I set my tea down. “Ready to get to it?”
Mom agrees, and we make our way back over to the garden. Mostly, we’re weeding, pulling up some of the junk that always invades Mom’s garden area between the end of the fall harvest and her first planting of the spring.
“Where’s Dad today?” I ask after a bit.
Mom’s brow furrows, and she thinks for a moment. “Today? Malaysia. According to him, it’s all insanity and monkey business. Literally, supposedly. Something to do with coconut imports and labor standards. He said I should have joined him since you and River are out of the house now, but I told him there was no way I could put enough sunscreen on for Malaysia. Now if he gets an assignment to Paris or Oslo, we can talk then!”
“You’d love Paris, I’m sure, but Oslo? Better pack a parka.”
My dad has traveled for work since before I can remember—here, there, and everywhere. I’m not exactly sure what he does, some sort of consultant about export and import laws and regulations for the United States. But no matter where he was, he always made it home for anything truly important. Like Mom, I realize how special Dad is too.
“I can make anything look good, even a parka,” she tells me, striking a pose. Truthfully, she can.
A loud vehicle breaks through the quiet of the small neighborhood, and I wonder who . . . and what . . . that could be.
I stop, listening as the growling diesel engine pulls up out front. Mom looks more than a little eager as she gets up and hurries toward the garage. “Mom? Who’s that?”
Before she can answer heavy bootsteps tread through the garage and a man calls out. “Mrs. Watson? I got the fertilizer you were asking for and . . . oh, hi.”
A guy walks out into the sunlight, a big bag of what I can only assume is fertilizer over his shoulder. With dark brown hair that’s flopped over one eye, a tight T-shirt that shows off an impressive set of biceps, and a day’s growth of stubble on his lean cheeks, he looks like he just stepped out of an old Fifth Harmony video, right down to the slight translucence of his sweat-soaked shirt making his muscles stand out all the more.
“Honey, this is Kyle,” Mom says with so much false innocence I want to roll my own neck. Or maybe snap hers. I mean, this Kyle’s got a fifty-pound bag on his shoulder, and Mom never uses that much gardening chemicals. Hell, you could fertilize half the neighborhood with that thing. “He’s the new gardener I hired to help with the lawn and getting the garden in this year.”
Mom looks at Kyle like he’s the answer to all her prayers. And I don’t mean the garden of her dreams.
“Mom!” I whisper, pulling her aside. “Does Dad know about your ‘gardening’?”
Mom gives me a puzzled look for a second. “What? Dad doesn’t care about the garden.” At my wide eyes, she realizes what I’m saying. “Honey, did you . . . oh, Riley, you silly girl! Did you think I hired a little eye candy while your father is away?”
I blush, looking down. Did I really just think that? I mean, Mom would never cheat, but looking isn’t buying, as they say. “Well, I mean . . . no. But it could happen, and—”
“Honey, your father is all the man I could ever need,” Mom assures me. She looks over at Kyle, who looks a little confused by our conversation out of his earshot. “I asked him to help, not for me . . . but for you.”
Oh. My. God. She set all of this up just to get me to meet some guy? “Mom! What the actual hell?”
But she’s back to playing hostess with the mostest to Kyle. “Kyle, this is my daughter, Riley.”
He throws me a wave and a smile full of bright, white teeth. I flash a closed-mouth smile in return, not willing to be rude but also not playing Mom’s game.
Mom’s not giving up, though, pointing to where Kyle can put his load down. “Thanks, Kyle. And after that, if you don’t mind, can you start breaking up the dirt? I think we got most of the weeds out, and I’d like to get the seeds in today if we can.”
“Sure thing,” Kyle says, taking his bag over and picking up Mom’s old hoe. “This’ll be fun. I don’t get to use a good hoe often enough. Like I told you, I do mostly big jobs and they’re all power tools. It’s like nobody remembers what your hands are for these days.”
My mouth falls open, and Mom bumps me with her shoulder. I look over and she’s fighting a grin. And totally watching Kyle swing the hoe into the soft dirt and pull it back, shifting the earth around. “He’s such a gem. I can’t decide if he truly has no idea what he’s saying or if he knows but is so good at the dry delivery that it makes you question it. Either way . . .”
“Mom!” I hiss.
“What? I call and you’re listening to dirty books while driving down the highway. I met this nice young guy and thought you two might get along. I’m only trying to help.”
I groan, feeling a pulsing headache coming on. Mom’s run off the deep end this time. With River and me out of the house and Dad going overseas on these work trips, she’s had too much time by herself.
It’s got to be the only explanation. “One little romance book—not porn—and you decide the best option is to pull some nineteenth-century setup and—”
“Don’t use that word. He might hear you,” Mom shushes me. Louder, she calls, “Kyle, would you like some tea? It’s a scorcher, and I wouldn’t want you to get dehydrated.”
Kyle shrugs, setting his hoe aside, and comes over. “Sure, Mrs. Watson. Thanks.”
Mom virtually runs across the yard into the house to get another glass. And leaves me alone with Kyle. What does she think? I’m going to jump him and demand to have his babies while she’s in the house?
“I am so sorry about this,” I tell him, majorly embarrassed at the obvious set-up. “I had no idea.”
“I kinda figured when your mom told me all about her single daughter and then offered to pay twice my going rate for some easy day labor,” he says with a laugh.
I melt right there. Into the grass, sinking through the layers of dirt to the lava-filled core of the earth and incinerating to ash. Or at least I wish that’s what happened so I wouldn’t have to stand here like this isn’t the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me.
“Oh. My. God. I can’t . . . I don’t . . .” I sputter, lost for words.
“It’s okay. If it’s any consolation, you’re even more beautiful than she said.” He beams like that’s supposed to make me feel better. Oddly, it doesn’t.
