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Why am I not doing that again?
“Excuses.” Marianne shakes her head. “You’re always full of them.”
“I pay for the supplies.”
Marianne raises a finger for silence. I comply without hesitation. Damn, she’s terrifying.
“Don’t even go there. We could come up with the funding if we needed to, you just make it easier on all of us. Including yourself.”
“So do you want me to stop donating?”
“I want you to step it up. Keep your money. What we need is time.”
“I’m here now, aren’t I?” I say. “I’m always here helping you guys put this together.”
“You said yourself we need more volunteers for this, Zach.” Oh, now Derek wants to chime in? “It’s all hands on deck.”
I press my fingers into my temples. The pulse beats into my fingertips like a warning drum signaling the start of a stroke. My head is throbbing. “If I promise to help, can we never, ever have this conversation again?”
Before anyone can agree, Miles enters the room. “Who’s taking me to soccer practice?”
The hard glare of disappointment in Marianne’s eyes fades as she turns toward the boy in the doorway. Her eyes glitter with affection, the twitching in her playful mouth subsiding to a full-on grin, and I have never seen the woman so happy as when she looks at this child.
Miles stands in his soccer uniform, cleats tied and dangling over his shoulder. For a ten-year-old, he’s tall but fits right in with Derek and Marianne, both over five-feet-ten easily. They’ve taken in foster kids for years, but no one has connected with them like Miles.
Hell, I haven’t connected with any of the others the way I do with Miles. Kid’s got a mean kick on the field and a heart of gold at home.
“I’ll take you,” Derek says, slipping me another one of his mischievous sideways glances. “I’ve got to see your uncle out anyway. He’s got a date with some lumber.”
Chapter Five
Aly
One hour away from the end of my shift, and I haven’t seen him yet.
I don’t even know if the order has already been picked up. I’ve been out in the Garden Center all morning, my usual home.
On any normal day, I’d take comfort in the smell of lavender permeating the air. I’d feel right at home nestled amidst the orchids and the peonies. Because this is home. The one place outside of my mother’s house that actually reminds me of the way things were.
Though today it reminds me of something else.
All I can imagine when I look at the checkout counter is my body pressed against his, my legs wrapped around his waist like some character in a sexy rated-R film. I feel his hands gliding down my waist, over my hips, gripping my bottom.
I move my thighs together to quell the pressure building between them. I can’t do this. It didn’t even happen, and all I can think about when I look at this place is the single most erotic experience of my life.
I have to do something, busy my hands. Anything.
I grab a watering can and make my way down the aisles. Gentle wafts of jasmine and gardenia weave through the breeze, overpowering the lavender scent from before. My father loved planting gardenia bushes. He loved planting anything. He’d make some remark about sowing the seeds of something with so much potential and watching it bloom into a beautiful creature of nature.
It was his philosophy on life. With just a little love and proper nourishment, anyone could achieve their deepest desires.
So what if those desires have nothing to do with realistic expectations? What if what I want is a man who infuriates me with one poorly inflected sentence? I can’t get him out of my mind, and what’s worse is I don’t want to either. I’ve spent too long shoving my emotions deep down inside of me, pretending like they don’t matter.
You’ll have time for dating later,I tell myself. But if I live by that philosophy, what are my chances of ever changing it?
He’s never going to show up again. You completely insulted the man.
Insulted men don’t try to kiss you.
