by Staci Hart
“I present to you one of the easiest plants to keep alive—pothos ivy.”
I leaned in, curious.
“This little guy can stay alive with minimal sunlight, although the more it gets, the more it grows. All you have to do is water it once a week. Wednesdays, if you can manage it.”
“Why Wednesdays?”
“So you don’t forget. Watering Wednesdays.”
“That might actually work.” I stepped closer, thumbing a waxy, spade-shaped leaf. “How much water?”
“More than a sip, less than a drenching.”
“I see it’s an exact science.”
He shrugged. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
“Says you,” I teased.
“That’s right, says me. If you can run the Felix wedding, you can keep ivy alive.”
Kash reached for an old, square tin covered in nouveau art. Swirls and swoops shaped like smoke built a frame around a beautiful girl sitting among lilies, brushing her long auburn hair. The details of the frame were shimmering gold, and written in a crisp deco font were the words Gilded Lily with the description of the face powder and manufacturer beneath.
He set it down without ceremony, reaching for the container of gravel, but I scooped the tin up, inspecting it with wide eyes.
“This is beautiful,” I breathed, turning it over in my hands, imagining the woman this had belonged to in some era long ago. “Where did it come from?”
“We have about a million of them in storage. This was probably one of my great-grandma’s, once upon a time.”
“Oh, it’s too valuable,” I insisted, shaking my head. “I can’t accept this.”
He snorted a laugh. “If you saw how many we had, you’d disagree. Trust me when I say you’d be doing me a favor. And anyway, she reminds me of you,” he said half to himself, eyes on the tin. “Her hair. The curve of her nose. The gilded lily—beautiful and perfect without any adornment but adorned all the same. Almost to frivolity.”
The feeling of rightness struck me again, a deep thrum that set an admission rising within me.
“Keep it,” he said. “It was meant to be yours.”
What about your heart? I thought. Was that meant to be mine too?
I clutched the tin to my chest hopefully. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. In fact, I’ll take you down there when we’re finished, and you can fill up a wheelbarrow with anything you want. Just run it by Tess,” he added. “She’d kill me if I got rid of something she needed for a window installation.”
I beamed at him, my mind tripping over what treasures I might find there. What I might find in him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He paused, watching me for a beat. “You’ll have to set it down if you want to plant in it.”
“Oh.” I laughed. “Sorry.”
Once it was on the table, Kash handed me the gloves.
But I waved him off. “I’m not afraid of a little dirt.”
With one brow cocked, he reached for a canvas apron. “Guess you won’t be needing this then.”
I snatched it from him. “That I will take, thank you.”
He stepped behind me as I looped the strap over my neck, his hands finding the strings to tie around my waist. As his fingers did their work, he closed the small gap between us, his chest against my back, his lips against my neck for the briefest of kisses.
“All right,” he said against my skin, kissing me once more before stepping back up to the table. “First, the gravel.”
At that, he launched into his instructional with Brutus watching me from across the table. When he hopped up and took a seat, I half expected him to make hard eye contact while he knocked things off the table, one by one. But instead, he sat silently, tail flicking judgmentally as Kash directed me to pour in a few inches of gravel for drainage, then a couple small pieces of concrete to discourage the roots from growing into the drainage. Then a little bit of fresh soil, mixed with the ivy’s topsoil when I turned the pot to empty its contents into my hand. I squeezed the pot-shaped soil to break up the roots as he instructed, then set the little plant inside and filled it with the remainder of the dirt in the pot, just like I had the cosmos.
Proudly, he handed me a watering can. “Go ahead. Give him a little drink.”
I smiled and did as I’d been told. “Why’s it gotta be a he?”
“It’s whatever you want it to be. You should name it.”
I set down the watering can and held up the tin for inspection, the ivy’s leaves bobbing with the motion. I traced the visage of the girl basking in the sunshine, combing her hair surrounded by lilies. “Ophelia,” I said, utterly certain that it was most definitely a she, and her name was a fact that had been waiting to be uncovered, in that moment, by me.
“Ophelia it is,” he said, leaning on the table to watch me.
And I watched him right back.
He was immovable, a pillar of solidarity and strength. An unwavering truth clung to him, the air of safety and certainty. A worthiness of trust.
I trusted him. He had nothing to gain by deceiving me.
I didn’t even think him capable of deceit.
“Thank you,” I said quietly, from the very depths of my heart. Because that moment of truth was upon me, and I wouldn’t waste it.
“For what?” he asked honestly. As if everything he gave wasn’t a gift and privilege.
“For this. For everything.”
He reached for my hand, that tilted smile on his face as he pulled me into his chest, wrapped me in his arms.
“I told you I was an excellent distraction,” he said.
“You did,” I agreed on a gentle laugh.
“Next time you need a rebound, I’m your guy.”
“And what if I don’t need another rebound?”
Something shifted behind his eyes, but the rest of him maintained that cavalier air he always had about him. “Then I’d say whoever locked you down was a lucky guy. You’re going to make somebody really happy one day, Lila. And I’m glad you picked me for your rebound. It’s been fun while it lasted.”
