Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
CHARLOTTE
April in New Orleans is the most glorious time of year.
Warm, but not too warm. A hint of humidity here and there, but not enough to threaten my blowout, and rarely a cloud in sight.
And the smell?
Heavenly—sweet olive like musky honey on the breeze, jasmine exploding on every fence rail, and a hint of citrus from the mock orange trees dancing in with a top note that makes your mouth water for a taste of something tangy.
Like a mojito, perhaps…
I bought fresh limes at the store this morning, just in case Nix is up for a cocktail in the garden before we meet up with friends.
I smile and pull in a deeper breath, excited for the night ahead and generally grateful to be alive.
My windows are down, the sun is on my face, and my sexy boyfriend has a four-day break from play and practice.
We have plans to hit the food festival on Bourbon later with Elly and Grammercy, then swing by a blues club to meet Beatrice and her roommate for a drink.
Bea is thriving in NOLA. With Kai a continent away in Vietnam “finding himself”—aka hiding from the backlash after the entire world realized he was a repulsive creep—and her first single still charting months after its release, she’s really coming into her own.
Her solo album should be done soon, she’s plugged into a community of musicians, and her roommate, Clover, is an aspiring fashion designer who keeps Bea in a steady supply of fun and flowy dresses.
Life is good.
So good, sometimes I have to pinch myself just to be sure I’m awake.
I’m considering stopping in at my favorite bakery to grab fresh bread to make French toast tomorrow morning—why not add another blessing to my weekend?—when my phone buzzes against the passenger seat.
As I pull to a stoplight, I glance down to see Makena’s name lighting up the screen, followed by several urgent-looking emojis and—EMERGENCY!—in all caps.
Well, that’s not good…
But thankfully, I’m far enough from downtown that street parking isn’t an issue.
After maneuvering the SUV out of traffic and into a space by some empty trash bins, I cut the engine and pick up my phone, scanning the message.
Makena: This is not a drill! This is an alert of the emergency friend-activation system.
The sprinklers at our place are dead. I just got an alert from the house nanny app thing Parker installed that said the sprinklers are clogged.
Which made me remember that I forgot to water the garden yesterday AND possibly the day before, because I was too busy packing and raccoon wrangling, which means the strawberries are probably dying.
DYING after months of tender coddling care!
They’re at a critical stage in their development, Char, and I will CRY if we don’t have fresh berries for shortcake when we get home. I’m already coming home without Popcorn, my sweet little chaos machine. If I come home to dead strawberries, too…
Well, then I’ll know I’ve failed at life. Please, swing by and water my precious treasures? If you’re not too busy?
Biting back a laugh, I thumb out a quick response—Of course, I’ll swing by now. I’m not far from your place.
Makena: Are you sure? It’s not too much trouble?
Charlotte: No, not at all. I was just headed home to shower and change before we go out tonight.
Makena: Oh, thank God. So you’re good to swing by there NOW?
And I can use this news to soothe Parker’s frazzled soul?
Popcorn just threw up in his lap, and the next rest stop is forty miles away.
He is NOT a happy camper right now. Between that and the shitty sprinklers, he’s going to need extra gluten-free gas station donuts to make it through the day.
Charlotte: Ew. Gluten-free gas station donuts don’t sound great, to be honest.
Makena: They’re not. But they’re tradition. He gets them every time we visit his gram. But anyway, now is good? You’re going now?
Charlotte: Yes. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Fifteen minutes tops.
Makena: You’re my hero! Parker says you’re his hero, too. Thank you so much, darlin’, and have a great weekend. Say hi to Elly for me tonight and remind her not to eat raw fish. Raw fish is bad for preggos! Love you!
Charlotte: Will do. And you, too. Hang in there.
Itoss the phone back onto the seat, wait for a break in traffic, and pull away from the curb. I’m still in my work clothes from an earlier meeting—cream linen pants, a champagne silk shell, and my favorite vintage Gucci loafers in buttery tan leather. Definitely not gardening gear.
I’ll have to resist the urge to start pulling weeds and stick to watering. As a semi-neurotic weed plucker from way back, that won’t be easy, but these shoes are irreplaceable.
Sometimes, we all have to choose fashion over function.
Just a few minutes later, I pull into Makena and Parker’s driveway, grab my sunglasses from the console, and head around the side of the house toward the backyard. The gate creaks as I push through, and suddenly I’m in a different world.
