Chapter Four #2
Across the path, Tyler lifted his head. “I heard my name.”
Gus didn’t look up from the fence. “That happens when you keep talking to compost.”
“I’m a layered person,” Tyler said.
“You’re a loud person.”
Birdie tucked peppers into her basket. “You can be both, honey.”
Daphne laughed, and the sound threaded through the heat, the tomato leaves, the drip of water from the line, and the ache I’d been trying to ignore since she’d walked through the gate.
By late morning, the repaired drip line ran clean down the south row.
Daphne sat back on the kneeling pad and wiped her wrist across her forehead. A streak of dirt marked her temple. She looked hot, tired, proud, and far too pleased with a line of plastic hose.
I wanted my hands on her.
I wanted them at her waist, her neck, the back of her knee, anywhere but hanging loose at my sides in a public garden while her probation hours sat on a clipboard in my shed.
I picked up the water bottle instead.
“Drink.”
Daphne looked up. “You make hydration sound like a court sentence.”
“It’s July.”
“It’s bossy July.”
“It’s practical July.”
She took the bottle. Our fingers didn’t touch. Her eyes narrowed a little, not angry. Aware.
I stepped back and reached for another bottle for myself.
Birdie wandered close with the pepper basket and a look that meant she’d seen the entire thing and was deciding whether to behave.
I gave her the look back.
Birdie smiled. “You two fixed that line nicely.”
Daphne twisted the cap open. “Thank you. I only insulted the pipe twice.”
“That shows restraint,” Birdie said.
“Zane had to take over one cap.”
“It was jammed,” I said.
Daphne glanced at me over the rim of the bottle. “Some of us did.”
The words landed low and hot.
Birdie’s eyebrows went up.
Daphne seemed to hear herself a second late. Her cheeks flushed, and she drank water like the bottle might save her.
I turned toward Tyler. “Break’s over in five.”
Tyler stood beside the compost bin with both hands braced on the shovel. “I thought this was the break.”
“This is the warning before work resumes.”
“That’s a cruel genre of break.”
“It builds character,” Gus said.
Tyler pointed the shovel at him. “You said compost doesn’t build character.”
“I changed my mind to make you suffer.”
Daphne choked on a laugh, then coughed. I moved before I thought better of it, one step toward her, hand half-raised.
She waved me off, still coughing but smiling. “I’m okay.”
I stopped.
Birdie saw that too.
I lowered my hand and picked up the tubing crate. “Five minutes.”
The last stretch of the shift went slower.
The sun hardened overhead, bright enough to bleach color from the paths.
Heat rose from the soil and pressed through my jeans when I crouched.
Daphne stayed with the work, but her movements lost some snap after noon.
She didn’t complain. She just went quieter, focusing on each small piece of tubing like the fate of Larch Bend depended on water reaching six tomato plants.
When the final connector clicked into place, Daphne sat back and looked down the row. Water dotted the soil in even dark circles near every root.
She smiled at it. “That looks right.”
“It’s right.”
Her smile grew, quick and pleased.
I wanted to give her more praise just to see what she did with it.
I kept my voice level. “You did good work.”
Daphne looked at me.
The crew noise thinned for a second.
“Thank you,” she said.
No joke came after it. Her voice stayed soft.
I stood and lifted the crate. “Sign-out.”
She nodded and reached for the kneeling pad. “Do I have to return this, or have we bonded?”
“Return it. We need it tomorrow.”
“That’s practical.”
“Usually.”
Daphne carried it toward the shed, brushing dust from the edge with her thumb. “I understand. I too have seen compost.”
Tyler, who was close enough to hear, looked wounded. “Why does everyone keep talking about the compost like I did something wrong?”
“Because you keep standing next to it,” Daphne said.
Gus nodded once. “Fair.”
Inside the shed, the air held the dim heat of old wood, metal, and damp soil. Daphne set the kneeling pad on the shelf and pulled off her gloves. Her fingers were pink where the seams had pressed into her skin.
I took the clipboard from the hook.
She stepped beside me, close enough that the shed got smaller.
It was the same workbench, the same hours sheet, and the same court-ordered line I’d been careful with since the first morning.
Only now I knew what Daphne tasted like when she stopped joking.
I knew the sound she made when she forgot to be careful.
I wrote the date, start time, end time, and four hours.
The pen moved cleanly.
My hand stayed steady.
Daphne watched the numbers go down.
“Four left after today,” she said.
“Four left.”
“That sounds almost manageable.”
“It’s manageable.”
Her fingers rested on the edge of the workbench. “Are you always this confident about math?”
“Only small numbers.”
“That’s wise.”
I handed her the pen.
She took it. This time, her fingers brushed mine because the shed was small and neither of us moved fast enough to avoid it.
Daphne initialed the sheet. Her handwriting was tidy, a little tighter today than it had been before.
I watched the pen instead of her mouth.
She set the pen down. “So that’s it?”
“For today.”
“Right.” She looked at the shelf, then at the open shed door. Outside, Tyler said, “I’m developing a compost strategy,” and Birdie had the patient expression of a woman considering murder with garden shears. “For today.”