AllFreeNovel
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I get it, though. It’s his garden, clearly his pride and joy. He can’t leave it in the hands of someone he just met.
“I think I’m going to take a break,” I say, setting down the hammer and sitting back on my heels. It’s only partly a concession to Lulu’s campaign. My leg is getting sore and if I don’t take it easy now, I’ll have pain radiating into my back and hip soon.
Lulu perks up. “Do you want more lemonade?”
Fuck yes. “That would be nice.”
She trots back into the house and after a moment of looking longingly after her, Dr. Banks follows her into the air-conditioned house with a quiet “thank you” and nod.
A few minutes later, Lulu finds me in the side yard, the green garden hose leaking a small ocean onto the paving stones and into the grass. My T-shirt is balled up in my fist, the water nipple-puckeringly cold as it sluices, lethargic, from the nozzle over the back of my neck.
“Oh,” is all she says.
I straighten, holding my T-shirt in front of my chest. Lulu looks at me, then away. She stares down into the glass of lemonade she holds in front of her, ice cubes clinking gently.
“Sorry,” I say, feeling awkward and exposed.
She shakes her head. “No. It’s fine. I’m just...” Her hair whips across her face as she continues to shake her head. “It’s hot. Outside, I mean. The temperature is hot. Like, of course. Tarps off. Free the nipple.” She lifts her fist in a show of solidarity then laughs, cackles almost.
“Cool.” I turn to cut off the water and she hisses my name. I spin on my heel. “What?”
She touches the back of her neck. “What SPF did you say your sunscreen was?”
“I didn’t,” I say slowly. “I’m not wearing any.”
She rolls her eyes. “Come on.”
Lulu pulls out a chair for me beneath a vine-covered pergola. “Sit.” She snaps her fingers and points at the padded lawn furniture.
I hesitate, my ass halfway into the chair. “What are you going to do to me?”
She holds up a bottle of SPF 50. “Protect you from skin cancer. Sit down.”
I do. And not because she told me to in that voice. Well, not just because she used that voice. “I’m all wet,” I mumble.
She yanks my T-shirt from my fist and pats it against my back. I cringe, the friction making the sunburned skin there raw and prickly. The lotion is a cold shock, but also soothing, and Lulu’s fingertips hesitate for only a moment before she starts to rub it into the back of my neck and down my shoulders. Her touch is ginger and soft, a little awkward. I don’t think she’s rubbing it in all the way; I’ll have streaks for the rest of the day.
It’s not until she takes her hand away, the sunscreen still sticky on my back, that I realize I can’t remember the last time I was touched by another person like this, skin to skin.
“Thanks,” I say, my voice rough.
“Are you sure I can’t help?” she asks.
I survey the progress I’ve made so far, where the sun sits in the sky, estimating how much time I have left in the day. “You could help me weed and mulch.”
The way she smiles, I question whether she knows that she’s about to spend the next few hours on her knees, the sun baking her neck, her back straining. “Let me go change,” she says, running around the corner to her apartment.
Lulu was wearing the kind of yoga pants that seem super soft and make her butt look like a perfect replica of the peach emoji.
Not that I was staring at her ass.
She comes out in a pair of gray linen shorts, a T-shirt, with a mint green dress with large pockets over top. She spins, holding a straw hat with a wide brim to her head, and I see that the mint green thing is not actually a dress at all. “I finally have a chance to wear my gardening apron.”
She’s barefoot but I guess that’s fine, if we’re only weeding.
“What?” She points to her own forehead. “You’re grumping at me. Do I look silly?”
“No,” I say quickly. She looks...adorable, pretty. She looks very much like herself. But that seems like something a not-friend would say. Plus, I still feel guilty. I was definitely staring at her ass.