The garden is green in that wild, early-spring way.
Everything is soft and alive, vines crawling over the fence, herbs spilling out of the raised beds like they’ve decided to stage a hostile takeover.
The azaleas are flushed pink from last week’s warm spell, and the sweet olive by the trellis is throwing that honey-apricot scent I was relishing in the car across the entire yard.
And there, on the far corner of the large back porch, sits the hot tub.
The thing that started it all…
The place where it happened.
It’s covered now, but I can still see it the way it looked that night in June, steam rising into the early summer air, water glinting under the string lights, and Nix, naked as the day he was born, staring at me with wide, startled eyes as he discovered he wasn’t alone.
Eyes that sparked with heat as he realized I was naked, too.
And then…
Well, the rest is history. Sweet, sexy, epic, legendary history.
Now, that man I banged for the first time in this very garden, questionable zucchini choices and all, is mine. He moved in in late January, leaving Beatrice to make his place her own.
By March, when it became clear he was likely never moving back in, Beatrice bought him out, advertised for a roommate, and started redecorating. We have dinner together in her shrine to music history most Thursdays and brunch every weekend at our place.
Our place, where protein powder now takes up an obscene amount of space in my pantry, and hockey gear has completely taken over the second guest bedroom.
There’s also a gaming system attached to my television, where Nix and I play post-apocalyptic games and debate the chances of positive cultural evolution post-societal collapse, while killing zombies.
It’s not at all what I expected my forever relationship to look like.
It’s messier and sillier and far less organized.
And I love it.
I love it so much, I’m grinning like an idiot as I collect the hose from its stand, coiled by the back fence.
The strawberry patch sprawls along the garden’s edge, and Makena’s right, the plants are looking pretty droopy.
“Hang on, babies,” I murmur, dragging the hose free. “Auntie Charlotte’s got you.”
I turn the spigot, and water surges through the hose with a satisfying rush. Moving closer to the plants, I angle the light spray over the thirsty berries, watching the soil darken as it drinks deep.
I’m admiring the cucumber starts and the way the dill is going positively feral in its raised bed, when I see it…
There, between the dill and mint, is a small statue I don’t remember from before. It’s a woman made of stone, wearing a toga with wheat strapped to her back. In her hands, she holds a bowl, outstretched toward me as if in offering. She reminds me of Ceres, the Roman goddess of fertility.
Which reminds me of that night in June all over again.
Yes, I’d had a couple of glasses of chardonnay, but I clearly remember telling Nix Roman people used to have sex in the fields as an offering to Ceres as I kissed him across the grass.
Could this…
I step closer, my instincts screaming that this is way too on-the-nose to be a coincidence. I angle the spray to hit the mint, clearing my view, and I see it.
What’s resting in the bowl.
It’s a ring, an antique by the look of it. A gorgeous, very large diamond that catches the afternoon light and throws it back in dazzling sparkles. The band is delicate, intricate. Likely Art Deco, if I had to guess.
It’s an engagement ring. A forever ring.
And suddenly…
“Oh my God,” I whisper, blood rushing to my cheeks.
My pulse picks up, my throat tightens, and then—just as I’m about to reach for the ring—a rush of cold water soaks the bottom of my pants before running down to pool in my loafers.
“Shit!” I jerk the nozzle back to the plants, but it’s too late.
I glance down to see my Gucci loafers turning dark brown in the middle of the mud puddle I’ve created near a recently perked up strawberry plant.
I jump back onto the lawn, wiping them as best I can on the grass, but I suspect this is the kind of fashion emergency that can only be solved with blotting, air drying, and liberal application of leather conditioner.
I’m trying to remember if I have any conditioner left in my stash in the closet when the hose shuts off, and a deep voice rumbles, “Shit. Did I fuck this up? Are your shoes ruined?”
I spin to see Nix by the hose stand, looking repentant.
He’s wearing a linen shirt—pale blue, sleeves rolled to his elbows—and dark jeans I bought for him last month.
They cling in all the right places, and his hair is slightly mussed, like he’s been running a hand through it too often.
The combo is enough to have my nerve endings tingling even before I remember what this is.
Why we’re here.
“Who cares about the shoes,” I whisper, gaze locking on his as I drop the hose. “Makena tricked me, didn’t she?”