And then…
“Hello?” Beau’s soft, sweet southern voice filters through the phone.
My breath stutters in my chest, words stuck like rocks in my throat. Pressing the heel of my palm to my forehead, I just listen to Beau breathe for a moment, listen to him move around wherever he is, probably in the living room. It’s so easy toimagine. I can even smell the sweet, cedar smell of his sheets without even trying. A phantom smell. A phantom loss.
“Levi?” Beau asks, voice trembling.
A cry gets caught in my throat. I cover my mouth with my hand, desperately doing anything I can to hold in the sobs that want to wrench loose.
Once I’ve gathered myself, I ask, voice hushed, “For keeps?”
Silence, unending silence, and then a softly whispered, “For keeps always, sweetheart.”
A smile breaks through the tears slowly inching their way down my cheeks. The taste of the tears invades my senses, enough to overpower the taste of Beau that my brain summons from the deepest well of my imagination. The line is quiet for a few beats, just us on the phone together, and I think maybe that’s enough. Just to know someone, somewhere, could want me enough to play for keeps.
We sit on the phone for a while, resting in gentle silence, until the moment becomes too much for me to bear. After hanging up, I sit alone in my empty apartment. Without even saying a word, Beau made me feel less alone than I ever have.
Tears swim in my eyes as I save his number in my phone under My Beau. Because even though he’s not mine, can never be mine, the idea of him will always be enough.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BEAU
Life goes on. Swimming through grief for my dad while simultaneously missing Levi is a double-edged sword of seemingly unending pain. Plus, Colby is still going through it over Marcus, so I’m back to the standard of being everyone’s rock. While absolutely no one is there for me.
I think about Levi far more than is healthy. I wonder where he is, if he’s happy, if he thinks of me. The stark loss of him rattles around my now oddly empty rib cage. Does he feel the loss of me too? Wherever he is, does he feel the pull that I feel when I reverently whisper his name right before falling asleep? Months ago he called me, just once, and hearing his voice felt like a lightning strike straight to my heart. But words aren’t enough to tell him to come back to me. For real.
Despite the workday being over, there’s always more to do. The past few weeks I’ve been working on a secret project. A lush garden is slowly coming to life in my backyard. The wooden pallets have been built, the dirt put in, and now I get to do the rewarding part. Planting.
Ten gardenia bushes fill the back of my truck. Special order from across the country in California. Some new breed that’ssupposed to have double the blooms. My mama has always loved gardenias. She says they’re the southern flower of love, the southern rose. Filling my garden with gardenias is all I can do in hopes that they’ll bring love back to me.
The sun bears down on me, breaking sweat out across my neck, under my shirt, any place sweat can reach. Swiping my ball cap off, I run my forearm over my forehead to catch some of the sweat threatening to drip down my flushed face. Birds sing in the forest behind my house, happy with the humid air and bright sunshine.
A sudden whistle startles me so badly that I almost scream. When I slowly turn around, a smirking Andy strolls toward me with her hands on her hips. Dark curls up in a bun, torn denim shorts, and a faded T-shirt, she looks just like she does in all my childhood memories. Just a little older now, more of a woman than a rambunctious child following me around the farm.
“What’s going on here?” she asks, eyes carefully surveying my garden.
“Ain’t you ever seen a garden before?”
Andy rolls her eyes dramatically. “Duh, loser.”
I take a swipe at her with my dirty hands, but she dips out of reach, laughing loudly at my brotherly antics. “No, but seriously, what’s with three plots of gardenias? Mama said you special ordered them through the farm account, then brought them back here. What’s up?”
Needing to tell her the truth bubbles painfully inside me. A few weeks ago, I’d told Colby, and something inside me had snapped a little. Freedom from the shackles of a lie that I don’t regret, but that still hurts to bear. Her eyes are shrewd as she stares at me, waiting for me to give up the truth.
“I planted them for Trevor,” I tell her, the truth as easy as breathing.
Confusion clouds her expression for just a moment before her lips form a perfectoh. “I never asked after the funeral… you’re not much of a talker. I assumed when we didn’t see him again that something happened.”
“I hired him.”
A myriad of expressions flick over her face before settling on confusion once again. “You hired him?”
I nod slowly, putting my hat back on to prevent the sun from beating so hard down on me. “A fake boyfriend.”
“Fake boyfriend,” Andy repeats slowly, clearly trying to understand. “Like from one of my books?”
“Basically.”
