“It will need sunlight, but should remain indoors. I would suggest a window sill where the dragon is not allowed to touch it.”
The way he saiddragonlike it was an invasive species make me smile. “Aw, c’mon. It’s pretty cute for a dragon. Even you have to admit that.”
“I must admit nothing.” He plunked the flower pot into my hand, and I could either catch it or let it fall.
I caught it of course. “I didn’t ask you for a flower.”
“That is not what I gave you. I gave you a flower pot. With soil.”
“If this is weed… Seriously, Than. I know it’s legal, but I don’t want to grow weed at my house. Can you imagine if the dragon pig ate it?”
He had already turned and started out of the potting room.
“What if it gets stoned?” I asked. “What am I going to do with a stoned dragon, Than?”
He flipped off the light, and I grinned at his quickly retreating back. “You know it can eat a car in one sitting. Can you imagine it with a case of the munchies? We’d lose buildings. Entire blocks.” I followed him out, matching his long stride with my own.
“It won’t just want an order from Taco Bell, it will want Taco Bell. The entire restaurant. And then what am I going to do? Than? Than?”
He had crossed the kitchen at speed, those spider legs flipping and slapping at his ankles like they were trying to send up distress signals. He was halfway through the little dining room before I’d even stepped into it.
“I’ll blame you,” I called after him. “I’ll tell everyone you’ve been growing pot that was strong enough to make a dragon eat the Bell. Well, I can’t tell everyone in town about the dragon, but whatever cover-up I use for the rest of town, I’ll make sure you’re the reason no one can buy Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Tacos within a fifty-mile radius. And then what? You haven’t seen small-town anger, you haven’t seen small-town mobs until you’ve seen their favorite, cheap, fast food restaurant get eaten by a dragon.
“What I’m saying is you are playing with fire giving me this. Fire. And you should just take it back now so that neither of us, or our beloved Taco Bell, gets burned.”
We were in the hallway now, the entranceway to the house. He stopped so quickly the spider eyes rattled like Yahtzee dice.
He opened the door. “Water. Twice a week.”
I held the flowerpot out to him. “This is a bad idea.”
He waited.
“I’ve got the black thumb of the Grim Reap…uh…” I shut my mouth. “I don’t think I have what it takes to keep it alive.”
Those words were hard. So hard. Because suddenly I wasn’t talking about the flowers. Suddenly I was talking about Ryder. His love. Our togetherness. Our future. Our relationship. Those words cut through me, punched right through my heart and lungs.
“Water,” he said as he reached out and curled his hand around mine, pressing my fingers gently but firmly against the sky-blue flower pot. “Twice a week. If you forget, water. If you do it three times in a week, let it be.”
“But…”
“Sunlight. It doesn’t have to be direct. But it needs light. And time. And patience. And care.”
His hand was still on mine. It felt like it was just our two hands, our fingers and palms holding that little plant together, holding the soil and water and hope all in one small place.
“And if it doesn’t work?” I looked up at him, could not hold his kind gaze and immediately looked down at the spiders.
The spiders were looking at the wall, floor, ceiling, a left leg, the corner, but not at me. And that was good.
“Flowers bloom. Even after disaster.”
“Is that an inspirational quote?”
“No. It is in the forest ranger comprehensive guide on wildfires and wildfire recovery.”
I looked up at him. He gazed calmly back at me. He was not kidding.
“Some light reading?”
