Zane looked at me. “Keep going to the marker. Then we’ll switch you to mulch.”
“Mulch sounds friendly.”
“It isn’t.”
“Why would you tell me that?”
“So you don’t trust it.”
He walked away toward Tyler, and I watched him go for exactly one second longer than I should’ve.
Fine, I watched him for three seconds.
His jeans rode low on his hips. He moved like he knew every inch of the path. The muscles in his shoulders shifted under that black shirt, all that strength somehow assigned to municipal volunteer policy and crooked rows.
I turned back to the bed and jammed my fingers into the soil.
“Absolutely not,” I whispered to myself.
Birdie, who had not gone nearly far enough away, said, “Honey, if you’re talking to the weeds, don’t let them negotiate.”
I nearly dropped my trowel.
“I’m motivating myself.”
“Sure.”
I glanced at her.
Birdie’s smile was kind, which somehow made it worse. “First day’s always the hardest.”
“Because of the work?”
“Because you’re still trying to look like you meant to be here.”
My hand tightened around the weed I’d been loosening.
For a second, I couldn’t find a joke fast enough.
Birdie didn’t push. She just tied twine around a sagging tomato branch and kept her voice easy. “By the end of the week, you’ll stop caring if your knees are dirty.”
“I’m not sure my knees have that emotional range.”
“They’ll learn.”
I looked down at my cropped navy pants.
At least I hadn’t chosen a skirt. I’d thought the pants looked practical, but now they were streaked with soil at both knees, and one cuff had a smear of something green that might’ve been plant matter and might’ve been the garden marking its territory.
“I usually work in an office,” I said.
Birdie tied another loop. “That explains the shoes.”
“I’m never escaping the shoes.”
“Not today, you’re not.”
A laugh came out of me, small but real. “I process documents, schedule meetings, keep files moving, and stay very good with color-coded tabs.”
