Chapter 22
“And look what happened here.” Mrs. Arman spoke in a half-whine, half-shrill. She led us to the back of her home in her house slippers with a bath towel over her head. “My poor roses, they’re absolutely ruined!”
“What does this have to do with the front yard?” Leo whispered to me out of the side of his mouth. I gave him a warning look before turning back to Mrs. Arman with a sympathetic hum.
I lost the coin toss to Derek. My first loss in all the time I’d known him. The defeat was so legendary, even Dad gave us more than a grunt and a quick glance. When you earned a comment from Dad, you knew you were doing something wrong.
The entire day would have been a drag if Leo hadn’t tagged along. He smoothly talked his way on my team. No one put up much of a fuss because he still sucked at trimming but insisted on taking initiative, anyway.
“Look.” Mrs. Arman pointed at the rose bushes as if I’d needed help finding the rows and rows of dying flowers that decorated her backyard.
“It’s awful.” I nodded, wishing I could come up with more. I knew absolutely nothing about roses. Or anything to do with gardening for that matter. I only knew how to kill weeds and make trees look like they weren’t from an overgrown fairytale forest.
“It’s because of your weed wacker,” she said. Suddenly, her voice sounded ten times more upset. She placed a hand on her hip, staring us down and waiting for me to come up with something.
Disgruntled clients were a rarity. Honestly, it was hard to flub up a lawn job in Florida because any improvement to the dried-out grass was worth admiration. Mrs. Arman didn’t think so. She proved how much by telling me,
“I want a refund.”
I pressed my lips together to hold back a sigh. Leo and I just finished the front yard. We’d been here for an hour and now she brought this up. When the job was complete and our equipment was loaded on the truck.
“I’m not afraid to write a bad review. People need to know about companies who half-ass jobs,” she threatened when I didn’t respond immediately. Her arms crossed over her chest. She tried to make herself taller, more intimidating.
My jaw tightened. I didn’t need this bullshit today. “Sorry you’re not satisfied-”
“Hold on.” Leo placed a hand on my shoulder. “Do you mind if…?”
He looked down at me for permission to interject. I nodded, hesitantly. Instead of saying something to Mrs. Arman like I expected him to, Leo pulled me a few feet away. My eyes widened with confusion.
“I thought you were about to give it to her,” I whispered.
“Oh, I was. Am,” he said. His voice wasn’t as low as mine. Mrs. Arman scoffed, overhearing our conversation. I could only imagine what she was putting in the rough draft of her review. No way on earth she wasn’t thinking about the wording right now.
“If you don’t.” Leo studied me.
I pointed to my chest. “Me?”
“Yeah, you.” He nodded. “I want Kira Anderson to go off. Because I’ve spent all summer working with you and you don’t half-ass anything. You don’t deserve someone lying and saying you did.”
“I…” My gaze went back to the fuming Mrs. Arman. I did want to put her in her place. Needed to, really.
“Look.” Leo’s voice made me turn back to him. “You stand your ground with me all the time. You’ve been practicing on me.”
I nodded, thinking about my more bossy moments. With Leo, I pushed myself to be more assertive. Maybe because I’d been fed up with being ignored? Or maybe because conflict with him wasn’t as scary? Standing up to Leo didn’t frighten me because I knew he’d just respond like a rational person. Not all disagreements worked like that.
“I’m hyping you because I think you need this,” he said. “You’ll never have to see this lady again.”
“Riley Beach isn’t that big.”
“Okay, so you see her in the grocery store? So what?” He shrugged. “Tell her to stick her review wherever she wants. Fuck it.”
“Fuck it,” I repeated with far less confidence, but it counted for something. Leo was right, I needed the practice. Neither one of us was lazy on this job.
I nodded to myself and repeated the mantra to myself. Leo squeezed my shoulders like he was my coach sending me to the starting line.
“Fuck it,” he said one last time.
I took a deep breath and walked back over to Mrs. Arman. She eyed Leo now with a wary look.
