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My own smile hurts my face. “Hello, Poet Whitlock. Kaip sekasi?”
7 POET
Oscar brings me lunch.
Then he walks every yard of my farm with the open-souled curiosity that seems to bleed from him, and three hours pass before I realise what’s happening.
Productive hours.
Oscar doesn’t watch me work. He helps. Somehow knows what needs doing without asking. Slack fence wires pulled tight. Posts I’ve been meaning to reset driven deeper into the earth by his strong hands and arms. It’s quite the sideshow to a day I thought would last forever, and I find myself moving faster and cleaner because of it. The land opens up instead of resisting me and everything about how that makes me feel is because of him.
The zip in my blood.
The heat coiled low in my gut.
It’s the supercharged version of how I feel before a hookup, and yet—nothing like it. Grindr dates don’t have me glancing up every six seconds. Have me itching to tuck a man’s wayward hair behind his ear, or press my face to his sweat-shiny skin. Or wondering what I have to do to live this perfect afternoon all over again.
We call it a day at the poly-tunnels.
Oscar seems fascinated by the salad leaves and herb crops. “What will you do with all these?”
“Find a market to sell them at.”
“You will need to do it soon?”
I laugh. “Should’ve done it last week, but I got too annoyed with my phone to send any emails.”
“I do not like phones either. It bothers me that I must have one.”
As he speaks, I catch a glimpse of the patch on the back of his arm. It’s not the only reason he needs a phone, but I haven’t missed the irritation in his brown eyes every time he has to stop and navigate technology to stay alive.
The sun is starting to dip, turning the sky a deep shade of orange that melts into the fields on this side of the farm. I’m hungry and I figure Oscar must be too. “You want dinner?”
Oscar blinks, as though I’ve dragged him from deep thought. “Dinner?”
“I’m going to eat,” I tell him, in case he doesn’t like people doing things just for him. “Stay.”
I don’t wait for him to answer. I make tracks for the field bordering the road and take a fork to the test patch for my grand plans for potato production.
Oscar appears at my shoulder as I’m digging up enough early crop for dinner for two, waiting for me to glance up and face him. “Are these from the old owners?”
“Not exactly.”
He senses the mischief that must lace my tone and waits for me to elaborate. If I’m a beat too slow, it’s because he’s so close I could lick his face if this wasn’t the third time we’ve ever met.
Doesn’t usually bother you.
No. But that’s because I’ve never cared much about seeing someone I’m this attracted to more than a couple of times.
You’ve never been this attracted to someone.
The voice in my head is loud. In a world that’s mostly quiet, it makes me flinch. Not literally, but it feels that way sometimes. Feels that way now and Oscar seems to sense it. His palm skates over my elbow and he crouches with me to gather the potatoes from the earth.
If he speaks again before we rise together, I don’t notice. We’re back at the poly-tunnels picking spinach and chard when he touches my arm with more purpose to get my attention.
“Did you break onto the land and plant all this before you got here?”
“Maybe.”
