I move to tuck hair behind my ear, as one does when a compliment rolls in, but remember I’ve put my hair up in the towel. I untwist the wrap as Zander moves into my garish kitchen. The walls are a bright pink, with vibrant yellow and pale blue accents. He looks back at me and grins.
“What are all these little buildings?”
“It’s a Spice Village!” I say, throwing my towel over a wicker chair pulled into my kitchen table. The purple pillow at the back of the chair slides down.
“What’s a Spice Village?” He reaches out to the scalloped shelf that holds all my ceramic spice jars, then pulls back. “Can I touch them?”
“Yeah, go ahead.” I pluck the chive house off the shelf. Its roof is purple, with three arched windows. Vines are painted around the wordchive, a pink door below a darling awning finishing it off. Zander takes it from me gingerly. “They’re this kitschy thing from the 80s. There’s twenty-four of them, each a different spice as a cute little house. I started collecting them in university. Of course, they just brought them back a few years ago, but all of mine are the authentic originals. I’m only missing saffron and tarragon.”
Zander turns the building over in his hands. He beams. “You’re never beating the whimsical elf allegations.”
“Good. I’m a silly little whimsical elf…who is also a goose.”
He places the chives back on the shelf, then picks up my most faded spice jar. The orange roof of cinnamon is dull, almost brown. Its upper windows match the chives.
“Where do you find these?”
“Thrift stores if you’re really lucky. eBay and Etsy if you’re desperate.”
“And you’re desperate?”
“Always.” I bite my bottom lip to hold back a laugh as Zander chuckles. “Can I show you another whimsical elf thing?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, are you ready? You said the inside of the house is like sunshine and so me, but just wait for it. And drop the towel. You won’t need it, I promise.”
He does as he’s told, literally dropping the towel to the ground on the spot. His shorts are still wet, clinging to him in a way that’s the slightest bit obscene, but I can also tell they’re dryer than they were when we walked in. I extend my arm, offering him a hand. He takes it readily, a dreamy smile on his face. My heart skips a beat at his dimples, at the smile lines beside his eyes, at the way he seems to melt as he looks at me.
My stomach swoops. I’m such a goner.
I drag him through my cozy dining room, past the board and batten I added earlier this year, and stop in front of the sliding doors to my backyard. Light filters in through the rainbows of the stained glass window cling I stuck to the back doors five years ago, one of my first ever home improvement projects. I flick the lock and slide the door open. The wall of heat hits me. Clearly the rainstorm brought no relief from the late-June humidity.
“You’ll be dry in seconds in this,” I mumble. I jump out onto my flagstone patio. “Welcome to my garden.”
“Holy shit,” Zander whispers.
He stands and takes it in. Beyond the Muskoka chairs on the patio is a yard filled to the brim with plants. Plants I’ve been painstakingly taking care of since I was thirteen. I have a bed of fruits and vegetables, making their slow journeys toward summer and fall harvests. An upcycled wooden pallet, painted a bright yellow and mounted against a wall of the pergola covering the patio, acts as a vertical garden of multi-coloured petunias. Small houses and pavers surround the tree growing dead-smack in the middle of my lawn, fairy statues, gnomes, and toadstools in its midst. Roses and honeysuckle and hydrangeas and asters and peonies and chrysanthemums, growing, thriving, or waiting for their chance throughout summer. Rows of flowerpots sit on shelves I added to the perimeter fence. Flowers I simply could not find room for but needed nonetheless.
“You really are something else. This is…wow.”
“Thank you,” I say, smiling. “Me and my grandma hobbies appreciate it.”
He laughs, and it’s such a sound of pure happiness that I wish I could bottle it up. “You do have a lot of grandma hobbies. How do you get any work done?”
I shrug. “I figure I have lots of time. Women with grandma hobbies apparently live an extra eight years, on average. So prepare to be sick of me, I guess.”
“I could never.”
He walks to the centre of my magnum opus and slowly rotates until he’s done a full 360. For a moment, neither of us moves. Zander exists in the centre of my garden, and somehow that just makes sense. It feels right. The sun shines on him, glinting off the honey brown highlights throughout his dark brown mop, contouring the lines and shadows on his bare torso, the still-pink jagged line of his scar. He’s beautiful and flawed, like every flower in my garden. None of them are perfect, but together they create something magical.
I want that magic. And despite all I know and all the opinions being thrown at me, I think he might be my magic.
“You know,” I say, joining him in the garden. I loop my arms around his neck, pulling him to me and revelling in the feel of his skin flush against mine. “I picked up all these hobbies after my mom left. I was so depressed and felt so unlovable for so long. Then my dad made me a garden in the backyard, just that rickety old bed in the back, told me I could grow whatever I wanted. It all blossomed, pardon the pun, from there.” I swallow back the building emotion. Zander’s hand cradles my cheek, brushes a tear away. Okay. Guess I’m crying. “With you…This is the first time I’ve felt so wholly accepted. She made me feel like I wasn’t worth that. And you—thank you.”
“I never would have guessed you felt that way,” he whispers, and I feel the words throughout my entire body. “You’re just so unashamedly you.”
“Yeah,” I say with a wet laugh. “It’s all an act. I’m a lot less cool than you think I am.”
