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“Bow wow WOW.” I lift my brows coyly and get a real laugh. It’s just a raspy huff of air, but it’s a laugh for sure. I beam proudly.
As the smile slips from his face, he sticks his hands in his pockets. His eyes move over me. They’re deep and blue, round and serious, and just as quickly as they move down me, they shift away. He looks to the floor, although there’s nothing there. It’s as if he needs to get his eyes off me.
I’m scrambling for a way to draw him out again when he turns and starts walking down the cement aisle.
My stomach flips, and all the giddiness I felt comes crashing down.
Did I do something wrong?
I stare at his back, and all I can think about is rushing after him.
I’m not insane, right? That was weird.
Yes, of course it was weird. Twenty-one years of being female lets me know why, too. I shake my head. If Kellan Walsh didn’t just now get scared off because he felt too close to me, then I’m a monkey’s auntie.
My stomach clenches as I remember what his friend said—Manning. About how Kellan doesn’t trust people.
I watch him moving down the cement aisle between the plants. He’s probably thirty feet away by now. The angle of the lighting has him looking slightly shadowed: a lone figure defined mostly by big shoulders and a broad back. I watch him stop, pull some leaves into his hand and bring his nose down to them. I watch him as he crouches down to touch the soil.
If I stare hard enough, will he look back at me?
A less confident Cleo would start feeling insecure now. Like she’d overstepped some invisible bounds. Like she’d been too obviously trying. I take a deep, slow breath and tell myself this Cleo is beyond that.
I walk slowly, at a steady pace, toward Kellan. I tell myself that I’ll be patient. Wait him out. I’ll be living with him, so I can watch him. I’ll find out what makes him tick. Why laughing at my stupid joke made him clam up like he’d just confessed some deep, dark secret.
I notice my hands are in fists. I loosen them and flex my fingers. I need to take this thing with him one moment at a time. I can do that. If anyone knows the tenets of mindful living, it should be Cleo Whatley, future art therapist.
I practice as I move. Listening to the sounds of the room: fan blades spinning, and their echo through the large space. The smell of the plants: bitter yet sweet, like fresh-cut garden weeds mixed with some kind of citrus fruit. The warm, heavy air on my cheeks and arms. I redirect my mind from Kellan by looking at the plants. Noting which ones are tall, and which ones smaller. I note the names of various strains of marijuana as I pass the plant-filled platforms.
VIOLET VIPER. KILLER CROCK. APPLE ASTEROID. By the time I reach GRAVE YARD DAISY, I’m feeling calm again. I pass THE BIG SLEEP and am pretty sure I’ve found a pattern in the plant names. I nod to myself as I remember SILENT STALKER. All the names are morbid.
Curiosity slings through me. I thought marijuana was a happy thing.
By the time I catch up to Kellan, he’s at the front left corner of the room, just a few feet from the door through which we entered. To the right of the door is a slab of corkboard countertop, stretched under a row of cedar cabinets. His luscious back stretches as he reaches into one of them.
I stand behind him as he fiddles with something inside the cabinet.
“Hey,” I murmur.
He turns to look at me, lifting his brows in acknowledgment. His mouth is twisted, like he’s irritated by whatever he’s trying to do.
“Having trouble?”
He shifts his weight, leaning over the counter as his muscular arm fishes deeper inside the cabinet. “This is one of our water tanks,” he says over his shoulder. “There’s a hose that runs off through this wall,” he says, pointing, “pumping fertilizer. One of our newer strains didn’t like the cocktail we were using, so I changed it up. But the new shit’s clogging all the tubing.”
“Ugh. That sounds annoying.”
I think I see him nod, but I can’t tell. His attention is definitely on his task.
I l
ook down at my boots, but who am I kidding? My eyes are starving for him, and with his back turned, I’m free to gawk without consequence. The first place my pervy gaze goes is his ass, but I don’t want to be a freak, so as soon as I eyeball-hug his taut buns, I drag my eyes up his back. I watch his muscles shift under his shirt. My fingers drift to my cell phone, tucked into the waist of my leggings. I smile, wondering if he would notice me nabbing a little .gif footage for the Smuffins group.
I roll my eyes at myself. We’re in a grow house—hello, Cleo.
As I admire the cords of muscle in his neck, the golden hair that blows a little in the light breeze of the fans, I wonder why a rich boy like him would turn to dealing drugs. Does he like the risk? Or was he even a rich boy at all before he started dealing? Maybe he’s like me—but I don’t think so. He seems... well-bred. I’d bet my lumpy little nest egg that a guy like Kellan Walsh knows when to use the two-pronged mini fork.
When my brain finally tires of imagining Kellan in a tux, his long fingers clutching a teeny tiny spoon, I let my breath out and decide to risk interrupting him.
