Page 78 of Beyond the Hedge Maze

Oliver smiled as he tilted his head back to capture the small sliver of sunlight that was peeking over the top rim of the hedge. If Jesse were there, he’d joke that they were morphing into one person. Breathing deep, he caught the faint smell of the fading hydrangeas at his back, their perfume nearly gone at the end of the season. Overhead the birds had gone quiet, their summer singing retired until the next spring.

It was one final moment of peace before the chaos of the day began. His stomach was slowly churning with nervous energy, some good, some bad. He had spent so much time railing against the idea of visitors at the estate that the mindset was hard to change. But at the same time, he knew how happy it made him when the house was full. He knew he loved the noise, the shuffle of footsteps down the hall and overhead that let him know he wasn’t alone.

Even amidst the nervousness, he was assured that he was doing the right thing. That his grandfather’s spirit was with him as he began this new journey.

“Found you.”

Oliver opened his eyes at the sound of Jesse’s voice, and scooted on the stone bench to give him some room to sit beside him. “I hoped you would. That’s why I’m here and not at the fountain.”

“Hey, I can find the center now. All by myself.” Jesse wrapped an arm around Oliver’s waist, pulling him as close as possible as Oliver sunk into the embrace, his body relaxing into Jesse’s hold. “Are you ready for today?”

“I think so. I wish we had done this sooner in the year. It feels like the world is winding down while we’re just beginning.”

A firm kiss was pressed against his hair, and if Oliver could have melted further into Jesse’s side, he would have. “We weren’t ready then. Anyways, we’ll have plenty more summers to enjoy. All of them, if I’m lucky.”

Oliver tilted his chin up in invitation, and Jesse bent down to softly kiss him—slow and languid, his favorite kind. He knew they needed to go. The others would be looking for them soon, and vendors had already started to set up their tables, corralled and organized by Rachel and her clipboard.

Instead, he closed his eyes. He wanted one more minute spent in the maze with Jesse, just the two of them in their spot.

***

A warm mug of chai was pressed into his palm, and he smiled up at Tanvi who had been making her way around the library with a small tray, Oliver’s mug the last to be distributed. “Thank you for everything today,” Oliver said. “Rosie wouldn’t stop singing your praises before she left. I think she was even threatening to kidnap you at one point.”

“I loved working with Rose. I wish I could replace her with all my current coworkers at the restaurant. Anyway, I was happy to be here.” Oliver watched her gaze drift over to Jesse and Rachel sitting at the other end of the library, their heads bent in quiet conversation as they went over the final numbers of the day. “I just want him to be happy. This place has brought you to him, brought him closer to his dad, given him back pieces of himself that he thought he had lost. I can’t thank you enough.”

Oliver swallowed his tears, choking back the urge to tell her she was wrong. That it was Jesse who had given him everything, not the other way around. Isaac was sitting at his side, Michelle and Sean behind him on the settee, and it felt like closure. Closure on a chapter of his life that was marred by grief and a lack of control. Sean put his large hand on Oliver’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. A warmth settled in his chest, put there by these new friends.

The day came and went in a whirlwind of activity. The visitors had gone, the vendors had all packed up, and the sounds of idle chatter and screaming children had quieted.

Oliver had never felt so exhausted and yet so fulfilled.

The fundraiser had made him realize that his roots extended further than Chapman House; they broadened out into the village, and burrowed deep into the English soil. He had reconnected with old acquaintances of his grandfather, friends from the primary school before he had left for Eton, and fellow artists from Oxford who had heard about the event through the grapevine and trekked their way over to attend.

Every person he met had their own reasons for being there, whether it was to support him personally, or someone they knew who was selling their homemade wares. Some were merely curious to see the estate, others the maze. It didn’t matter what their reasons were, only that they were there. Multiple times throughout the day, he was nearly driven to tears with how grateful he had been.

In the end, they had made the decision not to open the house until after the roof was fixed. But the day brought forth hundreds of people from all over the county who gathered throughout the gardens and the maze. Soon, they would offer tours of the house, fix up the ballroom to rent out for events, they’d follow the step-by-step program that Jesse and Charlotte had constructed. One day, hopefully, they’d be permanently on stable ground.

It may take a few years, but Oliver was ready for the challenge. He was ready to take it on alongside Jesse, surrounded by the people in this room that loved them both.

Tanvi, done playing host, eventually settled on the settee behind him and Isaac, crawling over Sean’s lap to squeeze herself in between him and her girlfriend. The room was quiet apart from the crackling sounds of the fire Michelle had built earlier, and the hushed voices of Jesse and Rachel. Oliver took another sip from his mug, noting the various colors of paint splattered along his hands. He had never done face painting before, but found that near the end of the day he was pretty close to perfecting the ever popular butterfly and cat whiskers.

“Alright, everyone, we have the final tally of the day,” Rachel said as she and Jesse made their way to the five friends already sitting in front of the fire.

They took their seats on the opposite couch, wearing matching grins on their faces, and Oliver’s spirits soared. Even Isaac, anticipating good news, took his hand, waiting for his sister to deliver the verdict that they already knew was coming. They had done it. They had earned enough money to repair the roof. Step one was complete, and all their hard work was coming to fruition.

Jesse continued, “After we took into account the artisan entry fee, the tickets sold to access the estate, tickets sold to enter the maze, and general donations, less all of our fees, which were not many, we did not come up with enough money to fund the entirety of the roof.”

Oliver’s heart sank. He looked between his best friend and his boyfriend in disappointed confusion as they sat there grinning, completely unfazed by this bad news.

Isaac sensed Oliver’s impending panic, and in a move remarkably similar to his sister, went straight into problem solving mode. “This is fine. I’m sure we made enough for at least the next several installments to the contractor. We could do something similar at Christmas time, maybe? Winter fairy wonderland, mystical, snow, Santa bullshit or something? People will come flocking!”

Jesse and Rachel turned to each other in some silent conversation, and eventually it was decided that Rachel was going to get the honor of saying whatever came next. “So, I may have done something else, and Oliver, before you react, I know I went behind your back to do this, and I’m sorry.”

“Rach, seriously, you need to start explaining before my heart falls out of my arse.”

“I sold some of your paintings.”

Oliver’s attention pivoted to the rendering of Chapman House over the fireplace. He was sure he had seen the willow painting loitering in the entryway that morning. The work he had started a few weeks prior was still sitting half-finished in the conservatory. “I don’t follow. I don’t have any paintings to sell.”