“We’ve got compost if you’re bored.”
“No, thank you. Tyler needs supervision.”
Across the path, Tyler lifted his head. “I heard my name.”
Gus didn’t look up from the fence. “That happens when you keep talking to compost.”
“I’m a layered person,” Tyler said.
“You’re a loud person.”
Birdie tucked peppers into her basket. “You can be both, honey.”
Daphne laughed, and the sound threaded through the heat, the tomato leaves, the drip of water from the line, and the ache I’d been trying to ignore since she’d walked through the gate.
By late morning, the repaired drip line ran clean down the south row.
Daphne sat back on the kneeling pad and wiped her wrist across her forehead. A streak of dirt marked her temple. She looked hot, tired, proud, and far too pleased with a line of plastic hose.
I wanted my hands on her.
I wanted them at her waist, her neck, the back of her knee, anywhere but hanging loose at my sides in a public garden while her probation hours sat on a clipboard in my shed.
I picked up the water bottle instead.
“Drink.”
Daphne looked up. “You make hydration sound like a court sentence.”
“It’s July.”
“It’s bossy July.”
“It’s practical July.”
She took the bottle. Our fingers didn’t touch. Her eyes narrowed a little, not angry. Aware.
I stepped back and reached for another bottle for myself.
Birdie wandered close with the pepper basket and a look that meant she’d seen the entire thing and was deciding whether to behave.
I gave her the look back.
Birdie smiled. “You two fixed that line nicely.”
Daphne twisted the cap open. “Thank you. I only insulted the pipe twice.”
“That shows restraint,” Birdie said.
“Zane had to take over one cap.”
“It was jammed,” I said.
Daphne glanced at me over the rim of the bottle. “Some of us did.”
The words landed low and hot.
Birdie’s eyebrows went up.
