Toni didn't have doubts that when it came to clients, Myles would fall into the category of the worst; he was a terribly demanding perfectionist and working for him wasn't easy. Despite being outside, she could hear his constant complaining to a plumber, who he needed to call after he accidentally damaged a pipe. She still remembered the scream, which she heard coming from the house; she had dropped everything, running inside as it sounded like he had hurt himself, and had found him standing in the bathroom with his T-shirt completely wet and much to her discontent, sticking to his body. Shaking her head to get rid of the image, she couldn't deny feeling some sort of admiration towards the plumber; he seemed completely oblivious to the fact, that Leland kept telling him how he should do his job. She was sure that if he did the same to her, she would simply pack her tools and leave, but it seemed that the man simply continued to do his job.
Luckily, she didn't have such a problem with Myles. His help with taking care of his family's garden back in Boston turned out to have additional benefits; now, she had this one huge advantage of knowing some of his quirks, so she was able to avoid making a lot of the mistakes, which anyone on her place would do.
She almost jumped, when she heard her phone ring and glanced at the screen to see her best friend's name on it. Her eyebrows furrowed, when she started to wonder what could be the reason for the call. Whenever she was working in the field, Rebecca was usually sending her text messages if she wanted something, because she knew that she shouldn't interrupt her unless something very important appeared. It made her worry what it was this time, because obviously nothing good.
"I just got a phone call from the guy, who was supposed to bring the plants to your Myles' house." she said and chuckled, when he heard her name leave Toni's lips in a growl. "He informed me that he's not able to do that until Tuesday, because he is going to Illinois to his grandmother's funeral."
"Why am I not surprised?" sighed Toni, but her voice didn't leave doubts that she wasn't pleased with the fact. "It's already his fourth of fifth grandmother I believe… Remind me, why do I even cooperate with him?"
"Because you had a huge fight with Lawrence, who made most of the others not want to cooperate with you or ask for enormous amount of money, and this guy was the only one, who you could afford."
"True, although I'm not sure it wouldn't be better if I paid your brother for renting his pick-up and transported those plants all by myself. Do you know if he would mind borrowing it to us?"
"I actually do know that, and he doesn't see a problem with it, although only tomorrow because he's going to Pennsylvania next week and is going to need it."
Toni groaned, knowing that the next day was Saturday. She was awaiting the weekend very impatiently, because it meant that she wouldn't need to face Myles but now it seemed she didn't have much of a choice. When she walked into the house, to ask if they could actually bring the plants tomorrow since he could have already made some plans, a part of her prayed that he has done it. He hasn't, though, and also didn't see a problem with her and Rebecca coming to him.
They planned to arrive in before noon, but eventually ended up parking in front of the house at around four in the afternoon. Toni was surprised to see two additional cars standing on the driveway; she checked her phone, suspecting that she could have missed a phone call from him, telling her not to come because he had visitors, but there was nothing.
"My, my… I don't know which one of the two is your Myles, but whichever he is, I can see why he's got such an effect on you..! He looks like someone to die for!" exclaimed Rebecca, looking at the two guys, who were walking towards them .
Toni rolled her eyes, when they followed her friend's gaze. She could see why his friend reacted the way she did; the two men approaching them could most definitely be described as amazingly good looking. They were both quite tall and slightly muscular; one of them had dark brown hair and a pair of really gorgeous brown eyes, and the other's hair, although also brown, was lighter, and his eyes were green. The latter also had a huge smile on his face, and Toni immediately thought that he looked like someone, who liked to make all sort of pranks.
"Then let me enlighten you, that neither of them is Myles." she spoke and her Rebecca's face fell.
She didn't have any doubts that the main reason why Becky wanted to accompany her so much was that she wanted to meet Myles. No matter how much Toni tried to explain to her, that there was absolutely nothing left between them and she didn't see the need to give it a second chance, Rebecca didn't want to listen.
"One of you, beautiful sheilas, must be Toni?" asked the taller guy, with a very audible Australian accent, when they got out of the car. "Myles sent us here to help you with the plants."
"And he didn't come himself?" inquired Rebecca, quite surprised by this statement.
"He would if he didn't just burn himself touching the hot barbecue. I believe my wife is bandaging his hand right now and he's not really able to carry anything." explained the brown-eyed man. "Any particular place we should take them to?"
"Myles said to use storage room until I'll plant them in the ground, but why don't you simply bring them to the backyard and I'll take care of placing them inside in the right order?"
"It's just one of her little quirks." said Rebecca, when both of the men looked at her questioningly. "She can get quite fussy, when the plants are not placed in the room with the ones, that she's going to use first at the front."
They didn't say anything else, just exchanged glances. While Becky supervised the two guys, while they were getting the pots off the car, Toni went to the backyard. At first she simply heard whining and rolled her eyes, when she realised it was Myles' reaction to the fact, that a blonde woman was taking care of his burnt hand. Other than her, there were also two more women here and both of them sent her a very curious look, when they noticed her approach.
"You must be this Toni, that Harvard was talking about." spoke a black one with a suspicious smile on her face. "He kept worrying that you won't come."
"Don't pay attention to her!" she heard Myles' voice. "Say one word, she'll misinterpret it and invent a whole story!"
"You could have called me, we wouldn't interrupt your friendly gathering."
"I'm sorry, but I had no idea that they planned to come. Just ignore them!"
She was somewhat amused, watching him in the company of his friends. It was clear that while they were quite close, they were a group of completely different people, who she would never suspect could share such a strong bond. Their personalities seemed destined to clash and yet, they got along quite well. She felt terribly uncomfortable, when all her moves were watched carefully but she didn't doubt that it was all because they didn't know her. She didn't plan to destroy or steal anything, but they couldn't be aware of that. What she had no idea about was, that after she left, they drowned Leland in all sorts of questions because of the complete trust in her, that he showed, the looks he kept sending in her direction whenever he thought nobody was looking, and the way he spoke to her, wanting to make sure she felt comfortable. And this was just the beginning.
