Connection - Part Five
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
“What this whole thing with Logan reminds me of,” I tell Aiden, “Is when we had that employee here whose flower arrangements I couldn’t stand.”
Aiden rests his powerful arms on the counter of the quiet flower shop. Watching with a smile on his bearded face as I work on the arrangement I’m halfway through.
It started as a traditional bouquet, but now I’m weaving it into a blanket of flowers, and liking how it’s coming out much better. Maybe it could be floated on water somehow, that would be pretty. I should call the person who ordered it and ask what they think.
Anyways -
“Because it’s not like that guy was rude to me,” I go on, knowing better than to take Aiden’s silence as a sign to shut up. “He was perfectly polite! It was how he treated the flowers that I couldn’t stand. Those arrangements he made! He’d be choking the flowers up with so much twine, and using floral pin holders!”
Aiden lets out a deep huff of laughter, hearing the fiery emphasis on those last three words. He knows my opinion on stabbing the tender stems of poor innocent flowers into pin holders. The sight of that makes me get slightly wild with rage. It fills me with an uncontrollable, almost violent instinct to wrench the flowers free and apologize to them on behalf of humanity.
“I don’t even keep pin holders in the shop anymore,” Kent tells Aiden, going by with a few vases in his arms. “They make Jamie too upset.”
“Yes they do, and he was always using them!” I answer heatedly. “And then do you know what he’d do, Aiden? He’d finish his arrangements and come up to me and say, Jamie, tell me what you think. When everyone knows I can’t lie! So I’d be there fighting for my life trying to come up with a nice thing to say, and then that was a mistake, because Des and Kent would tell him straight-up to start over, so he always came to me for an opinion! It was like being punished for trying to be nice about it!”
“Aw, no,” Aiden says, biting back a laugh.
“He didn’t end up lasting very long here.” Kent joins me behind the counter to put the vases away, frowning at the memory. “I thought maybe it was a matter of taste, but in the end I had to agree with Jamie about his designs.”
“I told you, Kent, it was because he didn’t grow anything of his own!”
“What’s that got to do with it?” Aiden asks, surprised. “It’s not like you use what you grow at home here in the shop, right?”
I hesitate, struggling to think of how to put it into words. It’s hard to explain, but once you’ve gently and tenderly grown flowers out of the earth, coaxed them to life and watched them shyly blossom, connected with them all along – you don’t then cram them forcefully into ill-fitting vases or impale them on pins. You feel very strongly against doing those things, in fact. It might even upset you terribly to see other people doing it. If you’re me. Maybe it’s just me.
“I don’t know how to explain,” is the answer I come out with, more agitatedly than intended. “But I know what I mean!”
Aiden breathes out a huff of laughter, staring at me with a warm, baffled expression on his face. “You’re full of mysteries, Keane. What the hell goes on behind those pretty eyes?”
Kent straightens up from beneath the counter, just in time to save me from whatever fumfering reply I was about to give that. He holds out a box full of wilted seedlings, frowning as he takes in their condition.
“Jamie, should I just throw these away, or do you want-?”
“No, I’ll take them, the poor little things!” I snatch the box from Kent and hug it protectively to my chest, taken aback at the suggestion. “Throw them away, why would we do that?”
“Because they got here in bad shape, they need some work, and I don’t have time.”
“Neither do you.” Aiden turns a warning look on me, his beautiful blue eyes growing stern. “You’ve been picking up favors for people again, Jamie, and you’ve also got a class to teach soon. You’re already looking after those two little saplings we have, and you said you wanted time to have a closer look at the buds coming in on the ruby tree, and-”
“Oh, it’ll be fine!” I protest, setting the box of seedlings by my bag.
“I’m not taking care of them,” Aiden warns me resolutely. “You know it makes me nervous, I don’t know what I’m doing. Besides, I’m busy with making dinner tonight. I got us the sexiest hunk of Parmesan cheese you’ve ever seen, and some extremely cheap wine for you to have with the pasta, since that’s all I could afford after the cheese.”
“All they need is a lot of water, gently applied, which I’ll handle!” I insist, running a protective hand over the wilted seedlings. “And I haven’t picked up too many favors for people. I’ll be fine.”
