“Ashton has good taste. Also, I wanted my hair out of my face,” I replied. But his scrunchie was much nicer than mine. Last night’s, too.
“You said you chose your name. What does Kai mean?” Steven asked as I admired the orchids.
“It actually means a lot of things in a bunch of different languages. In Hawaiian it meansocean,and in other languages it also meansshell, keeper of the keys, and I think…food.Considering I’m a person of many moods, it felt like it fit.” I laughed. I took a photo of some rare flowers and sent it to my lab group chat.
“It’s also Greek, right? A derivative ofKairos, which means the absolute worst experience I ever had in high school. Sorry, Catholic school trauma. Kairos is a thing that we do.” Steven’s look went bashful.
“Was that the big group retreat where they had you guys run around at night with candles, while the teachers chased you, and kept trying to blow out your light? That just sounds like some massive crazy horror movie shit right there,” Ashton teased.
“I never even thought of that correlation. Catholic school kid here, too. Though we didn’t do anything like that at my Kairos. There was a whole lotta ugly crying as we talked about our feelings in a big circle, with ourpillows, lots of snacks, and facemasks,” I admitted. I didn’t even make that connection.
For a moment things got a little awkward.
Steven reached out and squeezed my hand. “I’m mostly joking, though that part was wild. I wasn’t trying to make anything weird,” he blabbered in that endearing way he had.
Yeah, he was a big, awkward, goofball and I loved that for him.
Ashton definitely had the lumbersnack thing going on, which was extremely sexy. He was literally wearing a plaid button-down, cargo pants, and hiking boots. All he needed was a hatchet in that loop on his pants.
“Catholic school trauma for the win.” I high-fived him.
“Yeah, so glad I didn’t go through any of that.” Ashton shook his head.
“What are your favorite flowers?” Steven asked. “I like sunflowers.”
“Sunflowers are nice,” I replied. “Flowers for the table? Probably purple gerbera daisies.” My dads had always gotten me flowers whenever they went to the hardware store. They’d get them for my mom, too. “Herbs? Lavender. Wildflowers? Poppies. Purple is my favorite color.”
“I like green. Poppies are pretty. For flowers, I like roses, we have them at the cabin,” Ashton said. “Steven knows a lot about taking care of them.”
All of a sudden, the greenhouse was flooded with children, who were clearly on a field trip.
“Don’t get lost.” Steven grabbed my hand to keep me with them. We left the greenhouse.
He was holding my hand. A little thrill went through me. Though I literally just broke up with somebody.
But I was also just holding his hand.
And even if I kissed him… or more… I was on a post break-up spring break trip with my aunties. It was supposed to be healing and if I wanted a little bit of that kind of healing with two sexy hockey players, was there even anything wrong with it?
No, there wasn’t.
I’d never had a vacation hookup before. Usually when I travel it was with my brother or cousins. A little fling could be a lot of fun.
Steven looked at our hands as if he suddenly realized what he was doing. I squeezed it.
“Don’t wanna get lost,” I agreed.
No. I didn’t want to get lost at all.
Chapter Nine
Ashton
This garden was absolutely gorgeous. I loved how Kai’s face lit up as they told us all about the different types of plants or stated silly facts.
The idea that we picked something so perfect for them made me happy.
The bad thing was, I hadn’t taken any allergy medicine. Being around all of this made my eyes water.
