It startled poor G.G., but he did cross the grass to make his way to the fence once he realized where Trevor was.
Trevor snapped his fingers for Ellie to sit before he opened the gate, and then, instead of accepting the dish, exchanging normal adult pleasantries, and letting G.G. go back to the shelter of his house, said, “Come on in.”
Trevor’s pants had dirt on the knees and he probably had dirt under his fingernails even with the gardening gloves he’d had on, but after the coffee incident—if there had been a coffee incident—he didn’t think his appearance mattered much in terms of forming a good impression.
However, G.G. stepped through the gate after another brief study of Trevor’s Mothman hat. He gave Trevor the casserole dish. Trevor took it. Then they stared at each other until Ellie started to yip to get Trevor’s attention.
“Sorry.” He closed the gate without using the latch and Ellie jumped in relief, ran three circles around G.G., then sat next to him to gaze brightly up at him. “Sorry,” Trevor said again, going over to the table to put the dish down and silently encourage G.G. to come deeper into the garden. “She’s behaving but she’s excited.”
He turned back to find G.G. had followed him for a few steps, then stopped, apparently to stare at the yard around them.
Trevor considered the yard with pride. A path led from the sliding doors into the house to the table and chairs, which at the moment was bare of an umbrella because Trevor had taken it down for the winter and hadn’t put it back up yet. The path then continued through short grass and clover to the side gate. The third fork in the path led toward the vegetable garden, and then carried on around the back of the house toward the garage.
Along the house were shrubs and bushes of flowers, some blooming now, others that would come to life in summer or early fall, so that there were almost always flowers. Trevor found the flowers easier than the vegetables, but that might have been because he didn’t have to keep bugs and squirrels away from them, and most of the flowers were perennials anyway.
The vegetable and herb garden and the plum tree occupied the farthest corner of the large yard, leaving enough short grass for the niblings and other younger relatives to play. They knew better than to go near the vegetable garden without permission, but Trevor and his grandmother had been considering a low decorative fence around it, with an arched trellis at the entrance. His grandmother had apparently always wanted a trellis overgrown with flowers. It did sound appealing.
Right now, the yard mostly smelled like tilled earth and sunshine on grass, but when the weather warmed, the scents of various flowers would add to the atmosphere of fertility and life.
Trevor had helped his grandparents with their yard once or twice as a kid, but he wouldn’t have expected that he’d take to gardening like this. Going back to an apartment and relying on small pots of violets or basil wouldn’t be the same.
“It’s not a big house but the yard space makes up for it,” Trevor remarked when G.G. didn’t speak. The builders had probably expected the original owners to expand on the house themselves.
“You can smell the flowers from your front yard halfway down the court,” G.G. said. “I should have expected the backyard to be like this.”
Trevor pulled off his gloves and left them on the table with the dish and his phone. Through an opened window, he could hear the TV and his grandmother talking quietly with her sister, or maybe someone else by now.
G.G. looked better, cleaned up and more rested. Hopefully, he’d actually eaten the food.
He took his eyes off the garden and caught Trevor staring at him.
The tension on Trevor’s end was real and he didn’t think he was imagining the interest from G.G. But how many times had Trevor looked on every location-based hookup app to see a ping from next door and never found even a hint of one? If he had, he would have been down for anything, even just trading pictures.
He opened his mouth and Ellie dropped her rubber bone chew toy on his feet and barked, sparing him from whatever he might have said. He bent down to grab it.
“This is Ellie,” he introduced them again. “Ellie, this is G.G.” He wasn’t going to force anyone to interact with his dog, but he had to acknowledge her or she would pout. And also, he wanted G.G. to like her.
“Ellie,” G.G. greeted her, voice as husky as ever, but warmer than usual. “Aren’t you a good girl?”
Ellie barked in agreement as her tail kicked into overdrive. Trevor tossed the chew toy over toward the plum tree and Ellie took off after it, probably to gnaw on it and growl softly to herself while also glancing toward G.G. in hopes of more praise.
“If you flatter her more, she’s going to try to climb onto your lap when you sit down,” Trevor warned.
G.G. smiled a little. “It’s nice to see a happy dog and I’m… I’d like to think I’m durable. Enough to handle a poodle, anyway.”
Trevor wanted to kiss the life out of him.
Inside the house, his grandmother chatted away. Mr. Tammy jumped up into the window to give G.G. a beady-eyed stare. Trevor exhaled.
G.G. met Trevor’s gaze, bit his bottom lip, then abruptly turned to look over the garden again. “I saw a history documentary that said in some ancient cultures, a garden was meant to be a piece of paradise on earth.”
“Paradise?” Trevor absently brushed a lazy bee away from his elbow. “Well-organized chaos.” He said it fondly. “We plan and we prepare, maybe like you do before your projects, but ultimately, nature does its thing regardless of any plans. Plants you don’t expect to crossbreed will, bugs pop up, the weather turns before it’s supposed to, or after it’s supposed to, or it never rains enough in the first place.” But he exhaled in satisfaction only seconds after complaining. “But itisnice, isn’t it? My grandmother has always had the veggie garden and some flowers in the front yard and now I get why.”
“The front yard didn’t always look like it does now,” G.G. objected quietly. “And I bet this yard has changed too, in the past two years. I’d never say it was better, or worse, even if I’d seen the garden before, but the yardhaschanged, hasn’t it? It’s definitelymorethan what it was.”
If G.G. wasn’t careful, Trevor’s urge to kiss G.G. was going to become the urge to fuck G.G. where Trevor’s grandmother might find them. Trevor genuinely didn’t know what to do about it.
“Ah. Well.” Trevor scratched the back of his neck and glanced up to find G.G. watching him. “I might have talked about plants to encourage certain pollinators and helped her look things up online that she might want to try. And… well I can physically do some things she can’t.” Like put the flagstones in the backyard path or install the trellis and fence when they got them.
