Thank you for reading, reviewing, and for the recs, friends!

Big thanks to Maple for the pre-reading-love, and to myimm0rtal for the beta-love.

Chapter 3.

Edward's name lights up on my phone, alerting me to a text: It was good to see you again.

My heart rate spikes. Here in my bedroom, it's as if I'd actually taken that spin class Maggie tried to talk me into.

You too, I send back, and even in type my reply seems whispered, unsure.

This is the start of a back-and-forth that lasts throughout the weekend.

What do you think about improving your patio? One text says. I have a couple of ideas.

Another: I might need to drop by and re-take a few measurements if I can't decipher my chicken scratch.

That one strikes me as odd. He had such beautiful handwriting in high school, deliberate, like its own form of art.

He also suggests I look through a few magazines to gather ideas. If I find anything I become really attached to, he says he can incorporate it into his designs.

I know you said colorful, says another text. I'm thinking fuchsias. And begonias, yellow and orange ones, further up the hill.

Sounds great, I reply, a memory of Edward getting caught in my pulse—his hand closing around my wrist.

"Try using orange there instead of red."

I looked up from my feeble attempt at art—we were supposed to be experimenting with techniques, and I'd settled on cubism. My mouth opened and closed but no sound came out. I must have looked like a goldfish.

My palms began to sweat as I looked down at his hand on mine. His fingers, stained blue and black and purple from the oil pastels we were using, braceleted my wrist easily.

He hadn't let go.

And then he did, dropping my hand and clearing his throat. My eyes snapped back to his.

He smiled, kind of, and scratched his cheek. A blue-black smudge appeared on his face; it was adorable. I wanted to wipe it away, feel the skin there, and the stubble shading his jaw, touch his soft-looking lips… He cleared his throat again, drawing my gaze away from his mouth, and pointed at the laminated color wheel tacked to the far wall. A row over, I caught Lauren's smug smile. Perhaps she thought we were talking about her.

"See how orange is opposite blue? It'll make both colors look more, uh, vibrant." He said vibrant slowly, like he was embarrassed to describe it that way.

I nodded, smiled, wished I could think of something clever to say. Or anything at all to say. I put the red oil pastel back in the box and accepted the one Edward offered me. Orange. The color of the goldfish I'd been impersonating.

Mrs. Molina praised my use of complementary colors and gave me an A minus on that assignment. It was the highest mark I'd ever managed in her class. My dad, with his mustache and his bucket hat, told me art class was a waste of time—he couldn't understand why I'd choose an elective I consistently made average grades in. My mom said, "She likes it, Charlie. Let her get some enjoyment out of school."

She was right. I did like it. And I wished I could believe that she spoke up for me with my interests alone at heart, but I knew that joining her intentions was the justification of her recent enrollment in doll-making, ceramics, and cake-decorating classes. The classes my dad complained about because they took her away from the house four evenings out of the week.

Too many at once, he complained. Had she forgotten she has a family?

Edward told me his mom had his artwork framed. "She hung it in the dining room." He kept his eyes on the sketch he was producing as he spoke, as if he didn't want to admit how proud she was, like her pride made him uncomfortable.

It was interesting to me that he could speak and sketch at the same time, that his pencil didn't pause for a second.

It was the perfect opportunity for me to thank him for helping me out, to strike up a conversation with him, compliment him on his talent. I rehearsed what I was going to say… until the bell rang and Edward disappeared, absorbed into the crowd streaming toward the cafeteria.

A week passed and I still couldn't form the right words. And it was too late, I realized. I'd look like a total weirdo if I brought it up again. He'd probably forgotten all about it.

.

I take a sip of my coffee, wince, and spit the now-cold brew back into the mug. How long have I been lost in this memory of my awkward teenaged-self? I roll my shoulders, stretch my neck from side to side. My butt's gone numb. How have I put up with these bench seats for so long?

You know, I used to like you?

Despite my resolve to take things with Edward as they come, I find myself re-examining that memory in the classroom from a different angle. I've been doing it all weekend: dredging up old memories and shining the light of this new knowledge on them.

Did he look for opportunities to speak to me, too? Was that one of them? He could've just spoken; he didn't have to grasp my wrist. Did his fingers itch to touch me the way mine did him?

