Chapter 6
KENSEY
The garden had been my mother’s domain for as long as I could remember.
Every spring, she’d spend entire weekends out here with her gloves and her kneeling pad.
She spent more time talking to the plants and roses along the back fence than she did us.
The herb section near the gate had a system. Everything had a system.
And now she was sitting in a lawn chair with a cast on her arm, watching me and my father attempt to execute that system from memory, and it was not going well. Her system wasn’t anything obvious and it wasn’t like she had written it down anywhere.
“The trowel,” she said. “Use the trowel, not the big shovel. Kensey, that’s too deep.”
“Mom, I barely broke the surface.”
“You’re going to damage the roots.”
I looked at my father, silently begging for help. He was crouched on the other side of the bed with a watering can, wearing the expression of a man who had survived thirty-five years of marriage by learning when to speak and when to just go with it. He caught my eye and gave me the smallest shrug.
“Neither of you are paying attention,” Mom said.
“We’re paying attention,” I muttered. I would never disrespect my mother, but I did have a very strong urge to throw a dirt clod at her.
“You can’t put those tomatoes too close together,” Mom said. “They’ll crowd each other and I won’t get any tomatoes. Separate them another two inches. Two not one.”
I took a deep breath, dug another hole, and looked back at her. “Better?”
She squinted at it. “A little.”
“High praise,” my dad murmured.
“I heard that,” she said.
I sat back on my heels and looked around the garden. It was genuinely beautiful and she grew some amazing vegetables. I looked forward to the salsa she made every year. I understood why it was killing her not to be able to get in there herself, but with her broken arm, she needed to take it easy.
“Mom,” I said gently. “We’ve got it. I promise.”
Dad gently slid the tomato plant out of the container and very carefully put it in the hole I made. “Maybe we should get a ruler,” he said.
I nodded. “It would make this easier.”
My mother looked between the two of us. “You’re making fun of me.”
“We would never,” I said.
“We are a little bit,” my dad admitted.
She laughed. “You two are terrible.”
“You love us,” I said.
“God help me, I do.”
We worked for another twenty minutes, my mother directing operations from her chair.
My father watered. I dug and planted and repositioned things when told to.
She was pissed she had to buy plants because she had been laid up when it was time to start the seeds.
It was a source of pride for her to start them from the seeds.
But Dad convinced her a plant was still a plant.
“Did Drew like the muffins?” my mother asked.
“He did,” I said with a smile.
She smiled. “Good boy.”
“He said they were orgasmic.”
My father looked up from the watering can. “That’s a strong opinion.”
Mom smiled. “I remember he ate half a pie at your graduation party and told me it was a religious experience.” She paused. “So how is he?”
I sat back and thought about how to answer that.
“Really good,” I said. “And it was like no time had passed at all. And then it was also kind of a shock because everything around him has changed. The store is incredible, Mom. You should see it. It’s got everything.
Crystal chandeliers, marble floors, a whole bar where they serve you prosecco while you shop for clothes I can’t imagine wearing. ”
“That’s smart,” my father said. “You’d spend a lot more money with a glass of alcohol in your hand.”
“That’s exactly what it’s designed to do, I’m sure.” I stripped off the gardening gloves and sat down on the edge of the garden bed. My knees were starting to complain about the kneeling. “And then he had a site meeting at this beach club in Malibu and I ended up going with him.”
My mother straightened in her chair. “A beach club? How fancy.”
“Not just any beach club. This place was something else. Ocean views, white linen, champagne before noon. I showed up in shorts and I was convinced they were going to ask me to leave.”
“They didn’t though,” my dad said, ready to go to battle for his very adult daughter.
“No, it was fine. Everyone was lovely.” I smiled. “And then we did a whole food tasting for the party he’s planning. Appetizers, different courses, all of it. It was all so good. That chef is an artist.”
“I bet,” Dad said. “You would hope the food would blow you away at a place like that.”
“It was a strange afternoon,” I said. “But he was so busy, hanging out with him while he worked was the only way to get some time with him.”
“I’m glad you guys got to catch up a little,” she said.
“He offered me a job,” I said, curious what they would say.
My parents both looked at me.
“Just a temp thing. The store is doing some big summer promo. There’s a few events happening over the next month, and he said he could use some help keeping everything organized. He needs someone he trusts.” I looked at the fresh soil. “I told him I’d sleep on it.”
“Why wouldn’t you do it?” my dad asked. “Sounds like fun. And it’s a far cry from being in a classroom all day. It sounds like a nice change of pace.”
