You wiped the sweat off your neck and went back in on the weed you were trying to excise from your begonia bed. You were so close to earning yourself a hard lemonade and a nap, just had to finish weeding before you could get your just desserts.
"Look out!" The warning came too late as something solid clocked you in the head, momentarily stunning you and toppling you into your prized begonias.
"I'm so sorry!" An accented voice cut through the wooziness as you blinked your eyes open. "Blast, I had no idea he could throw like that..."
Your eyes focused on a charming, bearded face, steadying you with one hand and holding an old-fashioned metal frisbee in the other.
"Hello there." He said softly, flashing his perfect teeth at you. "Still with us?"
Your mind struggled to put the piece together as the muddled brain feeling gave way to explosive pain in your temple.
"Did you hit me with that?" You manage to ask.
"Ah, no. A three-year-old managed to make a throw worthy of an American football star. Do you need to go to the hospital? I'm afraid you've been hit quite hard."
"I used to be a nurse, I know how to treat a concussion." You say, blinking more and finally succeeding in re-orienting yourself. You recognize the man in front of you. He's your kitty-corner neighbor, the one with toys strewn across his lawn who likes to water his yard in his bathrobe.
"Can I do anything? I feel awful." He says, genuine concern in his bright blue eyes.
"No, no. I'll be fine. I was headed for a nap anyways." You reply.
"After the youngling is in bed, I'm going to come knock on your door and check on you, if that's all right." He says.
"Like I said, Mister. I know how to treat this one. You don't need to check on me."
"I'm afraid I insist." He helped you to your feet.
"If you insist." You grumble. He watches you shuffle inside. Through the picture window in the front of your house, you see him run across the street to where a tiny blonde kid was dancing from foot to foot nervously. You smile. Cute kid.
Three hours after the frisbee incident, you've iced, avoided screens and reading, and listened to four Enya albums on Spotify. You were just contemplating dinner when a soft knock sounded at the front door. You totally forgot about the English neighbor's return.
"Hello there." He says again, "You've survived the metal frisbee attack and lived to tell the tale."
"Apparently." You reply. You're smiling before you even know it because his smile is absolutely infectious.
"I brought you a cookie. Anakin insisted."
"Is Anakin the little guy?" You ask. "He's cute."
"When it suits him." The neighbor chuckles. "I still have no idea how he managed to amass enough coordination to whip the frisbee across the street. It's not his strongest fine motor skill."
"Well, maybe a career in American Football, as you call it, is in his future."
"Highly unlikely." Your neighbor laughs. "Well, now that I know you're alive I can rest well knowing my house gremlin didn't cause you any harm."
"Tell the little guy I've lived to play frisbee another day. He can come over and learn from a real pro how the tossing thing works."
"All right, I'll pass it on."
Once again you watched him jog back across the street, noticing his bare feet even in the early darkness. He definitely had some quirks to him.
You didn't run across your neighbors again for another two weeks, though you saw them through the front window doing various activities in the early evening. Anakin still failed miserably at frisbee, but seemed to love riding his bike up and down the sidewalk in front of his house, his father watching from the porch with a book and glass of something in his hands.
The next time you saw them, you'd come out into your front yard to plant some new starts. The evenings had been too hot to do any work in the beds aside from picking bouquets to take to market, you'd shifted your watering to the mornings to catch the cool breezes before they were gone. The street was quiet when you first started, but after a little while you saw your neighbor's blue prius pull in and heard Anakin's little voice chattering away to his father.
"Obi, Obi, look! Flower lady!" Anakin squealed.
"Yes, little one. Let's go say hi. Grab your trike." His father's voice came. You smiled in anticipation of what would happen next.
"Hello there!" He called, making you raise your head from your snapdragons. He was standing in the street, coffee cup in hand while watching for cars so Anakin could wheel his trike across safely.
"Hello there." You reply, dusting off your hands.
"Care to join us for a walk?" Your neighbor asked. "Unless you're not done planting?"
"I'm done. Let me clean up." You say. Anakin clips his helmet and starts peddling forward and backward in your driveway. You strip off your sunhat and gather tools, tossing them in your gardening bench and dropping your gloves on top of the rest, dusting your hands as you walk back to the pair.
