Chapter Thirty-One Maddie
Chapter Thirty-One
Maddie
Bram was made for playing house. We stay in bed for a while, and I show him funny memes and videos on my phone. A few of them he doesn’t fully understand, and I have a good time laying into him being such an old man.
Then we take a shower, and I reward him for being such a good boy earlier with his cock in my mouth as the warm spray of the shower cascades down my back.
And then Bram decides that I am going to own a plant and that this time is going to somehow be different because I’ve never gone plant shopping with Dr. Plant Daddy Bram Loe.
With the girls still at their grandmother’s, it’s just the two of us as he leads me out to the oversized shed at the end of the driveway.
He unlocks the old rolling door to reveal an old but organized collection of every lawn and gardening tool a person could ever want, including bags of soil and a rusty old baby-blue truck that is definitely older than me.
“My first car,” Bram explains. “It was my grandfather’s, and he and my grandmother saw no point in me driving a vehicle that couldn’t potentially haul dirt or ferry around larger plants and small trees.
So I held on to it, because by the time Sara and I could afford a new car, it wasn’t really worth anything.
This thing guzzles gas like a freshman pre-gaming for their visit to the Snake Pit, but I only use it to go back and forth to the nursery or to pick up supplies for the greenhouse.
And okay, I have also moved many couches in my day. ”
“Bram Loe, environmental crusader, owns a shitty-ass old truck that basically leaks fuel.”
“It does not leak fuel,” he informs me as he walks me around the truck and helps me up into the cab.
The truck bounces along down the road as we drive to Taking Stalk, the nursery formerly owned by Bram’s family. It’s different to see Bram in a vehicle that he actually fits inside as opposed to his very eco-friendly compact SUV.
“You know, I’m not sure this plant field trip warranted a ride in your dilapidated truck.”
“First off,” Bram says, “this beaut is not dilapidated. And second, if you’re going to keep this plant alive, you need the full plant-buying experience, and for me, that includes a ride in the truck.”
“Okay, well, thank you for this immersive experience.”
“Nothing but the best for Madelyn Kowalczk.”
Bram rolls the windows down as we drive across town. The last few days were pretty windy, so only the most stubborn of leaves are still hanging on to their branches. As he turns the wheel with one hand, Bram reaches over the middle seat where my hand is resting and laces our fingers together.
We’re out in broad daylight, driving around, and now Bram is holding my hand and I think at this moment that Bram and I feel more like a couple than Gentry and I ever did.
I know that in the moment when bodies are molded together, panting in unison, it’s easy to say things. Things you don’t mean. Things you wish you could.
But earlier today with Bram, something was different.
It wasn’t just that I was in charge or that we had the house to ourselves.
Those things heightened the experience, of course.
But it felt so . . . domestic. Him making breakfast. Having the luxury of that spiraling out into raw, unfiltered desire.
Then at the end, in those final moments with me on top as he let me use his body like it was my own, we were two hearts in one rib cage.
Somewhere inside me, a wall fell down, and I started to imagine not just tomorrow morning with Bram but every morning with Bram.
Picking up the girls when he and Sara were busy.
Coming home to find his friends loitering.
Falling asleep on his chest while he watched the same documentary for the eighth time.
Listening to him talk about campus politics.
Him listening to me talk about actual politics.
It all felt suddenly possible to love Bram Loe.
“This is the original location,” Bram explains as he parks the truck, pulling me from the rose-colored fantasy occupying my thoughts.
“By the time I was born, my grandparents already had three other locations, but this was the one where they had the company office. It’s the one where Sara and I worked together in high school. ”
Bram comes around to open my door, and as I begin to slither out because there’s no foothold, he grips my waist and guides me to my feet. “Thank you,” I murmur.
He places a kiss on the crown of my head and takes my hand.
His hand envelops mine, and I love the feeling of it too much to pull away. This is more than daytime sex in multiple locations in his house or holding hands in the truck. This is us in public. In a too-small college town where there are no unfamiliar faces.
“They didn’t always have the whole shopping center,” Bram explains. “But as businesses moved out, they snapped up the other storefronts until they’d taken over the whole place and eventually bought the property outright.”
