Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
I squint at him. “I’m not telling you how to—”
“I know what I’m doing. I can put up with guys like him. I’ve been putting up with guys like him. Until …” He stops, gritting his teeth. Then he lets out a livid huff and says, “Goddamn it, I’m the kind of guy who plants the flowers, Diego, not the one who mows over them because they looked at me funny.”
He shuts off the car and gets out.
So do I.
But I guess the conversation’s over. Or was it an argument? Our first fight? Because he marches up to his porch and heads on inside. The door slams behind him.
I get the idea pretty fast that I’m not invited in.
When I’m back in my own house, door shut, the silence that swallows me up is fucking awful. Can still smell last night’s stench of Henrietta’s store-bought cookies in the air. I head to the kitchen and look out the window. His house is dark. No lights on.
Like he’s not in there fuming. Pissed at me. Again.
The potted orchid stares at me from across the kitchen. I walk up to it, touch some of its leaves. Does he think I’m not delicate? Am I still the guy who mowed over the flowerbed? Will I always be? I come closer to the orchid. “What’d I do wrong?” I ask it.
It doesn’t answer.
—23—
Wyatt
Maybe I was too harsh.
I stare at the coffeemaker as it bubbles, grumbles, and pops.
Maybe I wasn’t harsh enough.
I turn the empty mug around and around in my hand, waiting on coffee, waiting on answers, waiting on thoughts to come.
We’re not boyfriends. The words I slung at him keep haunting me. I hated how they felt. I hated losing my cool so much. I hated that I had to yell at the one person in this town who might actually be seeing what I go through every day.
I like being generous. Kind. Making others smile.
I never once considered my kindness had any toll.
What if others are taking advantage of me? What if the gift of Mr. Bellamy’s greed is simply that he’s more upfront about it?
Fuck. Am I actually agreeing with Diego now?
I’ve taken my mug of coffee to a table I never sit at, right by a front window, tiny little thing, still covered in a few of my mom’s arts and crafts stuff, skinny window that looks out onto the street. I don’t know if Diego works today. Some Saturdays he does. Others he doesn’t. I only take Sundays and Mondays off, and even those, I spend making plans, organizing, checking my babies here at home in my greenhouse, or sometimes just going into the shop anyway to prepare for the week.
I suddenly find myself envying Mr. Bellamy’s assistants.
Brighthouse’s staff of countless employees.
The owners of such business who can issue orders, work their reasonable amount, and actually have time to breathe and enjoy the pleasures of living a life that isn’t rooted in constant work.
Stopping on paths to smell the flowers, so to speak.
Forgive the pun.
After I finish my coffee, I’m at the sink with my mug, staring down at it, and suddenly I can’t believe I had a lapse in judgment, envying someone as greedy and cold-hearted as Grant.
I love my life the way it is. The old ladies whose porch bulbs I change. The relationships I’ve nurtured. The smiles around town.
Isn’t all of that exactly what keeps me going?
Isn’t all of that enough?
I’m changed and ready for work when a knock at the door stops me cold.
I stare at my front door, keys in hand, trapped by the knock.
Because now, for the first time, I’m wondering what Diego’s night was like. Did I go too far? Maybe he couldn’t sleep at all. He’s here now on my front doorstep with a mountain of thoughts he’s about to dump all over me. Or apologies I don’t deserve. Or maybe he’s holding his orchid and wants a refund on it, finished with me.
Or the house sold and he’ll be gone by tomorrow.
My heart drops.
I keep forgetting that terrifying fact.
Diego Valdez is only here for now.
He’s not my neighbor.
He’s a passing guest.
I regret everything at once. Raising my tone. Blaming him. All I want to do is forgive him and ask if he wants to come inside. If he wants to have some coffee before work. Talk things over. Eat some burnt toast and overdone eggs. I’ll do it all with him.
I rush to the front door and pull it open.
It’s … not Diego.
“What took you so long, little bro?” asks Connie, annoyed.
In a purple tank top with a giant pink flower on the front and curlicue letters that spell: Too Cute To Care.
Light blue jeans.
Same figure she had in high school and college.
Thanks to her longtime Pilates instructor slash ex-boyfriend I am convinced is gay and a strict diet she has adhered to since her twenty-fourth birthday when a doctor told her to lose five pounds.