"Get a grip, Bella."

I stand up and take my still-full coffee mug back into the kitchen. I watch the cold, black liquid disappear down the drain and am reminded of Edward and me washing the stains off our hands, sharing the same stream of water.

I need to do something, keep myself occupied. With a sigh, I walk into the living room and start rifling through my DVDs. Maybe one of those do-it-at-home Yoga classes Maggie keeps foisting on me will do the trick.

.

Emily is sitting on my doorstep when I get home from work on Monday.

"Jeez, you get home late," she says.

"Well, not all of us can work the hours teachers do."

She flips me off for that, but she's grinning, the setting sun shining gold in her eyes. We both know she works hard and that unlike me, she often doesn't get to leave her work at the office.

"Open the door," she says, bouncing a little. "I need to pee."

I make coffee while Emily uses the bathroom, and then, steam-topped mugs in hand, we curl up on the couch together. I tuck my nylon-covered feet under her thigh and throw a block of chocolate onto her lap.

"Ooh, yummy," she says.

For a while, we sit in easy silence, sipping our coffee and decimating the candy. The day fades away, cloaking the room in shadows. I remove my feet from Emily's warmth and stretch over the side of the couch to flick the lamp on.

"I'm not cooking," I announce.

Emily ignores me, licking the chocolate off her fingertips. With smudged fingers, she grabs the Sunset magazine sitting on the coffee table. "This is new. You going Maggie on me?"

"I'm having the backyard landscaped." I resist the urge to snatch the magazine from her. "These are just for preliminary ideas."

"Preliminary," Emily mimics. "Sounds like serious grown-up stuff." She flips it open at random, examining the glossy photographs. "That's hideous. Is it a garden or a cemetery?"

I sit up straight and cross my legs as if I'm one of her students, paying no mind to the fact that my skirt has risen up to my thighs. I look on as she thumbs through a few more pages.

"Seriously, some people have the worst taste." She flips another page and screws up her face at a photograph of a garden dotted with gnomes. " It should be illegal to collect gnomes. They're terrifying. If anything comes alive when your back is turned, it's one of these assholes. "

"What about something like this?" I turn to a dog-eared page.

Emily holds it up and faces the glass doors. She closes one eye, examining it like the photograph could become the view of the yard we'd see from here. "So you're serious? You're going to drop all kinds of cash on your garden? Like, a ton of money on plants and grass and shit?"

I'm about to point out I won't actually be spending any money on "shit," but then I remember the fetid smell of manure that seeps through my kitchen windows on occasion. Mr. Crowley swears by it. "Wonderful stuff," he says. "Bermuda grass thrives on it."

"I think it'll be nice," I say, a prickle in my voice. "I've been meaning to make something of the yard since I bought the place. You know that."

"Yeah, but I figured you'd do it yourself. Rope us into helping you. Not pay some chump to dig holes and stick seeds in them." She tosses the magazine back onto the table.

That prickle is barbed wire now. "He's not a chump."

Emily's eyebrows lift. Her scar might be almost invisible, but with this expression I can see the lasting effects of her injury—her right eyebrow lags behind the left.

I don't let her speak. "And it will be way more complicated than just digging holes and planting seeds."

"Mm-hmm." Emily's no longer interested in the garden. "Tell me about the gardener."

"He's not a gardener. He's a landscaper. And he, um… well, I knew – know him."

"That so?" It's a clear order to explain myself.

"I don't know if I ever… maybe I've mentioned him. A long time ago, maybe. Edward Cullen? His name is. We went to school together." My hands find each other and interlock.

Emily shrugs, taps her finger against her chin. Her dark eyes brim with mischief. "You may have mentioned him. Let me think." She smirks. "Edward Cullen. Ah, yes. The boy you were in love with through, oh, all of high school. That Edward Cullen?"

I roll my eyes at her theatrics. "I wasn't in love with him. But yes. That Edward Cullen."

"Indeed. And is that Edward Cullen every bit as gorgeous as he was in high school?"

I seek escape from this conversation. This giddy feeling at the simple mention of his name is only nostalgia. I've spent a mere two hours with the guy in however many years. I don't know him anymore.

If I ever did.