My admission died in my throat. “It has,” I admitted with a thin smile to cover the sting of those words.
You knew this was temporary. Deep down you knew. Let it be what it is. Because he’ll never want more, not from you.
“Kiss me,” I commanded gently, wanting nothing more than to hide, to seal away my wishes, to kiss them goodbye.
And with the brush of his fingers on my cheek, he did.
Acute was the pain, fading into a dull ache in my ribs, the word rebound a barb that struck me mercilessly.
Because who would help me get over Kash when he was gone?
Deeper we kissed, and I only hoped he attributed my desperation to desire, not the loss of what I’d wished for—that we could be more.
But if this was all I could have, I’d take it.
I’d take whatever I could get.
When the kiss slowed, then stopped, he leaned back. A curious, amused look colored his face. “You okay?” he asked.
And there was nothing to do but smile and lie.
17
Sex Palace
KASH
“Come with me,” I said, snagging her hand to tow her toward the shop.
She laughed, trotting behind me. “Where are we going?”
“There’s something I want to show you,” was all I said, and she took the hint that I wanted it to be as much of a surprise as possible.
I wanted to leave the moment that passed between us in the greenhouse, but it followed us silently. Because if she’d been about to tell me she was ready to move on, I wasn’t ready to hear. I wasn’t ready to end this or let her go. I’d pretend like it was all fun and games if it meant I get to keep her a little while longer.
But that ticking clock was a bomb waiting to detonate. And I was beginning to lose hope that I’d defuse it in time.
I hurried her out of the greenhouse and on to our destinati
on. There was a space in Longbourne I had long ago claimed for my own, one that no one bothered with beyond the occasional perusal by my father. I’d never taken a girl to this place, not ever. In fact, I never willingly invited anyone to this place. Inexplicably, I wanted to show Lila.
I needed to, the compulsion overwhelming as I dragged her through the workroom under the watchful gaze of Tess, Luke, and Wendy, then around the corner of the brick wall and to the narrow stairs only I ever used.
“Was your house expanded over the shop?” she asked, brushing the brick with her fingertips.
“It was, about a billion years ago. We used to own half the block until my grandmother sold our other properties. But she had the property lines redrawn so we could keep the greenhouse in the back.”
“Clever.”
“We have a genetic predisposition to resourcefulness,” I said as we reached the top, and I pushed open the door to the roof.
The moment we were clear of the threshold, she gasped at what she found—the small roof greenhouse I’d claimed a decade ago, a place to grow projects just for me. Her face was full of wonder, her red hair shining like a penny in the sun as she approached the structure, which was stuffed to the gills with greenery.
“I didn’t know there was another greenhouse at Longbourne.”
“Oh, this one’s not for the public. It’s strictly mine.” I moved for the door, and she followed, stepping into the space made warm by trapped sunlight and an abundance of plants nestled together, shoulder to shoulder.
Dirt crunched underfoot as we wound our way in. Every wall was lined with shelves, and from the rafters hung a dozen planters, all teeming with life. In the center stood my workspace, capped on each end with yet more shelves. Below the table was a cacophony of tools, pots, bags of soil and pH tests and fertilizer and enough spiders to ward off almost anybody—with the exception of Dad. He’d stick his hand in there willy-nilly, but then again, he never was afraid of much. Other than Mom, I figured.
I leaned a hip on the worktable, folding my arms with pride as Lila wandered around with her mouth open and eyes wide.
She reached out to touch an orange flower head. She’d picked one of my favorite breeds, with clusters of orange that made a trio of perfect petals that reached up to the sunlight as if in prayer. “I’ve never seen a flower like this before. What is it?”
“Astragalus. That one is a hybrid of a buffalo plum and Russian milk vetch. See,” I said, pushing off the table to stride to her side, “one of its parents is this one.” I thumbed the leaf of the peach flowers, which also had three petals, but less blossoms on each cluster. “And this one is its grandparent.” I pointed to the next one, which was closer to pink but had only two petals. “And this is its great-grandparent. I’ve been breeding this one for a few years. See the other side?”
She glanced to the space on the other side of the plant where we’d started. “Look at that. It’s yellow, and its petals look like … pistachio shells.”
I chuckled. “That’s the milk vetch.”
“This is wild. How … how did you learn how to do this?”
I rolled a shoulder. “Just messing around really. Dad showed me how once, and I just sort of…ran with it. All you need is a paintbrush and the knowledge of flower genitalia.”
“You make these flowers have sex? So you’re basically a flower pimp?”
“Think I should put that on my business cards?”
I was rewarded with a laugh as she turned her attention back to the flowers. “These are incredible. Have you thought about selling them?”
“Oh, yeah—I sell them all the time. Over the years, I’ve met enough enthusiasts that I have a good, solid customer base.”
“How much do you charge?”
“Why, need me to make you a new strain of flower?”
“Just curious, is all.”