Kent and Aiden exchange a quick, knowing smile with each other, which makes me all the more determined to prove that I haven’t overextended myself. As soon as Aiden heads back to City Hall and Des shows up to take over for me, I take a brief trip home to give Luna a snack and put away the seedlings. Then I head directly to our elderly neighbor’s garden, where I promised to do some work.
She’s a very kind old woman, and also very anxious. I arrive to discover that she’s deeply rattled from yesterday’s storm. She asks me several times, in a shaky voice, whether I think there will be another one like that tonight. Before I know what I’m doing I’ve stayed much longer than I meant to. I have a cup of coffee with her on the porch, chatting comfortably until she seems distracted enough to let the storm slip her mind.
It takes me a while to get the storm wreckage out of her garden, and dust her ailing rosebushes with my homemade pest repellent, and trim down the plants that will be spending this windy season outside. I’m very behind schedule by the time I drive off to my parent’s house, to get the bags of stuff my mom asked me to drop off at the thrift store.
“Back from whence they came, hey?” my dad laughs, helping me fit them into the trunk.
To the thrift store real fast, and then straight to Angie’s clinic. I regularly bring her a fresh bunch of blossoms from my own garden, usually once every other week. Normally I would have gone tomorrow, but she texted me asking for urgent help with something else, so I decided to bring them today.
I find her struggling to contain what she referred to as ‘a slight problem with some escaped crickets’ and what I discovered is in fact a new kind of nightmare experience for me, one to add to my personal list of situations to be avoided at all costs.
Eventually we just lock the door and let the frog Angie found injured by the side of the road out of his tank, to feast on those we couldn’t gather up. He was the intended recipient of these crickets, anyways, and he had been glaring at us all the while as if to tell us we were doing it completely wrong. He seems delighted at the opportunity to show us the right way to quickly empty a room of crickets.
I leave Angie with Spencer’s phone number, in case a turtle clean-up crew is necessary.
“I met that turtle!” Angie says brightly, placing the autumn flowers on the shelf behind the check-in desk. “Naomi, right? Sweet little thing. Spencer brought her in.”
“Really? Is she okay?”
“Aw, yes, Jamie, don’t look so worried. He brought her to the clinic because I’ll be her new vet, and he wanted us to ‘get acquainted with each other’.”
Thinking fondly of Spencer, and experiencing a slight crisis of conscience about the poor crickets – they must have been so confused, and then we unleashed a fearsome predator on them, and I think I stepped on one, which somehow feels even worse – I arrive at the evening farmer’s market. Just in time to catch Mitch and Sylvia, to receive the box with our delicious, farm-produced payment for Emmett’s science lessons. This turns into something of an unofficial parent-teacher conference, since Sylvia has some questions about how he’s doing. She’s anxious to see him do well in at least one of his classes, and I can tell her hopes have landed on mine.
I take my time to reassure her about it, find myself reassured in turn by the farmers when I blurt out my guilt-wracked thoughts about the crickets, then say my goodbyes and hurry back towards the car. Now even more off-schedule, but – oh, man. There’s the spice guy at the far end of the market. He’s only here rarely, and Aiden always wants a few things from him… I should probably text Raj, too, and see if he needs anything.
I rush over to quickly stock us up on all of Aiden’s favorites, gather up Raj’s requests, buy some maple butter from the stand next door, and hurry back to my car, only to immediately realize I have to circle back into the farmer’s market. I have a jar of Aiden’s peach jam that I wanted to give Sylvia, and an angelic little tulip bulb that would make a beautiful addition to her front garden.
By the time I actually hit the road in the direction of Mel, Raj, and Noah’s house, night has completely settled in over Ketterbridge. Warm orange lights flicker on in the windows as I drive down the road, which is still wet from yesterday’s storm. It all makes a gleaming, foggy, indigo and tangerine picture. Beautiful, to my tired eyes. Early jack-o'-lanterns have been placed on doorsteps here and there, nestled in piles of autumn leaves.
“Thanks, Jamie,” Raj says warmly, accepting the spices and handing me some reimbursement cash. “You look tired out, brother. You sure you’ve got time to do the tree tonight?”
“Oh, definitely.” I try my hardest not to yawn as I follow him into the house. “I’ve got it right here. Two, actually.”
“Really nice of you to do this.”
“It’s my pleasure,” I answer firmly.
Since having my own kitchen garden, and with Aiden cooking up all of the ingredients grown there, I’ve realized that the difference made by growing your own food is undeniable. Everything tastes better if it begins with ingredients carried in from the garden, with dew still on the leaves.