But some younger part of myself edges out my rationale and pushes me to gush over the way Edward's muscles had grown and how they flexed as he moved around my yard, to gossip about those green eyes and that smile.

"He's very good-looking." I work to keep my voice level. I'm only reporting what's self-evident after all. "Probably more so than he was in school."

I stand and take the pile of magazines with me to the kitchen counter.

"Here." I pass Emily a pile of creased and stained takeout menus. "What do you feel like? Mexican? Thai?"

"Nice try," she says. "But I'm hungry, so I'll let this slide. For now."

Between mouthfuls of noodles, I tell her about the client who's making my life hell at work, calling up to a dozen times a day to ask me, specifically, every question that comes into his mind. "I mean, I know buying a house and getting a mortgage is stressful, but really? Other people are just as qualified to answer these inane questions. People who actually, you know, work for the mortgage company."

"My first graders sound more rational than adults most of the time. What is it about experience that makes us regress? Anyway, who can blame him, Bella? You probably are the most capable person he's dealt with." She drags her chicken through sauce. "I saw Rachel after work."

I drop my fork to my plate. "What? Where?" And how can she say that as if she were saying she'd seen a crow in the sky? Or a shadow on the moon?

Emily and Rachel were really close until her brother attacked Emily. Unlike their parents, Rachel didn't try to lay the blame at Emily's feet, suggesting she must have provoked Sam—as if that would excuse him in some way. But Rachel… well, I don't think she could look at Emily without feeling some sense of misplaced guilt. She'd been the one to introduce Emily and Sam at a party.

"She didn't see me." Emily leans over to stab her fork into my plate. She twists up a hunk of noodles. "She was just walking down Johnston, and I was driving past."

She sighs and doesn't take my noodles. She lets them drop from her fork and looks up at me. "It's just the first time I've seen her since…" She waves her hand in front of her face. "Since all that."

This is why Emily was waiting on my doorstep. She could've called me. She could've gone home and come back later. But she waited for me. She must've headed here right after work. Had she been waiting on my stoop all afternoon?

I put my plate on the coffee table and pick up her hand. "You okay?"

"It might not have even been her." She pulls her hand from mine, takes my plate, and puts it back on my lap. "Did you know this Edward guy was a landscaper? Is that why you're suddenly interested in fixing up your yard?"

I'm thrown by the change in subject. I want to insist we back up, but there's a warning in Emily's eyes. She wants me to forget she mentioned it. I can pretend to forget, like she does.

As I tug on my lips, trying to focus, I say, "No. I had no idea. The company's still named after the previous owner." I babble about how it was a shock to find him standing on my doorstep, but I'm thinking: Had she kept this thing with Rachel sealed in her mind all these hours only to let it breathe for twenty seconds before latching it back up?

Pretending is what she wants me to do, but is it right?

I think she pretends a lot. I think she pretended the whole thing wasn't Sam's fault.

She didn't blame herself, either. That was made obvious by her reaction to Sam's parents when they tried to shift the blame on her.

Emily blamed the booze.

"He was never angry like that," she said shortly after the incident. "He contained it well." She paused and then, as if anticipating my argument, "He was an angry drunk, though."

Doesn't the truth come out when you're drunk? Maybe that isn't the case for everyone, but if it were true in Sam's case, he must have been angry on the inside. Like Emily said, he contained it.

Contained it like one of those trick peanut cans contains the crammed-in snake that springs out of it when it's opened. When he drank, he became the snake.

"You didn't get a second opinion?" Emily asks.

"A second opinion?" I let myself join her game of pretend. For now. I force a smile and a teasing tone. "Girl, he's a landscaper, not a doctor."

"He could still try to rip you off."

"He hasn't even given me a quote yet," I say. "I'll see about getting a second opinion once I find out how much he's actually going to charge me." It's a reasonable idea, but I know I probably won't do it. Edward won't cheat me.

.

Edward calls sooner than I expect and asks me if I can come by his office on Wednesday morning. I don't think twice before I agree, saying, "I have more vacation time than I know what to do with."