The shopping center is low and wide in true mid-century modern fashion and the sign is angular with teal starbursts. The letterboard beneath the sign reads GO BIG OR GOURD HOME.
When we walk in, the kid behind the counter waves to Bram, who at first grabs a basket but then opts for one of the small shopping carts instead. “Just in case,” he explains.
I appoint myself the official shopping cart pusher, and rather than walk alongside me, Bram hovers behind me with his hands on my shoulders and the rise and fall of his chest brushing against my back.
“So,” he says. “It sounds like an air plant was not the best option for you. And I can understand your frustration. A lot of tending plants is intuitive, which isn’t always user-friendly for the casual plant owner.”
“I’m going to kill this thing,” I tell him. “I’m going to kill it, and you’re going to be so disappointed in me.”
He bends down and tsks in my ear. “Baby, you could kill an entire greenhouse and I wouldn’t be disappointed in you.”
My breath hitches at the completely standard pet name that couples everywhere use. I let my head drop against his chest for a moment. “Okay, Bram, lead the way.”
We weave up and down each aisle, and in and out of the open air part of the property in the back.
The only time I waver for a few moments is when I see a display of small pots. One of them is the exact shade of red lipstick I wear, with small hand-painted gold constellations.
“Plant first,” Bram whispers.
I watch as he examines a table of snake plants and mutters to himself about the pros and cons of owning one. At one point, he finds a hose and waters a section of mums and asters only to arrange some of the succulents based on how the sun has shifted now that our days are shorter.
I watch him work and I can almost see that teenage boy who hadn’t fully grown into his build yet but was just at home in this quiet place where not a single plant asked for anything, and yet it was Bram’s job to know exactly what they needed.
I wander a little as he continues to situate the succulents until I stop in front of a table of purple cacti.
“Santa Rita,” he says from behind me. “It’s a prickly pear that turns purple in the fall—or when it’s in distress. They bloom in the spring. They’re pretty self-sufficient in the wild.”
“Like me,” I say under my breath.
He presses his lips to my temple and I can feel his smile there. “Yes,” he says. “But they can truly thrive with a light amount of care. And they’re perfect for beginners.”
My fingers brush along the metal table as I inspect each plant, letting myself see the small variations among them.
“Do any speak to you?” he asks.
I hum as I point to one in the direct center of the table. “That one.”
Bram reaches past me and plucks the plant off the table. It has a single paddle with deep purple coloration. It is perhaps the size of my hand and is scattered with smaller spikes and then there are a few very sharp clusters that look sturdier.
“The small hairlike ones are called glochids,” he explains.
“And these others—the ones that look like they can really do some damage—are spines. You would think the big guys would be harder to handle, but it’s the glochids that surprise you.
They shed easily and get under the skin with little effort. ”
“Like me,” I say again.
This time he laughs. “Exactly like you.”
Bram pushes the cart and grabs an extra bag of soil, which I imagine he just likes to have in abundance based on the tower of bags in his shed.
I loop my arm through his, and his chest falls in a sigh as I rest my arm on his biceps.
He doubles back for a snake plant and picks up some poinsettias for Sara’s mother before we loop back around to the pots and he tells me to pick out the one I like best. Of course I reach for the red one with the gold stars while Bram gets me a small watering can and mister.
I attempt to buy my own plant and pot, but Bram is adamant that this is a gift. “You will not rob me of the honor of buying Madelyn Kowalczk the first plant she will keep alive.”
And I let him, because it feels like the kind of thing your boyfriend does for you and just for today, I’d like to think that Bram Loe being my boyfriend is a very real possibility.
Bram loads up the truck while I take the cart back inside.
For a moment, I am distracted by the small selection of gifts just by the cash register. One of them is a small vintage hotel-style key chain that reads PLANT DADDY.
I take one to the counter and the teen running the register smirks as I hand her my card.
As I step out of the store into the small breezeway where I left the cart, someone tugs on my elbow and turns me to face them.
Uh-oh.
Veronica Balentine is mad. Very, very mad.