"I don't think I introduced myself, by the way, how rude of me." Your neighbor juggles the coffee cup to his other hand so he can offer it for you to shake.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi." He says warmly.
"I'm Y/F/N Y/L/N." You say. "But flower lady works."
"Well, flower lady, would you accompany us around the block? I have a toddler to tire out."
"Absolutely. I could use the exercise."
You begin to stroll up the shaded block, Anakin wheeling his way up to the corner and starting back to you. Your heart melts a little watching him get off his tiny trike to turn it completely around before getting back on.
"You know I had to retire the frisbee. After his first offense Anakin became obsessed with landing it in your garden again. I was convinced he was going to level some of your lovely flowers so I had to ground him from it."
"That's honestly hilarious. I guess I'm... flattered?" You say.
"Concerned would be apropos as well, you have a toddler intent on wreaking havoc on your life now."
"He really is a cute kid, you do a great job with him." You say.
"I try. His mother and father are both absent so I've had him a lot more recently. I try to be a good influence."
"Oh, I'm sorry..." You start, internally kicking yourself.
"Don't be, darling. I can see why you would think he's mine. It's our dashing good looks and charming temperament."
"Beep beep." Anakin rammed his trike into Obi-Wan's shin, causing the older man to wince and hand you his coffee cup. He swooped the toddler up off his trike.
"Young one, what did we discuss about being careless speed racers?" Anakin instantly clapped his hands over his ears, making Obi-Wan roll his eyes at the kid.
"Anakin, you listen to me." He scolded. You nodded along. Anakin took one look at the pair of you and burst into big fat tears.
"Oh, maker." Obi-Wan muttered. "He did not get a nap at daycare." Anakin continued to howl, burying his face in Obi-Wan's t-shirt.
"I'm afraid our walk must be postponed. Someone needs to have quiet time." Obi-Wan hitched Anakin up and reached for the coffee cup.
"I'll bring the trike, you get the little man inside." You say. Obi-Wan mouths a thank you and begins to stride towards their house, Anakin's wails drifting back down the street to you. You begin to wheel the trike along after them, rolling it down past your house and across the street to park beside their front stoop. Anakin was still audible even inside. Poor Obi-Wan.
An idea forms in your head, and you jog back across the street to your house. Once there you grab a sticky note and pen off the hall table and run back.
Need a drink? I've got Mike's Hard Lemonade, you've earned it.
YN
Not even an hour goes by, and the same soft knock from before sounds at your door.
"Regular or raspberry?" You ask as you open the door.
"Raspberry, please." Obi-Wan sighs. He's barefoot again, and carrying a baby monitor.
"Wait there, we can drink in the garden so that your signal isn't interrupted." You say.
Obi-Wan drinks a third of his bottle in the first drink.
"That bad?" You ask as you lead him into the garden to the bench you have there.
"If Anakin doesn't get a nap at daycare, I swear the universe grinds to a halt until he achieves equilibrium." Obi-Wan said, taking another deep pull. "I have never met a youngling so dependent on sleep yet so unwilling to go down for a nap."
"Careful daddy-o, don't drink that in three gulps." You say. Obi-Wan chokes on his sip and forces himself to slow down.
"Anakin is actually my brother." He said, wiping his mouth. "I forgot to add that part in earlier."
"Oh, wow. That's a hell of a difference." You say. "Your parents must be young."
"Unfortunately I am the product of their teenage years, yes. Anakin came along quite happily and planned twenty-four years later."
"But they're not around?"
Obi-Wan's face darkened slightly.
"For now. My father's business takes him out of town all the time, my mother is in treatment for a chronic illness. It's easier for them to not have a little one underfoot at the moment."
"Oh, but they're missing out on his life." You said sadly. "I'm sorry, that's too bold of me-"
"No, no. You're completely correct. I was the one there for his first word, his first steps, teaching him how to ride a bike." He drained his drink and twisted the bottle in his grip.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry. I brought up all this stuff about the family, and I-"
A wail on the baby monitor made you both jump. Obi-Wan sighed heavily.
"No rest for the wicked, I'm afraid. Thank you my dear." You held your hand out for the bottle as he jogged across the road. You noticed once again that he was barefoot, and it made your stomach tingle a little at the thought.