Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
RYDER
Thaddeus spent the next few hours in the glasshouse, perched on a stool, with the ventilation control panel iPad thingy connected to his laptop—don’t ask me how.
Every now and then, he’d curse up a storm, directed at whatever jerk had written such an archaic, poorly protected, and subpar program—his words, not mine.
I watched from a distance, half-amused, half-intrigued, pottering with my plants in between manually adjusting and readjusting the glass louvres to keep my babies from cooking.
It had been eight years since I’d worked alongside anyone in my fiercely protected happy place.
Longer, if I were being honest, since James had little interest in anything horticultural.
Mostly, it was just me and my music, and I preferred it that way.
Tap and Will, or my sisters, would occasionally pop by for a visit, but that was hardly the same thing as working in close quarters with another person.
When Thaddeus cursed and kicked the table leg for the millionth time, I looked up. “Something I can help you with?” I asked, knowing there wasn’t.
“How do you even function with such a shit system?” he grumbled, shoving his laptop away in disgust. “I’m surprised you managed to keep anything alive.
For a basic model, it actually collects a pretty reasonable amount of sensor data, but it does almost nothing with it.
You could do so much more. And it has almost zero safeguards in place. ”
I abandoned my repotting and walked over to his bench. “That’s no surprise. I’ve lost a lot of plants over the years. It’s worse when it doesn’t open as it should. Most of my plants will stand a chilly night or two under the glass way more than they’ll tolerate being cooked in their plastic shoes.”
Thaddeus grinned over at me. “Plastic shoes, huh? You are so cute.”
I ignored him, circling the bench to look over his shoulder at the gobbledegook on his screen. “Can you fix it?”
He swivelled on his seat and cocked a brow. “Is the Pope Catholic? The answer is yes; I can fix it. But I refuse to Band-Aid what is little more than a pile of crap. Instead, I’m going to write a whole new program. It’s much easier that way.”
“You can do that?” I studied his face and for the millionth time found myself falling into those tawny eyes. “But won’t it . . . will it—” I hesitated, not wanting to offend his skillset, but this was the lifeblood of the glasshouse Thaddeus was talking about pulling to bits.
“Will it work?” Thaddeus grinned. “Tell you what. For the sake of our friendship, I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that.
Yes, my little technological neophyte, it will work.
And it will work a damn sight better than the piece of shit you currently have installed.
Plus, I’ll incorporate some upgrades that will have you jerking off in your gardening gloves.
” He shot me a wicked grin. “But first, I’m gonna need a second laptop.
I don’t want to risk some of the stuff I have on mine, and it’s easier with two. ”
I immediately offered my own, which only made Thaddeus roar with laughter.
“Now, who feels insulted?” I muttered.
Thaddeus wiped his eyes and tried to gather himself. “Sorry.” He looked anything but. “Thank you for the offer, but I’ll feel better with a clean one. Is there somewhere close to go pick one up?”
“There’s a reasonably sized electronics store about twenty minutes away. Will that do?”
Thaddeus nodded. “Sure. I usually build my own gear, but I can work with pretty much anything for this.”
I hesitated, remembering Thaddeus’s job situation. “How about I front the money since I’m benefiting?” I offered.
Thaddeus’s cheeks pinked. “No way. I can afford it. I’m not destitute. And I’m gonna need another one anyway.”
There was something about the way he said it that didn’t sound right, but it was none of my business. “Fine, then let’s go get your laptop.” I ran my gaze over him. “And maybe you can pick up some jandals that fit and a pair of sweatpants that don’t fall off your hips every five minutes.”
“Aw, Ryder.” He shot me a wicked grin. “Fancy you noticing something like that.”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed his hand, pulling him out of his seat. “Come on, smart mouth. Let’s go shopping.”
When we returned two hours later, Thaddeus parked himself on the sofa with the two laptops, the old control panel, and a second iPad he’d bought from the same electronics store.
I’d looked over his shoulder at one point just to see what he was doing, but he may as well have been solving the origin of the universe for all I could understand.
Thaddeus worked until his eyes bled red.
It took all my persuasive skills to get him to leave it alone for an hour and come to the table for dinner.
He protested that he could eat while he worked, but yeah, that was never going to happen on my watch, and so he begrudgingly put his laptops aside and demolished a plate of my pan-fried lemon chicken with salad and french fries like he hadn’t eaten for days.