I'm up early, and without the need to follow my morning routine, I'm free to savor my coffee in the sunshine. It's funny, the yard doesn't seem quite as unruly today. Or at least, when I wander across a lawn that's now more weeds than grass, I don't feel as overwhelmed as I used to. The place seems alive with possibility. My garden, my sanctuary, the extension of myself, already taking shape in my imagination.

Later, as I'm dribbling water over the pot sitting in the center of my table, still seemingly empty, I tell the damp soil, "No nylons today. Maybe I'll wear a dress." As I walk back into my bedroom, unbuttoning my pajama top, I imagine the swish of floaty fabric above my knees and smile.

The hangers screech as I search through the rack of pencil skirts and tailored pants in my closet. Navy, tan, beige, charcoal gray, black, taupe. Beside them, my shirts. There's even less variation there—the occasional splash of cream or ivory the only breaks in the line of crisp white cotton.

When did this happen? Where are all the colorful dresses I bought in college? My mom told me they were a waste of money because they weren't "suitable attire for a place of business." She told me I should get a head start on building my professional wardrobe. I told her I didn't plan on spending my entire life in a place of business, and filled my wardrobe with pretty, fun, flirty dresses.

Where are all the graphic T-shirts I'd collected? The ones with witty statements that I wore with a smug smile, as though I were responsible for the slogans. The ones with vivid art graphics and literature references that I'd sought and purchased back when I was still conscious of my love for art and literature. Before I forgot or ignored that part of me. Before it went dormant.

At one time I had enough of those shirts to fill several drawers.

I start opening drawers at random. Underwear. More underwear. Socks. A whole drawer full of black and nude pantyhose, some still in their cardboard packages. The next one is filled with pastel pinks and blues and yellows—at least there's some color there, among the yearly Christmas gifts from my mom. The knitted scarves and hats, and the flannel pajama sets she hand-created for me.

The bottom drawer explodes in a riot of color. Dresses, skirts, T-shirts—all crammed down there, I now remember, to make room for my work attire. How they all fit, I don't know, but there's no way I'm going to be able to shove them all back in.

I let them tumble in a rainbow at my feet as I dig for the right thing to wear.

How had I forgotten about this shirt? I unwad it and hold it up. Emerald green with creamy-gold lettering. I pull it over my head, lift my hair from where it's trapped in the neckline of the tee. "I believe in the green light," it reads. Only those who'd read the book would appreciate this. It was easy to tell the difference between those who understood and those who didn't. A quick smirk or grin, eye contact—they got it. Or a longish look paired with a furrow in the brow and/or no eye contact—they didn't get it. Then there were those who barely gave it a glance, didn't even try.

I smile at the memory and catch my reflection in the mirror above my dresser.

It's a teeth-flashing, ecstatic sort of smile. It brightens my face in a way I'm not used to and it doesn't start to fade until I realize how long it's been since I've looked at my reflection this way—grinning at myself. I was in college, maybe graduation day. Beaming. And college was probably around the last time I'd worn this shirt. I pull at the hem trying to make the wrinkles disappear.

I dig through the drawer some more, but it's one I pull from the puddle on my floor that I decide on, a crumpled lilac sundress.

"Maybe I can escape nylons," I tell the dress. "But I can't escape the iron."

.

His office is located off a quiet, overlooked arm of downtown. More residential than business-oriented. It's a little cottage in the shadow of an old Victorian that was transformed from a home to a Tea Shoppe—with the extra P and E. I'd never noticed there was a cottage back here despite the A-frame sign standing on the sidewalk, announcing Stanley's Landscape Design in large block letters, a bold arrow pointing the way.

Even though the floors, walls, and ceiling are all ebony-stained wood, the office is bright. A line of five high and wide windows overlook a tranquil garden with stone pathways, lush shrubbery, bluejays waddling around as though they own the place. They're comfortable. Perhaps they're home. There's a working fountain—I can almost hear the trickling water even with the windows closed—and next to it, a bird bath. I imagine the cheerful song of the birds. Their twitters and whistles as they splash water on themselves. The clapping of their wings as they let themselves go from the top of the bath back to the lawn.

Among all of this, I can feel Edward behind me. He's silent though. Just waiting.

With their tweets in my ears, I pull myself from the window, avoid Edward's eyes, and move to the stack of large papers laid out on the table in the center of the room, all sketches.

