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Most of all, Iknowwe have to be a thing. She might not know that yet, but that’s okay. I’ll convince her with my actions that I’m worth saying yes to, one secret date at a time.
In the morning, she’s awake first, dressed in last night’s clothes. Groggy, I push up in bed, yawning and bleary-eyed. It’s six a.m. and there’s a kitten on my pillow.
“I have to work,” she says quietly. The skies are still dark. The sun hasn’t risen.
“I’ll drive you home,” I say.
She shakes her head. “I’ll call a Lyft.”
Athena stretches her front legs against my head and Everly laughs. “I don’t think you’re fostering this cat. I think you’re going to adopt her.”
I toss off the covers, swing my legs out of bed, and pull on some clothes. “You’re probably right,” I admit. “But I’m right too.”
“About what?”
“I’m driving you home,” I say.
When we’re in the car, one thought runs through my head —It’s what a boyfriend would do.
39
MY GREEN THUMB
Max
Let the record reflect that I am not a gardener. But I’m playing the role of one today, and I’m going to win the Stanley Cup of gardening.
That’s my goal—be as excellent on the soil as I am on the ice.
It’s Thursday morning and we’re helping The Garden Society with its final plantings for the fall season. It’s the second community outreach event that Everly had planned as part of step two in her so-called Max Makeover Tour. I breathed a sigh of relief when I arrived this morning and Lyra wasn’t floating over the garden in a hot-air balloon, waiting to rappel down and crash the event with a fake-ass smile.
I didn’t think she would since Everly told me Lyra had returned to going out on the town with Fletcher, breezing in and out of LA establishments with him. What she does with him means nothing to me, but it was sexy as hell thatEverly’s theory on Lyra was right. The return to her so-called “regularly scheduled programming” seems to prove that.
But even if she shows up, I’m not letting a damn thing go wrong today as I plant peas at an abandoned-lot-turned-community-garden at the edge of the Mission District. The Sea Dogs are one of the sponsors of these community gardens, along with the Renegades, so there are hockey players and football players here planting veggies in November for a spring harvest.
Since it’s a promo opportunity, a handful of photographers are here too, snapping pics, along with Everly, who’s capturing the event on her phone. She’s next to a brunette a few years younger than she is, who’s got a big Nikon in her hands and is snapping images too.
I’m digging up the soil to plant some pea seedlings when Asher says, from his row of peas, “Dude, you’re doing it wrong. They need to be two inches apart—not one.”
I glance down at my row, then his, then him. “You know how to plant?”
“What? Do you think I’m just a pretty face?”
Miles coughs from a row over. “That’s kind of what I thought.”
From his spot on the other side of me, Wesley shoots Asher a deadpan look. “Aren’t you, though?”
Asher sets down his garden shovel and lifts his gloved hands our way, like he’s going to flip us the bird, since we’re classy like that.
Laughing, Miles makes a subtle slicing motion at his throat. “You can’t do that right now. There’re photographers around,” he whispers, nodding to the pack withcameras, but the end of the sentence dies off when his gaze lingers on the brunette next to Everly.
But Asher’s eyes widen, then he mutters a curse, like he’s pissed with himself for forgetting the media. “This is your fault, Lambert. It’s like I’ve been infected with your grumpy attitude. I almost flipped you assholes off in front of reporters,” he says under his breath.
Wesley wiggles a brow. “Maybe this is like one of those movies where someone trades souls with another person. I saw that in a flick the other night on Webflix,” he says. Then more earnestly, he asks me, “Come to think of it, how’s everything going with the Webflix doc? When does that start?”
“Supposedly they’re coming to town pretty soon for some pre-interviews,” I say as I plant more seeds, two inches apart this time, like Asher the Gardener told me to. “Sounds like everything’s on track from what my agent’s told me. And Everly.”
I steal a glance at the corner of the gardens where Everly’s now chatting with a lifestyle reporter and a couple influencers, I think. Maybe garden influencers? She’d said some were coming along with a few of the usual sports crew, but not the beat reporters. But I don’t linger on the press here. I linger on her, in her black slacks and gray blouse, a silky scarf around her neck, her blonde hair high in a ponytail, and damn, my heart thunders. My chest swells with pride, too, for how she’s pulled this event off.
