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“Good, I think. That advice you gave me really helped. Bruce is fighting fit again.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Monsteras are pretty hardy, so I wasn’t too worried, but we all need a little help living our best lives.”
“How can you tell when it’s too late to help them? How much damage is irreversible?”
And if the issue lies in the root of someone, how is it ever possible for a garden to bloom?
They share a look with Alice. “It depends. But in my experience, it’s better to work with them. No problem can be solved by ignoring it.”
I guess I’m not as subtle as I was hoping.
“Thanks. I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.”
“Oh, and Sebastian? The beauty of nature is that it will surprise you. Even the harshest conditions can’t hold it back. But give it the right home to flourish in? That’s the shit right there.”
It pulls a laugh from me.
By the time Bee has returned, I’m deep in thought.
She isn’t her brother. Aiden once interviewed for—and got offered—a job teaching interpretive dance to preteens, which was quite a feat for a man I’d watched fail a beginner-level ballroom class four times in a row. If it was possible to have three left feet, he managed it. But that didn’t matter, because his charm and endless joy for life won everyone over.
Where Aiden leaps willingly, Bee has to work up to it, so I can understand where the comparison comes from. But she still leaps. Though somewhere along the line, she bought into a lie. It makes no sense to me. Sure, Aiden is the type to fling himself off the high board before the buzzer, but he also likes lemon meringue pie best. Of all the pies, lemon? Seriously.
Bee might not fly, but she certainly dives. Soars. And then she turns around and cheers on the rest of the team.
Admittedly, I’m biased.
“Oh! Sebastian, look.”
Bee tugs on my arm, and I’m distracted by how good itfeels before I look to where she’s pointing up at a wooden box tied high in a tree near us.
“What do you think it is?” Bee asks.
“I’m not sure.”
She’s still holding on to my arm, and I let myself pretend briefly that she’d let me kiss her, right here, for the world and Aiden to see. To claim her as mine openly.
We’re building a life together, planting roots in the form of memories, the way we balance chores—I cook, she cleans, we split the dishes—or the calendar full of watering reminders and our graffitied wall, imperfect in its growing jumble of scribbles and sayings. It’s looking a lot like the bathroom stalls from my earliest days tending bar, but that’s what I love about it.
Because it’sours.
I’ve wanted a home for a long time, longer than I want to admit, but this isn’t just about having a house. It’s Bee.
It’s how her bangs will curl with sweat on Thursdays because that’s the day she cleans the bathroom. Or how there’s a pen (or a few) in every room of the house, just in case she’s hit with a bolt of inspiration. The adorable way she grumbles when my alarm goes off in the morning, but how she never fails to have a cup of coffee waiting for me when I get back from my run.
Bee slips her hand in mine, sending my heart into the canopy. But it doesn’t last.
As soon as Aiden appears, she pulls away with a jolt. The fall is hard and twice as far, especially since Bee looks unaffected.
Even worse is the apologetic shrug I get from Aiden, and all I can do is shake my head.
He warned me, and I have no one to blame but myself.
“Got the chili scramble,” he says as he sits. I wonder, then, when aliens had time to clone my best friend, especially when they got it so wrong. He raises a brow. “What? I’m trying something new.”
For a man so set in his “I’ll just order off the sides menu” ways, this is actually not that shocking. Every six months or so, Aiden will switch up something in his routine. Going to the gym, then quitting the gym to run instead (“It’s free exercise, man”). Then it’s reading money-saving books and spending way too much on pillows.
“Says someone who can’t handle too much mustard,” Bee says, and I know we’re both waiting for the shoe to drop in Aiden’s mind.
