What about your heart? I thought. Was that meant to be mine too?
I clutched the tin to my chest hopefully. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. In fact, I’ll take you down there when we’re finished, and you can fill up a wheelbarrow with anything you want. Just run it by Tess,” he added. “She’d kill me if I got rid of something she needed for a window installation.”
I beamed at him, my mind tripping over what treasures I might find there. What I might find in him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He paused, watching me for a beat. “You’ll have to set it down if you want to plant in it.”
“Oh.” I laughed. “Sorry.”
Once it was on the table, Kash handed me the gloves.
But I waved him off. “I’m not afraid of a little dirt.”
With one brow cocked, he reached for a canvas apron. “Guess you won’t be needing this then.”
I snatched it from him. “That I will take, thank you.”
He stepped behind me as I looped the strap over my neck, his hands finding the strings to tie around my waist. As his fingers did their work, he closed the small gap between us, his chest against my back, his lips against my neck for the briefest of kisses.
“All right,” he said against my skin, kissing me once more before stepping back up to the table. “First, the gravel.”
At that, he launched into his instructional with Brutus watching me from across the table. When he hopped up and took a seat, I half expected him to make hard eye contact while he knocked things off the table, one by one. But instead, he sat silently, tail flicking judgmentally as Kash directed me to pour in a few inches of gravel for drainage, then a couple small pieces of concrete to discourage the roots from growing into the drainage. Then a little bit of fresh soil, mixed with the ivy’s topsoil when I turned the pot to empty its contents into my hand. I squeezed the pot-shaped soil to break up the roots as he instructed, then set the little plant inside and filled it with the remainder of the dirt in the pot, just like I had the cosmos.
Proudly, he handed me a watering can. “Go ahead. Give him a little drink.”
I smiled and did as I’d been told. “Why’s it gotta be a he?”
“It’s whatever you want it to be. You should name it.”
I set down the watering can and held up the tin for inspection, the ivy’s leaves bobbing with the motion. I traced the visage of the girl basking in the sunshine, combing her hair surrounded by lilies. “Ophelia,” I said, utterly certain that it was most definitely a she, and her name was a fact that had been waiting to be uncovered, in that moment, by me.
“Ophelia it is,” he said, leaning on the table to watch me.
And I watched him right back.
He was immovable, a pillar of solidarity and strength. An unwavering truth clung to him, the air of safety and certainty. A worthiness of trust.
I trusted him. He had nothing to gain by deceiving me.
I didn’t even think him capable of deceit.
“Thank you,” I said quietly, from the very depths of my heart. Because that moment of truth was upon me, and I wouldn’t waste it.
“For what?” he asked honestly. As if everything he gave wasn’t a gift and privilege.
“For this. For everything.”
He reached for my hand, that tilted smile on his face as he pulled me into his chest, wrapped me in his arms.
“I told you I was an excellent distraction,” he said.
“You did,” I agreed on a gentle laugh.
“Next time you need a rebound, I’m your guy.”
“And what if I don’t need another rebound?”
Something shifted behind his eyes, but the rest of him maintained that cavalier air he always had about him. “Then I’d say whoever locked you down was a lucky guy. You’re going to make somebody really happy one day, Lila. And I’m glad you picked me for your rebound. It’s been fun while it lasted.”
My admission died in my throat. “It has,” I admitted with a thin smile to cover the sting of those words.
You knew this was temporary. Deep down you knew. Let it be what it is. Because he’ll never want more, not from you.
“Kiss me,” I commanded gently, wanting nothing more than to hide, to seal away my wishes, to kiss them goodbye.
And with the brush of his fingers on my cheek, he did.