I was vaguely aware of this when I first planted the backyard at this house, but I was thinking more of the beautiful rainforest I had envisioned, and keeping the visiting birds and critters fed. Now that I’m powerfully aware of the difference, it’s nagged at me to think there’s nothing edible in there. I want Nik and her family to have access to fresh, homegrown food, and not only when I have time to drop things off from my own garden. That means the backyard needs a few additions.
No one who lives here is a gardener, but that’s okay. A fruit tree can tend mostly to itself, so long as I come by now and then to check up on it. I brought two who are sure to become very affectionate of each other, who will be happy to stand close together, who can pollinate each other and provide each other with all they need.
Companion plants, I think to myself, missing mine.
I’m excited to get home and see him. But trees take a long time to grow, and waiting much later in autumn to plant these wouldn’t be wise. I pull on my gardening gloves, unroll my tools, and get to work.
The storm made conditions perfect for this. The rich scent of wet soil rises up to meet me, warming me through and through. I begin making a place in the earth for the two saplings waiting patiently beside me. Their slender, budding branches, trembling in the breeze, lift up to the piece of night sky that will be theirs for the rest of their lives. I leave them to make their acquaintance with it, happily sinking into my work.
I’m startled to hear a voice from behind me sometime later, but unsurprised that I didn’t notice the footsteps.
“Hey, Jamie,” come the soft, tentative words from out of the dusky night.
I look over my shoulder to find Gage standing there, resting his shoulder against the fence like he’s been here for some time. His breath is puffing on the chilly air, illuminated by the lights of the house behind him.
“Send me packing if I’m bothering you,” he murmurs, then gestures to the hand-rolled cig in his long fingers. “I was just…”
“No, it’s okay.” I fix him with a tired, friendly smile. “Come and sit, if you want.”
He drops down beside me on the frosty grass, leaving me a lot of space to keep working.
I steal a quick, searching glance at him. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I saw. That expression on his face as he gently pulled the blanket up over Noelle. The infinite tenderness in his eyes when he thought no one was looking.
I don’t want to jump to conclusions. But I feel like I saw a lot, in those brief few seconds.
“Not hanging out with Noelle tonight?” I ask tentatively.
“No.” Gage touches the flame of his lighter to his rollie, then rests his elbows on his knees, staring off into the distance. “She and Logan are having dinner with her mom. The big introduction, and all that.”
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Gage wasn’t invited to that dinner. I don’t know why I am.
“Oh. Okay. So long as it’s not because yesterday was too much for Noelle. Physically, I mean.”
“Mmm.” Gage lowers his cigarette, letting out a slow stream of smoke from his nose. “I know she looks delicate, but it’s not like she’s made of glass. She just needs her time to rest. Problems only come up when people don’t respect that. Or when she pushes herself too hard. Then she does crash pretty badly. Think she only ever does that when she feels pressured to, though.”
“Pressured to?” I repeat, indignant on her behalf at the thought.
“Yeah… like I remember this day trip we did with our families once, that first summer we met. It was with a tour group, and they had us going basically all day long, flying through everything, hitting all these historical sites and tour stops without slowing down. Noelle made herself keep up, even though me and Noah really wanted her to stop, kept offering to just go sit with her somewhere.” Gage winces at me, like the memory honestly hurts. “She was in bed for like three days afterwards.”
“Oh, man… I hope she doesn’t do that anymore.”
“Only when she feels pressured to,” Gage repeats, dropping his gaze back down to his cigarette. “She told me it’s because sometimes people make her feel like she’s just being lazy or immature, needing to rest and lay around as often as she does. I know she hates feeling like people think that about her.”
He pauses, rolling the cigarette between his fingertips, then adds – “I know how she feels. I get some of that, too. From people who don’t approve of my choice of work.”
“Get what?” I ask, taken aback. “People calling you lazy and immature? No, how the hell?”
“Absolutely, man. Too lazy to get a real job, too childish to grow up and learn the laws of society, proving my emotional immaturity just by doing this job.” Gage smiles when he glances over and catches the scornful frown on my face. “Mm. That’s nice, that that’s your reaction. Knew I liked you, Jamie Keane. From the first moment you started shouting at me.”
