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Leaving the shovel in the ground, I fold my arms across my chest and wait for his answer.
“I like this now,” he says after a few seconds, and as if to emphasize it, he wraps his lips around the rim and chugs down another shot of it.
It’s fast and so sudden that even I feel the burn of whiskey going down. I can feel it settling in my stomach like it does in his and I don’t like it one bit.
I don’t like that he’s drinking like this.
“You want some?” he dares, tipping the bottle toward me.
“Absolutely not.”
“Afraid you might do something stupid?”
I grit my teeth. “No.”
“Come on. We both know how much you like it.”
I think I broke my jaw just a little, with how hard I’m grinding it. I might have even pierced the skin of my palms with my nails if I wasn’t wearing my newly-acquired work gloves.
“I don’t drink anymore,” I tell him.
At this, he laughs.
It’s a rusty sound. Gravelly and loud, coming from a place deep inside of him, it feels like.
“You don’t drink anymore,” he says in a voice laced with amusement.
“Nope.”
“Since when?”
“Since I kissed an asshole.”
It’s true.
I don’t touch liquor or any of the addictive substances. Well, except for this one time when I baked funny brownies for the girls just after we got out of Heartstone. But I only ate one and decided to never touch them again.
And Mr. Edwards believes that, I think.
He sees the truth of it on my face.
The face that’s exposed and unhindered by the cap and my Audrey Hepburn sunglasses. For some reason, I don’t need them when it’s just me and him.
“Well then, you’ll be disappointed because this is all I’ve got.”
Sighing, I step away from the shovel, which stays standing, buried in the soil that I haven’t finished prepping for the roses but I will, just not now.
Looking him in the eyes, I take off my gloves, pick up my fat hobo and begin to walk toward him.
I stop at the rickety stairs and tilt my neck up. “You do have water, don’t you?”
His answer is to keep staring at me with a dipped, neutral face.
His eyes are dark, but I can see little flecks of green shining through, as if light is breaking through thick clouds. As if there’s a softness in him and it’s seeping through the cracks of all that is hard in him.
“I’m thirsty,” I continue. “And I need to wash up.”
His eyelids drop low and take in my state.
I’m wearing a red t-shirt with a black rose printed on the chest along with jean shorts and red sneakers. My knees and calves are caked with mud. I somehow got a little bit of it on my clothes too.
He’s looking at all of that.
And I’m trying to stay calm and breathe normally. And not think about the glory that is his chest.
Man, I wanna touch it, like bury my fingers in that curling hair and…
“Yeah, you’re dirty,” he says in a tone as low and hooded as his eyes, breaking my quite frankly dirty thoughts.
But at the same time, I have to do something at his low words.
I have to make my body move or I’ll die. So I curl my toes inside my sneakers and bite my lip.
“There’s a lake right behind you. Through the woods. It should take care of both your problems.”
I shake my head at him and get a hold of myself. “I know you think you can make me do things but I’m not jumping in the lake for you.”
“Not today.”
I roll my eyes. “Not ever.”
Then, something happens that I thought was a myth.
I see the lines on the corner of his eyes. Three deep ones. They twitch just as his strawberry mouth pulls up on one side.
It’s not a smile. Not per se. It’s amusement – pure amusement – in its very thin and basic state. But it’s there and I feel myself flushing.
With pride, no less.
“Are you going to let me in?” I ask, hopping on my spot impatiently. “I’m dirty, as you said. And I need a little break before I go back to the roses.”
Frankly, I’m dying to see the inside of his cabin. Like, what am I going to find when the outside is so neglected and falling apart.
He doesn’t move, of course.
In fact, he leans against the doorjamb, crosses his ankles and folds his arms, his bottle getting tucked at his side.
“When did I hire you as my gardener?”
“You didn’t. I’m doing this for free and out of the goodness of my heart.”
“And what did I do to deserve that?”
“Absolutely nothing.” I raise my eyebrows. “I’m doing it because I’m awesome and fabulous and a hundred other words that you probably never use for me.”
He hums, as if really thinking about it. “Yeah, those are not the words that I use for you.”
