Andi hummed to herself as she shuffled a few tall, leafy plants around in garden supplies. Her tune may have been lacking in musicality and even tonality, but she was too absorbed with other thoughts to either notice or care .She picked up a fern and spun it around in a circle before depositing it next to the others. She tipped an imaginary hat to her erstwhile dance partner, and mimed setting the hat (some sort of sexy top hat, she thought) back on her head at a decidedly jaunty angle.
All in all, it was a good day. She grinned to herself. The image of Ted running around in agitated little circles ran in a continuous loop in her mind, and with any luck, it would say with her until her dying day. A memory to sustain her even through the hardest of times. She gave a ceramic gnome a happy little pat on the head and stepped back to survey her work. And there it was. Her own tiny, perfect oasis masquerading as a corporate-approved display. She walked over to the storage room and rooted around until she found what she was looking for: a slightly defective reclining lounge chair that was currently substituting as the final resting place of a number of random garden supplies.
She dumped the smaller items in a box in the corner; the larger ones she just shoved off on to the floor. She grabbed one end of the chair and started dragging, though she did not get very far. The other end had caught on the doorway. She tried to shake the chair free, mentally cursing all "slightly defective" merchandise. She glared at the chair, but to no avail. It was a two-person job. She set the chair down, then looked around at various bits of greenery with a calculating look in her eye. She finally settled on a dwarf lemon tree. She hoisted it up and marched back into the Bench building, juggling the plant and attempting to find the perfect balance between looking overwhelmed and looking nonchalant. Both the former and the latter would invite attention, the very opposite of what she was trying to achieve. She strode up and down the aisles, looking about as purposeful as she could while actually wandering semi-aimlessly. She hoped he hadn't thought to take advantage of the chaos the sprinklers had created to wonder off unnoticed...at least not without letting her come, too.
Aha! She was in luck.
"Sam," she called. Sam looked up from the floor tiles he had been mopping. Actually, calling it mopping was something of an exaggeration, Andi mentally amended.
"Hey, Andi."She couldn't quite see his face through the branches of the tree, but his tone was definitely on the mopey side. He stabbed at the floor with the mop again, although his heart clearly wasn't in it. The mop trailed through the brackish water like a squid with a hangover. It did not serve to make the floor any cleaner.
Andi juggled the lemon tree around to try and see more of Sam than his feet.
"Can you help me for a minute with something in Gardening?"
"Sure," he said. The ghost of a smirk crossed his face. "It's not the lemon tree, is it?"
"Nah, " she said, "this is just a prop. It says: "I'm busy, don't bother me unless you want a face full of tree thorns". I need another person to help me drag something outta the storage room out back."
"Sure thing."
She flashed him a smile that was parts triumphant and devious all in one. "I think you might find it worth your while." She shifted the lemon tree around in her arms again and set off in the direction of Gardens. Sam counted to thirty before setting the mop against a shelf and following as quickly as possible, trying to school his expression into something as purposeful. He skidded around a corner, spotted Ted coming down the aisle, and ducked behind a refrigerator. As soon as Ted had turned down into Plumbing instead, he resumed his course, although this time he tried for nonchalance. When he reached Home & Gardens, he spent a few seconds fiddling with a display before glancing around and sidling outside. Andi was nowhere to be seen.
"Andi?"
"Hey, Sam." Andi's head popped up from behind some tall, leafy plants. "Come look"
"How did you get back there?" Sam wouldn't have guessed that there was so much as a hiding spot back there, and he couldn't see anything resembling so much as an entrance.
"Just a sec."
Andi moved the dwarf lemon tree over and then pushed the bottlebrush out, leaving a passable gap.
Sam squeezed in.
Andi had some how managed to create a mini little secret garden, complete with a tiny rock fountain, some sweet-smelling flowers, and garden gnome.
"You've created another Ted-free zone?"
"it's an everything-free zone. Including...." She nodded at the floor.
Sam looked down. He could only see bits and pieces, for most of it seemed to be covered with plants but...it definitely looked like Andi had used duct tape and a spare hose to sketch out-
"Is that a circle?"
Andi grinned at him. "It just needs one more thing."
"And what's that?"
"The lounge chair stuck in the storage room." Andi squeezed through the gap.
"The one where it's pretty much permanently stuck upright?"
"Yup. C'mon, let's grab it. I'll push the back down if you'll pull it out."
Sam followed her out.