“I came home to be here with you two.” I gestured at the garden, at the house, at both of them. “That’s the whole reason I didn’t teach classes this summer. I didn’t come home to work.”
“It sounds exciting, though,” she said. “Helping plan a fashion event at a beach club in Malibu? With your best friend?” She tilted her head at me. “When will you ever get an opportunity like that again?”
“Probably never,” I admitted.
“Don’t say no on our account, Kensey. Your father and I aren’t going anywhere. We’ll be right here.”
“That’s the point. I want to be here with you.”
“And you will be. You’ll still come home every night.
” She paused. “But hey, I’m happy to have you home with me all summer.
I just bought a thousand-piece puzzle. Three polar bears in a snowstorm.
And it’s round,” she added. “No corners. It’s going to take all summer. You’re welcome to help me with it.”
“I’m not sure I want to,” I said, shaking my head.
“Well, so whatever you think is right, but don’t turn down something interesting because you think you need to sit here with us all summer long.” She nodded firmly, like that was the end of the discussion. “Go help your friend. If you want to.”
I looked at my dad. He gave me a small, warm smile and said nothing, which was his way of agreeing with everything she’d said.
“I have to give him an answer today,” I said.
“Then give him one.”
“I’ll pass on the puzzle,” I said.
She laughed. “I know you will, sweetheart. It’s not for the faint of heart.”
I went inside and left my parents to argue over the tomatoes.
The house was cool and quiet after the heat of the garden.
I kicked off my shoes by the back door and headed upstairs to my bedroom.
I had my own bathroom. Nothing big. It hadn’t been updated in forever, but I always felt spoiled getting my own bathroom.
I stepped into the warm spray, let the water run over my shoulders, and thought about Drew.
Of course. I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him since I saw him yesterday.
The way he’d looked at me when I walked up behind him in the store.
He’d been genuinely happy. God, that expression made me feel like a million bucks.
I’d been telling myself for years that I had it under control. The thing I felt when I thought about Drew Blackwell was just the natural result of a long friendship. The fact that he’d always been kind to me when kindness from certain people in that school had been held back.
I remembered the first week. I was the new girl at a private school where most of the kids had known each other since before they could read.
I’d gotten a scholarship and I was terrified every single day that someone would figure out I didn’t belong there the way they did.
They’d laugh when they learned my house didn’t have a pool.
My mom drove a Honda Civic and bought me secondhand clothing.
The other kids weren’t all terrible. But they weren’t warm.
They were careful about who they let in.
Drew had been nice from day one. I would never say he was the typical awkward teen, but he had been shorter than the other boys.
And then he’d gone and gotten tall. And broad-shouldered.
At seventeen he should have been modeling just so the world could see how gorgeous he was. He’d only gotten better with time.
I turned my face up into the water and exhaled.
I was a grown woman and I had a crush on my best friend.
I had been managing it quietly for the better part of a decade.
I was not going to do anything about it.
I never had and I wasn’t about to start now.
He was the most important person in my life who wasn’t related to me.
I had watched him move in and out of relationships like he was trying on shoes, never quite finding the right fit, always a little restless, always eventually looking for the door.
I was not going to be an uncomfortable pair of shoes he tried and decided they cramped his style.
The water ran down my back. I thought about his arms around me when he’d picked me up in the middle of the store.
Strong and warm. He smelled so damn good.
The pull I felt toward him was stronger than it had been the last time I’d seen him.
Maybe it was the two years. Maybe it was the suit.
Maybe it was all those feelings bubbling up.
Probably all of it.
I turned off the water and stood there dripping for a second before reaching for the towel.
So I had feelings. That was fine. Feelings were manageable.
I had been managing them for years. The summer would be the same as it always was.
We’d be friends. We’d laugh. We’d eat muffins and he’d make me feel like I belonged everywhere I went, the way he always did.
And at the end of the summer I’d go back to New Jersey and the distance would do what distance always did, which was make everything easier.
I wrapped the towel around me and stepped into my childhood bedroom that hadn’t been updated in twenty years.
I grabbed my phone, hair dripping down my back. I opened my messages and typed before I could argue myself out of it.
Me: Fine. Yes. I’ll help you. But I am not fetching your coffee.
His response was immediate. Ten emojis in a row. A party popper. A trophy. A raised fist. A star. Something that appeared to be a dancing woman in a red dress. Two more party poppers. A face with hearts for eyes.
Not a single word. Just that unhinged parade of tiny images. But it was that last one I was dwelling on like a fourteen-year-old girl.
I was probably going to regret this.
But in that moment, I didn’t care. I was light as air and looking forward to spending the next month with him.