I look them over. I can barely see how these designs could reside where I do, be my extension, but I'd take any of them. A vine-dripping trellis, just like Mr. Crowley's, only instead of a bench beneath it there's a stone path leading to an aligned vegetable garden. The plans seem the extension of greatness. But still, I'm drawn back to the window. "I–I like what you have out there." I point, my voice a little raw from prolonged silence. A silence shared with Edward while he waited. Patient. "Back there, in the corner."

"The sage?"

"I guess so."

"The taller one, behind the lavender?" He's right behind me. He could put his hand on me, his big palm curving over my shoulder, covering it. I can almost feel the weight of his touch.

"Yeah." I swallow. "And I like the lavender, too."

"We can do both. Inexpensive. Easy to manage. Wet or dry, they aren't too picky."

I turn to face him. Our eyes meet. He adjusts the cap on his head. Lifts it, replaces it. His lips turn up.

This feeling in my stomach, this fluttering, like the leaves on a shaken branch… Is this how the tree outside feels? Is it conscious of those little birds singing, playing, darting from branch to branch? Does it feel them swooping around, stirring its leaves?

I bring my fingertips to my throat.

"The sage," Edward says. "If you cut the flowers off when they bloom in the summer, you can continue to harvest the leaves for cooking."

I raise my eyebrows.

"Do you cook?" he asks.

"Don't have anyone else to cook for me."

The door behind us opens. A woman seems to float in, brown hair falling to the small of her back. Honey highlights, barely lighter than her skin, frame her face and curl loosely over her shoulders.

I can't tell if it's her make-up or if her face really glows like that, from the inside, like bronze. Exotic.

I smooth my dress down, the poise I thought I saw reflected in my mirror this morning deserting me. Her skirt, belted at her narrow waist, snug over her rounded hips, moves with her, like a second skin. I would swim in that skirt.

She hands Edward a small piece of paper, perhaps a message. In her strappy heels, the woman almost matches him in height.

"Hi," she says to me—full lips smiling—and reaches her hand out. Her fingers, tipped with a french manicure, are long and slender—piano playing fingers. "I'm Gianna. We spoke on the phone."

I tell her I recall and put my plain-nailed fingers in hers. She has a firm shake. Her eyes, soft and light, are off center. I only notice because her smile emphasizes this. With her smile the slightly lower eye squints a bit more and curves somewhat downward the way a doll's eyes might be painted on. It isn't off-putting. It's actually endearing.

When she shifts her attention to Edward, her eyes harden. "We need to talk."

"Keep checking out the sketches," he says to me before he follows her out of the office and closes the door behind them.

"What's going on?" I hear Gianna's muffled voice, which makes me move closer to the wall. "Don't tell me you're working for free again." I put my hand against the wall, cool and smooth, woodgrain against the lines of my palm.

"I'm not."

"She looks nineteen. Are you sure she can afford this? Don't cut her any deals, Edward. We need this job. The whole thing."

Nineteen? I move my hand from the wall and touch my cheek. Was that what Edward meant when he said I looked the same?

His reply is a whisper that doesn't reach my greedy ears.

"Put value on your work. And remember, fifty percent down."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He's halfway through the office door by the time he's on his third "yeah."

"Maybe we should go over budget." He pulls a binder from a desk drawer.

"I can pay. I don't need any favors."

"I know. That's not why I... This is normal procedure. Bella..." He sets the binder down. "Did you hear us?" Under his breath he adds, "Fucking unprofessional." He inches toward me, stopping short. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry about that."

"You should let her know these walls are thin if she's going to be talking about clients like that," I say. "Why does she care anyway? Why's it any of her business what you do?"

"She makes everything her business."

"I thought this was your company."

"It is. But she wants to get paid, too. Collin and Raoul have to come first. If I can't afford to pay someone, it's gotta be her."

I frown, lifting my hand to my forehead. "What? Why? Because she's a woman?"

"Not at all. No... Oh... No, she's my wife."

His wife?

My breath gets trapped. My throat goes dry, like I've just swallowed a mouthful of saltwater. He's married.

He's not single.

Not again. Not again.

The right and left sides of my brain collide and everything comes to a halt. I can no longer grasp a solid thought. My eyes dart around the office but I don't register anything.