“I don’t charge, just tell them they can tip me. Marcus set me up on some app thing they pay me on and it goes straight into my bank account. But I don’t think about it all that much, to be honest—I’d do it for free, if they didn’t insist on paying. And if Marcus would let me get away with it. He set it up as a business and everything, said I had to or I’d get thrown in jail for tax evasion.”
“That’s an overstatement, but I see the point,” she said on a chuckle.
“Sometimes I wonder how much is in the account, but I figured if it was substantial, Marcus would be hounding me about investing it or something.”
Lila made a face I wasn’t sure how to read. “You don’t know how much is in your business account?”
“No. Why?”
Her face flushed, lashes fluttering as she blinked. “Because … because, I mean, how could you not know your profits?” she stammered. “Don’t you have to, like … buy supplies?”
“I’ve got everything I need in the greenhouse.”
“But what if you could make good money? What if you could expand? Start selling them in Longbourne? What if you—”
“I don’t do it for money. I just like growing things.”
“But what if you could monetize?” she started, excited now, bright with ideas and ingenuity.
“I don’t need the money.”
“Everybody needs the money.”
“I make my salary at the greenhouse, and I live here rent-free. What do I need money for?”
She huffed, scoffed, and rolled her eyes, but for all her stalling, she couldn’t seem to come up with an answer.
“I don’t want to monetize something I enjoy, Lila. I don’t want something I love to become a job. A chore. I just want to play up here in my botanical sex dungeon and create.” When she pouted, I asked, “Why do I get the feeling that offends your sensibilities?”
“Because it does,” she said without hesitating. “Why not do something you love for a living?”
“Because once you ask your passion to make you money, I imagine it would lose its luster.”
“But that’s what I did, and I love my job.”
I gave her a look.
Her cheeks flushed brighter, and she frowned. “I do.”
“You do your job strictly for the joy of the thing? Every Felix sister is endured because it’s fun?”
Lila’s mouth opened, then closed. Her frown deepened.
“Tell me, what is it you love so much again? Is it the lying to nuns or being humiliated by the people who pay you?”
My tone was light, but I was defensive of that truth, of that stark difference between us. And she matched me for it, folding her arms across her chest.
“There are moments of joy, or I wouldn’t put up with all the bullshit.”
“Do you love it as much as you did when you first started?” I pressed.
“No. But isn’t that every job? Doesn’t everyone have an illusion of what things could be? And isn’t that illusion always wrong? Nothing is what it seems. Life is never what you think it’s going to be.”
The shift in her meaning didn’t go unnoticed by me. I didn’t think she was referring to our jobs anymore.
“Fair enough,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t mean you have to accept where you end up without fighting for your own happiness.”
Something tightened her face, a pain she didn’t want me to see. The memory of accepting less than she was worthy of, I hoped. Because I never wanted her to accept anything less than absolute happiness. I wanted her to fight for the things she wanted and abandon what she didn’t.
Even if that meant she abandoned me.
Not wanting to get any closer to that truth, I turned for another wall of the greenhouse where I kept my lilies, grabbing her hand along the way.
“What are these?” she asked as we neared a cluster of lilies between shelves, the plants waist high and branches heavy with flowers. They hung in arches, the petals extending back to the stem, making it look like a paper lantern of white, speckled with deep purple.
“Lilium duchartrei. Exotic, difficult to grow. I’ve had this pl
ant, oh … five years or so. You can see I’ve been breeding it, but I can’t ever seem to get it to hold the shape. It always unfurls when the flowers bloom.”
She must have noted the disappointment in my voice and squeezed my hands gently. “What are you trying to accomplish?”
“Beyond getting it to keep their shape, I’d like the petals to be a different color. I’ve tried my hand at breeding it with dozens of species, but I have yet to do it. This plant is about to bloom though, see?”
I brought her closer to my latest experiment, brushing back the leaves to expose a pod that had begun to form.
“Maybe this one will be it,” she said hopefully. “And Kash, I’m sorry. For pushing you. I just don’t know any other way to be. I mean, look at me. I decided at sixteen that I was going to be a wedding planner, and every single thing I’ve done since then has been to move me in that direction. My goal in life has been to make a living—a good living—working in events. I’m just wired this way, I think. To decide something and chase it with all the tenacity I have. Which is a lot, by the way.”
“Who, you?” I teased.
“Anyway,” she said with a smile, “when you’re that intense about something, it’s hard to understand someone’s lack of intensity, if that makes sense.”
“It does. And there’s nothing to be sorry for. Last I checked, two people could disagree without someone needing to apologize for it.”
“Force of habit. Ivy thinks I show love by arguing, so I feel like I apologize a lot.”
“Well, don’t. Not to me. You can save your apologies for your sister.”
With a soft laugh, she stepped into me, winding her arms around my neck. “So how often do people come up here to bother you?”
“Never,” I said, sliding my hands down her back.
“Good. Because all these pistils and stamens in your sex palace have me all kinds of worked up.” Her thigh rose to hitch on my waist. “So are you gonna pollinate me or what?”
And like the pimp I was, I did just that.
* * *