Before he could say no, I dished him up a second serving, and he wolfed that down as well, in between peppering me with questions about where I’d travelled, my sisters Kris and Naomi, and about James—most of which I avoided.
He asked about Tap and my friendship and then about my parents—my father, dead from a heart attack at fifty-two, and my mother, also dead in a boating accident when I was twenty.
Thaddeus was struck silent by that last bit of information, so I filled the gaping hole in the conversation by telling him about helping her with her garden and how it had started my love for plants.
Turning the tables, I pressed for more information about what Thaddeus had actually done in his job and what his plans might be going forward, but he was surprisingly cagey.
When I changed tack, he became much more open about his family and what it was like growing up the only child of immigrant parents who’d fled a war-torn country.
He spoke again about the pressure to succeed and fit in, and he talked about growing up in a house where showing emotions wasn’t the done thing, along with the impact of having a father whose endless affairs had torn his family apart.
Judging by his sombre expression, that last part remained raw and painful and likely a reminder of what he was currently going through.
But unlike his mother, Thaddeus wasn’t about to simply forgive Judd and carry on.
I admired him for that, but what struck me most as he talked was the sense of utter loneliness that seemed to permeate his childhood and teenage years.
Nerdy, bookish, and gay to boot, gaming seemed to have been the only common ground he shared with his peers.
It did the job, keeping him from being bullied, but he’d hidden a lot behind that persona, and I couldn’t help but sense that he was still hiding things.
His life felt incredibly top-heavy with work, an anxiety to please and not much else, and yet, in the three days I’d known him, he’d shown himself to be much more than that.
It felt almost like his work was the stopper in a bottle that was ready to explode, but not in a bad way.
Because the really good stuff was fizzing beneath.
I wanted to ask more. A lot more. But as soon as he was done eating, Thaddeus removed himself from the table and returned to his laptops, where he spent the rest of the evening safe in their embrace.
And not mine. The errant thought made its way into my brain, but I ignored it.
Instead, I was content to watch him work for a while longer, understanding that those screens functioned as much as a barrier to the world as a creative outlet.
Then again, who was I to judge? It was no different to how I used my own gardens, I supposed.
If I buried enough of myself in looking after them, then I wouldn’t feel quite so lonely, right?
The realisation wasn’t exactly comfortable.
Just as well Thaddeus was leaving in a couple of days.
I could do without the brutal self-reflection on top of everything else.
On that note, I left Thaddeus to work and took myself to the greenhouse to potter with my seedlings, something which generally gave me great joy.
But for some reason, the place felt almost too quiet that night, without Thaddeus’s constant murmurings and frustrated expletives.
The idea made me smile, and I wondered how in the hell that had happened after just one day.
I’d never really thought about James when I was in the greenhouse.
Never missed him there, probably because his infrequent visits had come loaded with unspoken resentment that I wasn’t spending the time with him.
I was reminded again that the signs had been there a long time before James ever left.
I just didn’t want to see them. James was a city boy, just like Thaddeus, and the irony wasn’t lost on me.
Yet another reason to keep my dick in my pants.
Thaddeus might walk away from a casual fling without batting an eyelid, but I wasn’t quite so convinced I could do the same.
With my seedlings put to bed, I returned to the cottage to find Thaddeus lying on the sofa with one of the laptops on his stomach, its screen black. One hand rested on the floor, the other arm lay across his forehead, and his mouth hung open as he softly snored.
I smiled and watched him for far too long before finally shaking him awake and sending him to bed.
He blinked in surprise, apologised, and then trudged almost unseeing toward his bedroom with eyes half-closed and muttering something about temperature ratios and soil moisture.
He crawled between his sheets without even getting undressed.
I followed, telling myself it was only to make sure he found the right room, but I couldn’t resist pulling the covers up before leaving him to sleep and closing the door.
I could hear his snoring before I’d even made it back into the kitchen where I scooped Ziggy into my arms and switched off the lights.
I climbed into my own bed without thinking at all about the fascinating man sleeping just across the hall.
Not about his gorgeous golden-brown eyes or that cute, somewhat defiant moustache, the big brain that sat between his shoulders, his perky arse, and that smart mouth with its eminently kissable lips.
Nor did I think about the fact Ziggy loved him, or how he fit into the cottage and maybe into my arms like a hand in a glove.
Nope. Not a single one of those thoughts crossed my mind.