I let out a sheepish laugh, then hesitate, looking closely at him.
He’s been in Ketterbridge for a few days, now. So far he’s said nothing to anyone about that hushed argument he had with Logan. If Logan is up to something, and Gage knows what it is, and came here because he won’t let him do it, then… my hope was that he would tell Noah about it, or Noelle.
Instead it seems that Gage, like Noah, has decided to wait for now. To try and handle this very carefully.
I’m glad that Gage seems to like all of us. I just want him to know that he can trust us, too. that he can tell us what’s going on, but… to say anything to him about it would be overstepping. Especially without talking to Noah first.
I realize abruptly that I’m staring right at Gage, wondering about him. He’s staring back at me, just letting me do it with one eyebrow quirked.
“Sorry,” I laugh, breaking my gaze away. “You have a way of saying thought-provoking things.”
“Believe I often provoke the thought, that was a bunch of nonsense.”
“Well, that’s still a thought, so it still counts.”
Gage breathes out a laugh, gazing out at the backyard again.
“It’s really nice out here,” he murmurs, after a moment. “Peaceful. Like a forest.”
From the off-handed way he said it, I can tell he doesn’t know that I created it. I hide my gratified smile by getting back to work, digging out hollows in the earth for the saplings.
But the smile slips away as I take a second look at Gage. Realizing that we’ve been talking for a few minutes, and there’s been no chaos, and only a few quiet jokes. He’s much more soft-spoken than normal. He hasn’t even noticed that I didn’t answer what he said.
There’s more green than brown in his eyes right now. They look like moonlit water gardens in this light, gazing blankly off into the distance.
He’s sad, I realize.
And not aware of how obvious it is, I don’t think. I must be spending too much time with men like Ralph, Noah, and Aiden, because I’m almost startled to see such an open, unguarded expression of undeniable sadness on Gage’s face. Normally I have to look for it so carefully, and glimpse it through the cracks in the armor.
I guess Gage isn’t that type of guy.
“Are you – still liking Ketterbridge?” I ask gently.
“Oh, yeah,” he murmurs, gazing up at the trees, twisting the stud in his ear. “Everyone here is so friendly. I bet Noelle and Noah’s mom is, too. Maybe I’ll get to meet her on a different day, or something.”
I sit back on my ankles, waiting in case Gage has something else to say. Silence falls, broken only by wind through the evergreens and the distant shouts of some kids playing basketball further off down the street. The cigarette burns quietly between his fingers, temporarily forgotten.
I wait another second, then just ask. “Noelle didn’t invite you? To the dinner with her mom?”
“She said she wanted to, since her mom’s been hearing about both of us for years,” Gage answers, with some difficulty, “But Logan preferred to keep it to just the three of them, for tonight.”
I look at Gage in silent sympathy, then drop my gaze to the saplings.
“Do you want to help me plant these?” I dust some soil off of my gloves, then point to the two pots. “I could use an extra set of hands.”
Gage blinks at the saplings, like he just now noticed for the first time what I’m doing. He hastily stubs his cigarette out on the sole of his boot, wincing apologetically.
“Shit, man, I didn’t see those there! Didn’t mean to smoke around some babies.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I laugh, shaking my head at him. “If they’re going to live outside of Noah’s house, they’ll need to get used to the occasional puff of smoke.”
“You’re planting them here?”
I offer Gage the extra pair of gardening gloves that I keep in my roll of tools. “Yeah, I want Nikita to be able to reach out through the window for some fresh fruit one day.”
“Oh, man. In that case.” He sits up on his knees, pulls on the gloves, and offers me his hands. “What can I do?”
“Just hold the pot down for me while I take this first one out.”
Gage helps me get the sapling free from its last potted home. Being very careful, I notice with warm appreciation.
“Is it okay that they’re gonna be this close together?” he asks, as we finish up with the second sapling.
“Oh, yes. They’re going to be excellent friends.” I flash Gage a quick smile. “If she wants, Nikita can eat fruit from these trees for years and years, and she’ll have you to thank in part for that.”
Gage sits back on his ankles, silently gazing down at the two freshly planted saplings. He looks like he feels a little better, and he brightens up more when Noah pushes open the kitchen door and drifts outside.
“Hey, Gage! Dinner’s almost ready. You smelling this? Raj and Mel are working up some kinda dream in here.”
