Fifteen #2
A shadow falls over me. I look up to find Gavin standing there with his arms full of what looks like laundry. “What’s all
that?”
“The proper attire.” His gaze sweeps down my front, lingering on my bare legs in a way that reminds me of how his fingers
skated over my thighs in the greenhouse. “Nothing we can do about your legs unless—”
“I’m not wearing your pants. Or any of your other clothes, for that matter.” I squat down and tug a box toward me from under
the table. Aha. I pull out a pair of cotton gloves triumphantly. He takes them and tosses them back in.
Handing me the pair from atop the pile he’s holding, he says, “I keep extras in my truck.” Next, he sets a sun hat on my head, disentangling the string from around my ears. “It’s hard to make these look fashionable, but you’re totally pulling it off.” One corner of his mouth twitches.
“Hilarious. Are you happy now?”
He shakes his head and holds out the last item of clothing. A long-sleeve T-shirt.
“It’s ninety degrees. I’m not wearing that.”
“Barely eighty, and I would’ve offered it to you before but...”
“But you thought I’d be stubborn as always?”
A half grin appears, crinkling his eyes. “That, and I didn’t want to rain on your parade. You clearly put so much thought
into your outfit.” He glances at my boots, and his lips turn down in a slight grimace.
“What’s wrong with these?”
“Nothing. But did you break them in?”
“I planned to. I was going to walk to the coffee shop in them the other day but I got caught up writing.” Suddenly this all
feels so silly. Me, here, when I’d be better off donating like I’ve done every other year. If this is how fish-out-of-water
feels, it’s freaking embarrassing, not romantic.
Gavin steps closer, close enough for me to feel his heat, except this time I’m not concerned about sweat, because my senses
are full of him —the midday sun glinting off his golden-brown hair, the smattering of freckles joined by flecks of potting soil along his
cheekbones. His lips, a rosy shade of pink, shoulders filling out his own shirt in a way I do my best not to notice, but when
I drop my eyes, it’s not much help. His work boots are plenty broken in, the leather scuffed, laces worn.
“You don’t have to get everything right the first time.” He’s talking about today, but all I can think of is the book, the
only manuscript I’ve left unfinished.
“Being sweet isn’t going to get me to put on another layer. It’s like a hundred degrees out here.” The forecast said low eighties, but then again, I’m used to enjoying hot summer days from the brisk air-conditioning of the great indoors.
“Sweet? Me?” I’m not used to the way his cocky smile is making my heart flutter—normally it would just give me the urge to
double down in our debate. “Would someone sweet commit breaking and entering on behalf of a total stranger?”
“Yes, you goofball,” I tell him. “That’s pretty much the definition of a sweetheart.” He’s the kind of man who donates to
every GoFundMe that pops up on his feed without doing hours of research like me, who calls all his friends and relatives on
their birthdays, even if they haven’t seen each other in years. He’s not trying to rub it in that I’m making newbie mistakes.
He’s just looking out for me, like he always does.
It feels strangely intimate to slip on his gloves, flexing my fingers and trying not to think about the imprint of his fingertips
on mine. But I draw the line at taking his shirt. I’m sweating already; adding another layer would do me in.
“You’re not covered up, either.” I gesture at his bare forearms—tan, toned, and dusted with golden hair that just looks more
ruggedly attractive thanks to a sheen of sweat.
He yanks down the sleeves bunched at his elbows, a reverse of all the times I’ve written a hero undoing his cuffs, and yet
the result is the same. The brusque gesture, full of restrained strength, has me imagining how much I’d like to use his sturdy
arms as leverage to rise on my tiptoes and kiss him, just once, so I can get it off my mind.
Instead, I yank off my hat, shake the wrinkled shirt out with a quick snap, and tug it over my head. The sleeves dangle over
my hands outrageously, and Gavin laughs, not bothering to smother it.
I stretch out my arms to demonstrate how huge it is on me. My fingertips are barely visible. “Happy?”
“Incredibly.” He catches hold and cuffs the sleeves in two deft rolls. I could do it myself, but being fussed over is doing a lot to ease the sting of how awkward this afternoon has felt.
“Thank you, I guess.” I scrunch my face into a grumpy expression, fighting a smile.
His dimple makes another appearance. “You’re welcome, I guess.”
We’re back to yanking weeds, this time tackling the giant patch at the back of the lot. The stems are covered in prickers,
and I have to admit Gavin was right. With my hands and arms covered, I’m itchy, but at least I haven’t gotten any more scratches.
Another one of Gavin’s coworkers, Morris, is helping, too.
He lifts his ball cap to run a bandanna over his head, the sheen of sweat on his scalp visible through his buzz cut. “If you
think Riley’s family chat is bonkers, you should see mine. Nothing but hamster photos. Let me tell you, waking up to a rodent’s
face is not my idea of a good time. Got so fed up that I set up a social media account for the damn hamster just so my brother
would quit spamming us.”
I grab hold of a weed near the base. “Does he have many followers?”
“Thousands,” he says. “But he didn’t at first, so I gave him a pity follow. Now my algorithm is screwed and my feed is nothing
but pet videos.”
“Big softy,” Riley says, and reaches over to rub his head, which sends a shower of dirt along his shoulders, and he sputters
as clumps fall over his face.
Gavin trundles by, pushing a wheelbarrow. On his way past, he shakes his head at their antics. “It’s not always like this.”
“Usually he joins in,” Morris says. “But he’s on his best behavior for you.”
“Gavin’s never been on good behavior around me.
” I glance over, sure he’ll agree, but he’s already out of earshot.
A group of people spreading mulch beckon him over, and he pulls a box cutter from his back pocket, then stoops to slice open a bag of mulch with decisive strokes that accentuate his biceps in a way that has me taking a swig from my water bottle.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “What I mean is, we’ve known each other forever. We don’t worry about impressing
each other.”
Morris and Riley share an unreadable look. “Does Gavin ever come to your book signings?” Morris asks.
“Whenever they’re local, yeah.”
“And do you want things to go well when he’s there, or is it business as usual?”
“I get a little self-conscious,” I say. “But that’s not his fault. He’s super supportive.”
“Okay,” he says. “But think of it this way. This is his chance to show he’s good at what he does. Since you two are close,
your approval would mean even more.”
“I hang out with him while he works in his yard all the time.”
“Yeah, but that’s different.” Morris brushes his hands on his baggy jeans. “Here, he’s not just working for himself. He’s
a project manager. He’s running things, people look to him for leadership and expertise.”
I glance toward where I saw him last and see he barely made it halfway to the road before he got waylaid by two men with pickaxes.
He lifts the clipboard he brought off the pile of dirt in the wheelbarrow and flips to a new page, scribbles something on
it with a pencil.
I think back on all the times I teased him for playing in the dirt. I love getting a rise out of him, but I know how it feels
to have people judge you for your profession—plenty of trolls talking about how romance is cliché and worse. Landscaping isn’t
a profession that gets a lot of love, either, but making the world more beautiful is important work.
As someone whose genre gets ridiculed for being silly and pointless when it’s anything but, I should’ve known better than to tease him. I finally grasp what Morris is getting at. It’s not about impressing one another, it’s about validation.
I’ve been focused on how I could make it through fish-out-of-water with my dignity intact, but Gavin is in his element. I’ve
entered his world, and this is my chance to show him it matters, like he’s always done for me.