It took a few tries, but they eventually managed to wrangle the chair out of the storage room and into Andi's time-out space. When they were both inside, Andi placed the lemon tree and bottlebrush back in their designated spots and sank down into the lounge chair. She patted the spot next to her.
"Sit down, Sam. It only works if you don't have your head out where people can see you."
As he sat, she added:
"Plus, it makes it easier to do this." She pulled him into a deep kiss, only to yelp and pull away when he slid his hand around her neck.
"Jesus, your hands are cold." Andi complained.
Sam shoved his hands in his apron pockets.
"Sorry. I forgot. They're still kinda numb."
"What happened?"Andi wished she could sound a little less incredulous, but damn. It was really bad timing for hands colder than death. She tugged at one of his arms until he relented and pulled his hand out of the pocket. She grabbed it and clasped it between her own, gently massaging his palm with her thumbs.
"The Devil," Sam said, scowling. It was not a very threatening-looking scowl. Andi's outrage warred with a desire to hug the cute right out of Sam. No one over the age of four should look so adorable while pouting. Eventually outrage managed to win out.
"What he do, take you on a field trip to the Artic?"
"Close enough. Ski resort in the Sierras." Sam kicked a planter before glaring at it as if it had insulted him personally. "I think he gets off on torturing me."
"So who's the soul this time? A skier or something?"
"No soul. He just wanted to show me some poor guy smashing into a tree. Or push me off the lift chair. Both, I guess. I think he's still pissed about me, you know, trying to get out of the contract."
Andi bit her lip and let out an almost-sigh. She thought differently, but didn't say anything. Instead, she grabbed his other hand and subjected it to the same treatment as the other.
"Better?" she asked.
He smiled his crooked little smile at her. "Definitely."
She leaned against him in companionable silence and watched the wind ruffle the leaves. After a moment, she said, "You know, I hear Sock managed to immortalize Ted's freak-out."
"Pictures?"
"Better." Her glee was a little unnerving. Her smile displayed too many teeth for comfort. "Video."
"I thought you were the one who was all, "oh no, it's fine, I hated being manager anyway," huh?"
"Ted is still an epic tool. I'm not inclined to forget it any time soon."
"I don't think you're going to have a chance to. After today, he's going to be riding our asses to cover his." He sighed.
"Those morons couldn't have picked a worse time to mess with the sprinklers."
Sam shifted his weight and toyed with a leaf he'd pulled from the nearest plant. He blurted, "Andi, I'm sorry."
Andi pushed herself away from Sam so that she was sitting upright and facing him.
"Wait, you knew? You knew what the wonder twins were planning?" Her head was tilted at a dangerous angle, and her tone put Sam in mind of knives. Dipped in liquid nitrogen.
"Wait, uh, what?"
"Rob and Ed. You knew they were planning to set off the sprinklers?"
Sam backpedaled.
"I thought you were happy about the sprinklers thing! No, I thought..."
"It was idiotic! the consequences were funny, but not really worth it, Sam! Why didn't you say anything?"
"Rob and Ed set off the sprinklers?"
Andi paused. The mix of guilt and bemusement crossing Sam's face threw her.
"You didn't know? What are you apologizing for?"
"I thought it was, uh, my fault, you know? Like, um..." he glanced around, and lowered his voice, vaguely dreading Andi's reaction. "The wine bottle."
"Sam, we work with a store full of people who are always pulling shit like this."
"Yeah, but Ted had us cornered, Andi. And- pretty much everything he mentioned in the meeting today was caused by the Devil and demons and escaped souls. And me. I think. Maybe."
Andi threw her head back and laughed. She rubbed her hand across her face and leaned back against Sam. His befuddlement sent her back into gales of laughter.
Sam smiled at her, just a tad cautiously.
"It's just...despite all the shit we're gonna catch for all that in his stupid review meetings....I can't wait to see how Ted copes with "the devil made me do it" as an explanation."
Sam's smile widened into something a little more genuine, and then he laughed himself.
"Yeah, me too."
After a few minutes, Andi sighed and sat up. "C'mon, we should probably get back to work before someone notices that we're MIA."
She stood and began to rearrange the plants to allow passage out. She squeezed through the gap, and Sam followed. No sooner had he exited Andi's hidden garden lair than he tripped and faceplanted on to the concrete.
"Ow."
Andi whirled around and sank down to help Sam up. Sam gingerly picked himself up and looked around to see what he'd tripped on. Great, he thought. There, at the very edge of Andi's duct-tape circle, was a vessel box.
"Too late," he sighed.