I leave Gage in the kitchen with everyone, with the steaming hot food being finished up. Glad that he has a family dinner to attend tonight. A really good one, too, based on what I’m smelling. Raj was crumbling some cheese over a pan of buttery mushrooms, sizzling garlic, and tender flaky pastry when I went through the kitchen. Mel was putting the finishing touches on some little lime tarts for after, her fingers covered with crushed graham crackers.
Thank god Aiden is making dinner tonight, because my mouth is watering on the way back to the car. I’m starving.
But mostly I’m thinking about my conversation with Gage. I’m still thinking about it when I walk down the green pathway to our house. My arms are clasped around the box of farm goods from Emmett’s family, the spice packets stacked on top, my roll of gardening tools tucked in beside them. I practically stagger into the house, trying to unlock the door with all that in my hands.
I set it all aside, refill Luna’s water bowl, and sit down at the tree stump table in the coffee room to get to immediate work on my lesson plan for Ellen and Emmett’s next class. I want to show them how to press flowers and seaweed. We may need to do an excursion, and that requires some planning.
I pause for a second, surprised by a text from Gage.
Hey Jamie Keane I just realized I should have asked, is there anything else I should do for Nikita’s trees? Do I need to water them, or hold an umbrella over them if we get another storm like that last one?
I respond quickly, then turn back to my notes. Luna saunters in and falls asleep on the cushions beside me. I absent-mindedly pet her, taking sips from my hot mug of tea while I work.
It’s the tea that eventually draws me out of my reverie. The mug is empty, which finally makes me wonder how it got there in the first place. I didn’t make it for myself. Aiden must have come in and put it there for me. I didn’t even notice.
I dazedly set down my pen, get up, and wander into the kitchen. There’s pasta bubbling quietly on the stove. The saucepan is contentedly full of onions that are slowly caramelizing, no doubt intended to be part of the rolls laid out on a baking sheet, waiting for the oven. Several of the spice packets I bought have already been opened up, used, and put away in the spice cabinet. A cutting board has been left out, where Aiden was cutting hard slices of cold butter for something. The hunk of Parmesan cheese – just as tempting as advertised – is on the far end of the cutting board, unwrapped. I can smell it from here.
I stand there breathing in all the delicious flavors mingled in the air, which tastes like happiness. Slowing down for what feels like the first time all day.
And then, all of a sudden, I remember.
The seedlings!
Oh, no. The moon is fully out, and I haven’t even looked at them. They were already so badly in need of water when I brought them home from the shop… they really are going to wilt up irreparably.
I rush out through the garden door and hurry around to the kitchen garden, where I’ve temporarily placed the seedlings.
The scent of soaked earth drifts up to meet me. I stare in surprise at the seedlings, which have already been softly doused with water. My watering can is sitting half-full beside them.
“Did I do it right?” asks a deep voice from behind me.
I turn my head and find Aiden standing there, gazing nervously over my shoulder at the seedlings.
“Didn’t drown them, did I?” he asks, his blue eyes full of concern.
I stare up at him in silence for a second, then drop my eyes back to the seedlings.
“No,” I answer, hardly able to speak for the aching feeling in my heart. “No, you did great, Sugar Maple.”
He leans down and wraps his arms around my waist, enveloping me in a gentle, soothing rush of vetiver.
“I think Blue is starting to feel better,” he murmurs, completely unaware of the rapture of love he just sent me into. “He ate a lot of banana slices today.”
“That – that’s good.” I turn around in his arms, then bury my face in his chest. “Thank you for taking care of all that stuff. I’m sorry I was so busy.”
“Sorry for running around being everyone’s little angel,” he says playfully, twining a lock of my hair around his finger.
“I’m not an angel,” I answer brokenly, my voice muffled in his sweater. “I killed a cricket today. It was an accident, and Sylvia said I don’t have to feel bad, but still.”
This draws a deep, huffing laugh from Aiden for some reason. He cuddles me up into his arms, kisses the top of my head.
“Come have something to eat, Linden. You’ll feel better. Everything is almost done.”
He gives me a little chunk of Parmesan to nibble while I sit on the kitchen counter behind him. Watching him fold the caramelized onions into the rolls, sprinkle them with sea salt, and tuck the baking sheet into the oven.