"So, these mock ups. They range from about ten to eighteen thousand. I need to know if you want me to scale it back." He says this as if I'm still in the room with him.

"We can't do everything you want under ten."

Somehow I'm seated in a hard chair, my insides hollow. The saliva I swallow has nowhere to go. I'm an outline. The flutters I felt just minutes ago have died. I don't have to look out the window to know the birds have flown away, leaving behind nothing but a pile of bent and broken feathers.

"I thought we could arrange a date for me to take you over to this wholesale nursery. About fifty miles away. Best around."

"That's your job, isn't it? I don't have time for this. I took time off work to come here today. Now I'm supposed to take more time off? What am I paying you for?"

"I thought—you said you had vacation time."

"And this is how I'm supposed to spend my vacation?"

He takes a step back. "We can make it a Saturday."

"You do it."

"You should be the one making the decisions. I'm just the guy that makes it happen." He gestures to his designs. "You'll get to see some of these plants in person, narrow down a look." He points out the window, his forearm flexing. "Who picked out the sage? It hadn't even crossed my mind, but yeah, you need sage."

"I don't want it."

"The sage or the..." He glances down at his drawings, drifting his fingers toward the edge of the paper. "I'm sorry about Gianna. That wasn't about you at all. It's about me. I have worked for free. Once because I thought it would drive future business. But I get to feeling sorry for people who can't afford... Sometimes I throw something in here and there. It's... you know, it's bad for business. And the last big job–" he pulls off his cap and tosses it onto the table "–I underquoted. Had to eat a few grand."

He pulls out a chair, sits, leans on his elbows, and presses the heels of his hands against his eyebrows. "She's right, though. If something doesn't change, I'll go under. Take her with me. That can't happen." He lifts his gaze to mine across the table, across the sketches. "That was really nothing to do with you. She's stressed. And pissed at me."

The resentment I was feeling before starts to lift. I try to reach for it, grab a tight hold, but it's like grabbing on to sand. I see the lines around his mouth, the creases by his eyes and I can't help but feel sorry for him. The sand sifts through my fingers the way my soil had sifted through Edward's.

Those feelings that were souring my mind, I'm not entitled to them. He didn't mention he was married, but I didn't ask. I got caught up in the thrill of a crush that faded long ago.

"You don't wear a ring."

Edward looks at his left hand, curls it into a fist. "I trashed it," he says. "The first one, anyway. Gold's too soft for the kind of work I do and it got all banged up and split apart."

His voice goes weak. "She got me a titanium one to replace it. I lost it. I think in someone's garden. Took me a week to realize it was missing." He shakes his head then, like he's not sure why he's telling me this.

"Bella, if Gi knew you heard her she'd–"

I cut him off, tell him I'll go with him to the nursery.

It takes around an hour for Edward to create a design we're both satisfied with, pulling together elements from his sketches and working in a few of my requests. The tension between us slackens, but just barely.

He looks over the final design, mostly drawn in black ballpoint, and nods. "I like it."

Me, too.

I follow Edward into the next room where Gianna's sitting at her desk. I sift through my purse for my checkbook.

"Bella and I went to school together, Gi." Edward leans against the wall to my left, his arms folded across his chest. "Had some classes together." He side-smiles. "Art."

His eyes are on me so I say, "Yeah." It was the only class we had together.

Gianna looks from me to her – her husband. She smiles. "That's nice."

I slap my checkbook on the desk and motion for her to pass me a pen.

"Oh, no. You don't have to pay now. Not until Edward's drawn up an itemized quote for you. He can have it ready by..." Gianna looks at Edward, a sculpted eyebrow lifted. "Edward?"

He shifts his weight, tips his head back. He addresses the ceiling. "It should be done by tomorrow. Now that I have a better idea of the design. I can have it done by lunch time."

"Could you come by tomorrow?" Gianna asks. "Around two?"

I hesitate, looking between Gianna and Edward. I could take another day off.

"She has to work," Edward says, tapping the wall twice with his heel. "Come by after you're done for the day. You'll still be here, right, Gi?"

Gianna nods. The smile she aims at me seems genuine. "Yes, I can stay. It's no problem."

"Okay. Tomorrow then."