Lettie was wearing her usual Converse, denim overalls with a plain T-shirt underneath, and a cap jammed over her hair. Her sun-bleached hair, with hints of strawberry blonde in it, was pulled back into its usual two utilitarian braids.
Wyatt raised his eyebrows. “You’re not asking me for fashion advice, are you?”
Lettie huffed out a laugh. “No! I already texted Harper and she told me what to wear. But I want to do my hair different than usual.”
“Like a ponytail or something?” Wyatt asked. “Or wear it out?”
“No, like, you know…” She wrinkled her nose. “Nice.” She showed him a picture on her phone. “This is called a waterfall braid. It’s what I want, but I tried to do it earlier and it was a mess. Can I practice on you? If you don’t want to, I’ll ask Dad but I don’t know when he has time to sit still.”
Wyatt looked at the picture. The girl in it had a loose braid encircling her head like a coronet, her hair flowing out underneath it. It was beautiful and romantic. It was the sort of hairstyle that looked like it should have had flowers woven through it.
Wyatt’s stomach clenched. He’d woken up this morning feeling like it was a not-boy day, and he felt a rush of hotwantwhen he saw the waterfall braid and imagined himself wearing it, but he was cautious of giving in too much to that part of him. He was afraid that if he did, then somehow he would lose something he’d never be able to get back.
“Okay,” he said at last, his heart beating faster. “I guess.”
Lettie beamed. “I’m gonna get my hairbrush!”
She vanished back inside, and Wyatt could hear her pounding up the steps. He sighed and stared out at the garden. From the front driveway, the garden dipped down a slight hill. There was a pond at the bottom of it—Dad and Justin liked to argue over whether it was a large pond or a tiny lake—full of ducks. The ducks weren’t pets exactly, but they sure weren’t shy around people. They also weren’t shy around the horses and often tried to sneak into the stable to steal grain. Wyatt had seen Sarah, the stable manager, chasing them out with a rake plenty of times before.
Wyatt watched a few of the ducks ganging up to charge Lettie’s Chihuahua, who fled with its tiny tail between its legs. A blue scrub jay fluttered down to the edge of the pond to drink. The afternoon sun painted everything golden.
Wyatt closed his eye briefly and thought of Izzy. Thought of how their glances had caught a few times at dinner last night, and if that had meant anything or if he was just overthinking it as usual. It didn’t even matter if it had meant something, if Wyatt’s attraction wasn’t all one-sided, because hecouldn’t. Not with someone like Izzy, even if he loved bakeries and talked about the smell of fresh bread like it was a religious experience.
He tugged at the hem of his shirt. It was a nice shirt. It was just a slim-fitting Henley in powder blue, with the sleeves cut a little shorter than on a regular guy’s shirt. Wyatt liked to wear it with the top two buttons unfastened. It wasn’t a feminine shirt, but it wasn’t masculine either. It was in-between enough for Wyatt to like wearing on his not-boy days, when he didn’t feel confident enough to wear something that was obviously made for a woman. He was also wearing lip gloss today, and a little bit of eyeliner. It was enough to ease that deep sense of need in him on days like this, without giving over to it entirely.
Lettie was back within minutes, clutching her hairbrush and a few hair elastics. “Okay, shove down to the bottom step, and hold my phone for me so I can see the instructions.”
Wyatt shifted down, and Lettie sat behind him, her legs bracketing him in. He closed his eyes as she undid his messy bun and tensed in anticipation of the brush pulling roughly through his hair. Lettie was surprisingly gentle though, and Wyatt found himself relaxing more and more with every stroke.
It was a slow process. Lettie swore under her breath more than once as she tried to manipulate the twists of his hair into the braid, and they got away from her. She backtracked a few times, her fingers pressing into Wyatt’s scalp as she worked, her short blunt nails scratching him pleasantly. He felt like one of her dogs, melting under her scritches.
“Your hair is nicer than mine,” she grumbled.
“That’s because I know what conditioner is.”
“I’m rolling my eyes at you,” she said.
He smiled. “Yeah, I figured.”
He relaxed into her touch. Lettie didn’t usually like touching or being touched, so Wyatt accepted it like the gift it was. Lettie worked slowly, and Wyatt let his eyes slide closed. He found his thoughts drifting back to Izzy, like they always did ever since Izzy had swaggered into his life, and wondered whathistouch would feel like. Would his fingers be calloused yet from working in the greenhouses? Would he be rough? Or would he be surprisingly gentle? There was room for both in Wyatt’s fantasies.
“Done!” Lettie announced at last, scooting back.
Wyatt turned the camera on her phone on, and inspected the braid. It was a little uneven, but that hardly mattered. His hair fell from it like waves. “Not bad, Lettie!”
She poked at his scalp. “I’m gonna need to practice more on you before I try on me again.”
“Okay,” Wyatt agreed, changing the angle of the phone to get a better look at the side of his head.
He looked good. Hefeltgood.
He handed Lettie her phone back at last.
He felt good, as long as he didn’t think about it too deeply.
* * * *
Justin was still working, and Dad was out meeting some guy who could source him local venison, and Lettie was upstairs doing her homework with her headphones on when the doorbell rang. Wyatt wiped his hands on his apron and hummed to himself as he went to answer the front door. He was working on a practice batch of cupcakes for Jimmy and Jenna—not that he didn’t think he could make good cupcakes, but he wanted to send some home with Jimmy tomorrow and make sure they were definitely the ones Jenna had liked. Wyatt had made a lot of cupcakes for Justin’s workers over time, and the ones with ‘like the cream stuff in the middle’ didn’t really narrow it down a whole lot. He thought he knew the ones Jimmy meant, but he wanted to be sure. Also, it was an excuse to make cupcakes.