It’s immeasurably peaceful to be in the cozy comfort of our kitchen. The familiar interplay of warm light and shadow on the curved ceiling, the air fragrant from Aiden’s cooking, two fluffy bundles of fur in grey and rust red watching him work from the rug.
Most of all, him. His warm, quiet presence. That’s what lets me get a deep breath, touch down into the present moment, break slowly from the spin of thoughts and activity that kept me going all day.
I really understand what Noelle means, about needing someone to keep you grounded. Sometimes – a lot of the time – I’d feel lost at sea without Aiden there to center everything, to take me into his arms, to be right there behind me.
Is this what Logan does for Noelle? I know I’ve only met him twice, but for some reason when I try to envision it, I just can’t.
I blink and look up as Aiden gently smooths his thumb over my cheek.
“You’re thinking so hard about this whole thing with Noah’s sister,” he murmurs, gazing affectionately down into my eyes. “You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t worry, Linden, but I feel the need to remind you that it’s not on your shoulders. And that there’s nothing we can do, at least for the moment.”
“No, I know,” I sigh, taking another nibble of my cheese like an anxious field mouse. “I just can’t help it.”
I let out a burst of startled laughter as Aiden suddenly buries his face in my lap.
“I’ll distract you,” he says, his voice muffled in the fabric of my jeans.
“Honestly!” I let out a flustered laugh, seizing a handful of his sweater to drag him upright. “After dinner, you goon, when the pasta won’t boil over!”
He smiles and turns away. I slip down from the counter, still laughing a little, finally relaxing after too long spent preoccupied.
By the time we’ve eaten dinner and stumbled tiredly upstairs, I’m so exhausted that it takes me a second to realize something is going on with Jumble.
He’s been antsy lately, clearly sick of having a homemade cast on his little bird leg. Recently when I bend over his box with seeds and peanut butter for him he starts shouting at me, releasing a cascade of urgent little peeps that make it sound like he’s personally asking for the removal of this thing, please, as soon as possible. There have been one or two escape attempts from his box, which hasn’t really happened before.
I’m not sure if this new franticness comes from being sick of being confined to the box, or the increasingly regular presence of the orc, as Aiden insists on calling him. I was worried about that. I know Luna’s hunting instinct goes purely towards bugs and mice, not birds, but I don’t know about the big gingery tomcat’s preferences. So I moved Jumble’s box higher up, onto the dresser beside the ruby tree.
But if anything Jumble has been acting even more desperate to get out.
Tonight he’s huddled heavily in the corner of the box closest to the window, looking truly forlorn and miserable. I gaze down at him with worried eyes, then draw back as he lifts his head and lets out a long, swirling song.
An answering call comes through the bedroom window, from the garden.
“Aw, Aiden-” I look at him over my shoulder, my heart aching at the sudden realization. “I think Jumble wants his mate. I think she’s out there in the garden.”
The house had told us there was a nest with Jumble’s eggs in it on the roof, and those must have hatched into baby birds by now. But it sounds like their mother is still in the garden. Calling back in answer to Jumble’s little song.
Aiden comes to stand by my shoulder, peering down at Jumble. “Do you think we can take the cast off?”
“This is actually around when Angie told us we should…”
Aiden hesitates, then softly sweeps a hand over Jumble, frosty blue light glittering in his eyes. Jumble watches him suspiciously, sways in sudden drowsiness, and sinks down into the box, asleep before he can even tuck his head towards his wing.
Aiden gently, carefully withdraws his little feathered body from the box, then trails a fingertip down the minuscule cast. It dissolves, softly eaten away by a ripple of Heliomancer light, like smokeless golden fire. Jumble’s little leg appears from hiding, and the cast simply disappears.
I just keep silent, watching this display of very delicate magic with wide eyes. I had automatically put my hand on his arm, and he’s using our connection to gently spin the magic threads. I can feel him doing it, how very careful he’s being.
He gives Jumble’s foot a very timid, experimental little push, bending his leg. Jumble gives no sign of any discomfort in his sleep. Aiden glances at me, then carefully places Jumble back down in his box, and flicks a hand over him.
Jumble awakens with a little start, confused to find himself flat on his stomach. He flutters upright in bewilderment, hops wildly around his box, and stops, realizing that he’s much lighter.
The twirling little birdsong from outside floats in through our window again. Jumble instinctively flutters up onto the edge of his box, then stops there, surprised that he can do it. There’s a brief pause as this information sinks in, and then -
He’s out the window, fluttering off into the night.
