paddock just talking and I just kissed him to see what it felt like."
"Aaaaw," Em cooed. "So cute." She was immediately shushed by you and the other girls.
"And well, I was going to tell you then but me and Fred never spoke about it and I thought you'd all tease me about it so I never brought it up and then to tell you the truth I kind of forgot about it. Things between us got better over the years and we kind of fooled around a bit when we were fifteen but he was all about keeping it a secret and I didn't want that so we agreed not to do it anymore. And then about a year ago, remember when I came back for the weekend and found out that Fred was going out with that girl?"
You and Pree instantly remembered the weekend. As soon as Ash had seen the two of them together she had gone into a bad mood, spending the rest of the weekend snapping at everyone, staying in bed half the day and generally being a grouch. A few days after she had gone back to Linley she had texted to apologise for acting like such a bitch. You had been so confused at the time about what had upset her so much but it was finally beginning to become clear.
"The truth is, I was so insanely jealous of this random chick and I didn't know how to handle my feelings so I just lashed out at everyone." Ash punctuated her words with a shrug trying to act nonchalant but Ricki seemed to catch on immediately to what she was avoiding saying.
"Hang on, that's right around the time you started dating that older guy, Adrian." You all shuddered at the memory. You along with the others had all hated the obnoxious seventeen year old that Ash had dated. Even she had seemed to detest the guy by the end of the relationship.
"Yeah and you're brought him home for the summer and I thought your Dad was going to kill you," Pree giggled at the memory.
"Yeah, that was such a bad summer. You and Flea were at each other's throats every second and he was still dating that girl…" You had trailed off as the realisation hit you. "Oh my god Ashley Miller you were trying to make Flea Fowler jealous weren't you?"
The blush and duck of Ash's head was enough to prove you right and had everyone - even you - squealing with the cuteness of it.
She seemed to recover after a moment and grinned at the victoriously. "Well it worked didn't it. He came crawling back to me the day after me and Adrian broke up."
"So what this past year you've been together? I thought you didn't want the secret relationship?" Claire asked.
Ash shrugged. "Honestly, it's kind of hot."
You pretended to gag at her words but you couldn't deny the brightness of her eyes as she thought about it. "I can't refer to anything to do with Flea Fowler as hot."
Ash mock glared at you but was betrayed by her grin.
"Did you see his chest though." Claire was practically drooling.
"And his abs," Ricki added with an appreciative nod.
"And he had that 'just got screwed' look going on with his hair," Pree conceded.
"And he's pretty tanned," you added absently.
Em was finally the only one who still looked scandalised by the situation you had walked in on. "I just can't believe you're were making out with him in a tack room. You could have been caught by anyone."
Ash snorted at the thought. "That's what makes it so appealing," she explained patiently. "Besides," she added as an afterthought. "It's not the most public place, we've gotten it on."
You just had to gape at her at that point. "Where?"
"You know that carnival, Pine Bark Ridge held two weekends ago? Well, you remember how I went to check on the horses?"
"Yeah and took like fifteen minutes to do it?" Pree asked with an eyeroll. When Ash remained quiet with a mischievous grin, Pree's eyes widened comically. "No, tell me you didn't."
"Ha, yeah I kind of hooked up with Fred behind the stables."
"Alright that's it," you barked, gaining everyone's attention. "Sleep over at Ash's tonight where she-," here you gave your best friend, a mock glare. "-is going to spill every detail."
The girls clamoured in agreement and all Ash could was tip her head back, her mouth open with laughter.