But thankfully, I’m far enough from downtown that street parking isn’t an issue.
After maneuvering the SUV out of traffic and into a space by some empty trash bins, I cut the engine and pick up my phone, scanning the message.
Makena: This is not a drill! This is an alert of the emergency friend-activation system. The sprinklers at our place are dead. I just got an alert from the house nanny app thing Parker installed that said the sprinklers are clogged. Which made me remember that I forgot to water the garden yesterday AND possibly the day before, because I was too busy packing and raccoon wrangling, which means the strawberries are probably dying.
DYING after months of tender coddling care!
They’re at a critical stage in their development, Char, and I will CRY if we don’t have fresh berries for shortcake when we get home. I’m already coming home without Popcorn, my sweet little chaos machine. If I come home to dead strawberries, too…
Well, then I’ll know I’ve failed at life. Please, swing by and water my precious treasures? If you’re not too busy?
Biting back a laugh, I thumb out a quick response—Of course, I’ll swing by now. I’m not far from your place.
Makena: Are you sure? It’s not too much trouble?
Charlotte: No, not at all. I was just headed home to shower and change before we go out tonight.
Makena: Oh, thank God. So you’re good to swing by there NOW? And I can use this news to soothe Parker’s frazzled soul? Popcorn just threw up in his lap, and the next rest stop is forty miles away. He is NOT a happy camper right now. Between that and the shitty sprinklers, he’s going to need extra gluten-free gas station donuts to make it through the day.
Charlotte: Ew. Gluten-free gas station donuts don’t sound great, to be honest.
Makena: They’re not. But they’re tradition. He gets them every time we visit his gram. But anyway, now is good? You’re going now?
Charlotte: Yes. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Fifteen minutes tops.
Makena: You’re my hero! Parker says you’re his hero, too. Thank you so much, darlin’, and have a great weekend. Say hi to Elly for me tonight and remind her not to eat raw fish. Raw fish is bad for preggos! Love you!
Charlotte: Will do. And you, too. Hang in there.
Itoss the phone back onto the seat, wait for a break in traffic, and pull away from the curb. I’m still in my work clothes from an earlier meeting—cream linen pants, a champagne silk shell, and my favorite vintage Gucci loafers in buttery tan leather. Definitely not gardening gear.
I’ll have to resist the urge to start pulling weeds and stick to watering. As a semi-neurotic weed plucker from way back, that won’t be easy, but these shoes are irreplaceable.
Sometimes, we all have to choose fashion over function.
Just a few minutes later, I pull into Makena and Parker’s driveway, grab my sunglasses from the console, and head around the side of the house toward the backyard. The gate creaks as I push through, and suddenly I’m in a different world.
The garden is green in that wild, early-spring way. Everything is soft and alive, vines crawling over the fence, herbs spilling out of the raised beds like they’ve decided to stage a hostile takeover. The azaleas are flushed pink from last week’s warm spell, and the sweet olive by the trellis is throwing that honey-apricot scent I was relishing in the car across the entire yard.
And there, on the far corner of the large back porch, sits the hot tub.
The thing that started it all…
The place where it happened.
It’s covered now, but I can still see it the way it looked that night in June, steam rising into the early summer air, water glinting under the string lights, and Nix, naked as the day he was born, staring at me with wide, startled eyes as he discovered he wasn’t alone.
Eyes that sparked with heat as he realizedIwas naked, too.
And then…
Well, the rest is history. Sweet, sexy, epic, legendary history.
Now, that man I banged for the first time in this very garden, questionable zucchini choices and all, is mine. He moved in in late January, leaving Beatrice to make his place her own.
By March, when it became clear he was likely never moving back in, Beatrice bought him out, advertised for a roommate, and started redecorating. We have dinner together in her shrine to music history most Thursdays and brunch every weekend at our place.
Ourplace, where protein powder now takes up an obscene amount of space in my pantry, and hockey gear has completely taken over the second guest bedroom. There’s also a gaming system attached to my television, where Nix and I play post-apocalyptic games and debate the chances of positive cultural evolution post-societal collapse, while killing zombies.