“Aw,” I murmur softly, putting my hand on the sill. “Bye, Jumble.”
Aiden kisses the top of my head. “He’ll still be around, don’t you worry.”
“I’m not sure he will. He can go wherever he wants, now.”
“And leave your garden?” Aiden arches an eyebrow at me, skeptical. “If I was a bird I certainly wouldn’t do that.”
I smile up at him over my shoulder, then feel my aching heart lift as he adds – “Besides, his girl lives here. He’s not gonna move.”
“Good point,” I laugh quietly.
The ruby tree, with its new buds growing in, breathes off a subtle, elusive fragrance I can’t help breathing in when we stand this close to it. I’ve been taking notes on those buds, and I want to sketch them before they open.
It’s the strangest thing about the ruby tree. The malachite tree reveals its hidden magic through its chiming leaves, but the ruby tree reveals it by being so incredibly different all the time. It seems to live by its own seasons, quietly and frequently deciding on its own when it’s time to change. It seems to have nothing to do with the weather, or the temperature, or the time of year, or how much sunlight it’s getting. The ruby tree’s mysterious workings appear to be unaffected by those things.
Sometimes it has masses of tiny buds that open into masses of tiny flowers. Sometimes the flowers are pretty big. Sometimes it has rich berries, or both the flowers and fruit retreat to leave energy for the leaves to change instead. Occasionally the flowers will have a soft lamplight glow, other times they glint like little stars. Sometimes the individual blossoms don’t seem to glow, but the collective tree does when you step back.
I’ve been trying to keep track of all these changes. I started a journal with the intention of figuring out its unique, internal seasonal cycle. What’s been startling is that so far there is no cycle at all. It seems to just be always, slowly, subtly changing. Only the trunk and the branches, the core of the tree, remain always constant. And the roots, of course, which have now grown so deeply into our house that I sincerely doubt they can ever be removed.
And its beauty remains constant, too. It always seems to glow with bright health, like all my happiest plants do.
“I’ve been wondering about what causes the changes,” I murmur to Aiden, trailing my fingertips over the leaves. “Maybe… it’s based on what we’re feeding it?”
It is a tree based on the stone of passion, after all, and we’re pretty sure we’ve fed it on passion all this time. Maybe the flavors are different on different days, or weeks?
“What did we feed it when these showed up?” Aiden asks, looking at the lush, heavy buds that have formed all over the tree recently.
“We were…” I gesture at the window sill, then trail off, blushing.
Aiden and I noticed recently that the branch window is at a nice height, and that the branch offers some privacy, and that I fit on the sill beside it.
The point is, I was sitting on the sill, with my arms around Aiden’s neck and my thighs around his hips, panting and reeling, when I looked down and noticed the ruby tree had put out new buds.
“We grew some flowers, I think,” I answer helplessly, looking up at Aiden with pink cheeks.
“I don’t know what that means,” he purrs, pinching my cheek, “But I like how it’s making you blush.”
“You’re particularly worked up tonight,” I laugh, as he eagerly slips his big hands beneath my flannel. “You didn’t drink any of that very cheap wine, did you?”
“No. I…”
I blink in confusion, then put my head on one side inquiringly, my eyes lingering on the blush in his cheeks.
“I – watched one of Gage’s videos,” he admits, through a sheepish laugh.
“What – are you serious?”
“I was curious, dude, and then Kasey convinced me it was a good idea-”
“Oh, my god! And you said I shouldn’t be left unsupervised with Kasey?”
“I don’t even regret it,” he tells me firmly, right to my blushing, flustered, wide-eyed face. He reaches past me and opens up his laptop, which is on the dresser. “I wanted to show you-”
“No, are you joking? You might be able to do that and still be normal around him tomorrow, but I can’t! I’ll be a mess!”
“Okay, then just let me show you this part. You have to see, because I don’t know how to explain it. His porn is hot, but it’s also pretty cute.”
“It’s cute?” I laugh, bewildered.
“Just hang on,” Aiden says, opening up a video on Gage’s website.
It’s called Stranger From The Bar, and the thumbnail alone makes me blush wildly. But Aiden skips right to the end, around the last minute or so, and unpauses it.
Gage is laying sprawled out in a bed, panting. The camera has been left on the bed beside him, so mostly what I can see is his head of dark brown hair, and his shoulders, and the guy slowly sitting back from between his thighs.
“Man,” the guy pants dazedly, laughing a little. And then – “Do you think it turned out?”
“Yes, I think so,” Gage answers warmly, taking deep, slow breaths. “Thank you for doing it with me.”
“I sort of thought you were joking, when you asked me at the bar,” he laughs. “I’ve never done anything like this before. You won’t put my face in it, right?”
He starts to lift his head towards the camera, and Gage quickly catches his jaw in both hands to stop him.
“Don’t look at the cameras if you don’t want your face in it,” he laughs softly.
“Right. Sorry.” The guy lets out a sheepish laugh, then sits back. “Fair enough.”
Gage turns over onto his side and lays still for a moment, his cheeks blazing red with a residual blush. The angle of the camera hides the face of the man sitting behind him, but after a second his hand strokes its way down Gage’s thigh, giving it an intimate, appreciative squeeze.
“That was fun,” he says, with an audible grin in his voice.
“Yes, it was,” Gage murmurs, arching towards his hand as it glows in the bars of sunlight.
“You’ve got a nice body.”
Gage smiles, breathing out a sweet, playful laugh into the sheets. “Thank you.”
The video stops there.
I look up at Aiden, my cheeks on fire.
“Oh. It is cute. In some strange way.” I let out a dazed laugh, rubbing my eyes. “And uniquely authentic. I’m sure in most cases it isn’t actually a stranger from the bar.”
“Honestly, a lot of these videos are really good. It’s hard to explain, but they’re pretty, just like, nicely shot in nice places. A bunch of them have these cute little conversations at the end, and some of them have credits like he got someone to make music just for them-”
I arch an eyebrow at Aiden. “Watched just one, did you?”
“Would you just take your clothes off already?” he blurts out urgently, pushing me up onto the window sill.
I let out a startled laugh, then a little gasp as he catches a handful of my hair and drags my head back for a kiss. I eagerly lift my face to his, seizing two fistfuls of his shirt. I may not have watched the whole video, but I saw enough to get my body thinking.
A little later, curled up naked next to Aiden, on the rug we put by the ruby tree to hide the roots growing into the floor, I recall what Gage said about his job being to put sexy energy out into the world. The thought makes me silently laugh to myself. He’s very good at his job.
I let out a peaceful sigh, curling up closer to Aiden, trailing my fingertips in circles on his chest.
“Jamie,” he murmurs softly. “Look.”
I open my eyes, blink at the ruby tree, then sit up on my elbow in surprise.
“Oh – Jumble!” I blurt out in delight.
He quickly swallows the berry he was taking from the ruby tree, then flutters out through the window back into the garden. A slender little bird who was watching anxiously from the window sill immediately takes off with him.
“Well, there you go,” Aiden says, through a deep, huffing laugh. “He’ll be back. This is the only place to get his favorite snack, apparently. I think maybe we just got to meet Mrs. Jumble, too.”
“Amazing,” I laugh, sinking happily down into Aiden’s arms.
It seems impossible that I could feel this good and relaxed, after the hectic day I had. That’s Aiden Callahan magic.
“We need to stop having sex right by the ruby tree,” I mumble, smiling into Aiden’s chest. “It’s all going into these flowers, and I know they want it, but I don’t want them to get too heavy for their branches. I’m sure we’ve overfed them already.”
Aiden pauses, then lets out another low, rumbling laugh.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just – mysterious wisdom from the magic gardener.”
My eyes rest on my notebook full of plant sketches and hastily written notes, left open beside the tree happily growing through and into our house, with its strange, glowing buds. The bag full of squares of copper sheet metal from the hardware store, which I bought to scatter around the malachite tree.
“I’m going to be a very strange old man someday,” I realize out loud.
“I know,” Aiden murmurs, smiling intimately at me. “I’ll love him a lot. Maybe I already do? I definitely love you as a very strange young man.”
Those words are still ringing in my head long after, when we’re stretched out in bed together.
I understand why Noelle wants a peaceful, stable, grounding love. I really, really do. I get it completely. Especially after her illness, days that must have been so stressful and scary.
And I can see why Logan seems like the right person given all that, on the surface, but…
That’s as far as I get before my exhaustion catches up with me, and I finally drop off to sleep.
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