Any other time, I think I’d find Kyle attractive, even gorgeous. And objectively, I can say that’s true. But there’s no spark inside me when I look at him. My sparks are already saved for one man, and it’s not Kyle. It’s Noah.
“Thanks?” I say awkwardly because how do you handle something like this? There’s definitely nothing about this kind of situation in Miss Manners for the 2000s. Probably because I never read that, if it even exists.
“Can I ask you a question?” Kyle says. “You look kinda familiar. That’s not a line, I swear. But do I know you from somewhere?”
He’s searching my face, and suddenly, I’m smoothing down my flyaways too.
No, no, no. This cannot be happening. I can’t be recognized as Riley Sunshine when he thinks I’m so desperate and lonely, my own mother is basically paying him to come over on some pseudo-date setup.
The trolls and haters would have a field day with that.
“Must just have one of those faces,” I reply lightly. Or at least I hope it comes off as casual, because inside, I’m freaking out. My heart is racing, my skin feels too small, and the sweat coating my body has gone cold. “Not like I’m ever in a gardening center or have any need for . . . power tools.”
I did not just say that.
Thankfully, it seems Kyle actually is that unwitting about the double meaning of his earlier comment because he simply smiles and nods. “Sure, I just thought . . . Well, never mind. We’d better get back to work, I guess, or Mrs. Watson might fire me for not getting this work done.”
On cue, Mom returns with Kyle’s te
a, condensation rivulets running down the glass telling me that she waited to come back out so that Kyle and I could talk. She hands the drink to Kyle as I bite my tongue, literally, to avoid making a scene over this. Mom, of course, looks as happy as can be. “You two getting along?”
“Absolutely. Riley is as beautiful as you said. Maybe more,” Kyle says after a large gulping drink.
“So sweet,” Mom sighs. “Riley, did Kyle tell you that he’s in the National Guard? He drives a tank.”
“No, Mom. Mostly, we were talking about how embarrassing this is,” I tell her flatly.
“Riley!” Mom exclaims. Kyle snickers, saving me from Mom’s wrath. For now.
Not that she’ll kill me. She’s more the type to give ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ speeches. They’re the worst because I hate to disappoint my parents.
“Thanks for the tea, Mrs. Watson.” Kyle hands back the empty glass and turns to get back to work.
Mom frowns at his back and then glares at me. So I grab the corn seeds and ask, “Where should I put these?”
We get to work, Mom continuing to try and play matchmaker as Kyle does all the physical work while she and I do things like scatter handfuls of fertilizer or use a stick to poke holes for the corn seeds. More than once, though, I still have to bite my tongue as Mom seems to think it’s cute to tell every embarrassing story she can about me.
“One year, I had this stunted tomato. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. It just wouldn’t flower or even stay green,” Mom tells Kyle as he uses a sledgehammer to drive stakes into the ground for the netting to keep out the crows. “I couldn’t figure out why until I found little Riley here . . . watering the plant.”
“Mom!” I protest, flushing deep red. “I was seven!”
“And you wanted to learn how to pee standing up,” Mom says with a prim little giggle. “You chose that tomato plant as your target and were determined to figure out a way to do it. So Kyle, this one summer afternoon, I come out to find Riley almost bent over backward, trying to—”
“Mom!” I protest again, cutting her off. “I think Kyle gets the point.”
Kyle takes it in stride, shrugging. “We all do things as kids. My brothers and I used to have competitions to see who could pee the furthest. Had a special tape measure and everything,” he confides before chuckling, “I think my mom was just glad we were staying hydrated and peeing outside instead of on her bathroom floor.”
He’s trying to make me feel better. Or maybe he really did have literal pissing contests with his brothers? Either way, I’m still about to kill my mother, and I decide to take control of the conversation.
“Kids,” Mom laughs agreeably. “Riley’s housebroken now, of course. Now, she does some sort of internet thing I don’t quite understand.”
The prompt hangs in the air for me to fill in and chatter away with Kyle about what I do and ask what he does the way people do on first dates. But that’s not what this is.
And I do not want him to associate anything about this interaction with Riley Sunshine, especially when he’s already said I look familiar.
“Nothing special. Just some IT work. And you do large-scale gardening, you said?” I put the focus back on Kyle, especially considering there’s no telling what Mom told him about me.
Kyle nods. “Yup. Speaking of, I think I’m about done here.” He leans on the hoe and surveys the garden. We’ve made quick work of it with his help, even with Mom playing matchmaker.
“Oh, yes. I suppose we have. Let me get your money,” Mom tells him, keeping this as awkward as possible. I swear I feel like my mother hired me a date for the afternoon, like an escort service or something!
Gigalos and Gardens, making your weekends hot.
Mom slowly walks to the house and Kyle meets my eyes with a kind smile. “No big deal. I figure one day, one of these ‘meet my daughter’ deals might actually be my future bride.”
Is he for real? Is that how people meet?
Not that I have any room to talk. I met my soulmate on BlindDate, but arranged meet-ups seem different. Though maybe not? It’s another form of a blind date, I suppose.
And good on him for being open to finding love however it comes.
I walk Kyle out front to his truck and Mom regretfully comes out to meet us. “Here you go, Kyle. Maybe you can come help again soon?”
I glare at her, my eyes yelling ‘STOP!’
Kyle shakes his head. “I don’t know, I’m getting pretty busy. A lot of big jobs coming up.” He’s letting my mom down easy.
“Oh. Okay, then,” Mom says glumly. “Well, thank you so much. I never would’ve gotten all that work done in one afternoon without you, Kyle.”
He dips his chin and hops in his truck, loudly driving away down the street. I have one split second of joy that I survived that train wreck before another car comes down the street.
And this one I know.
River parks his classic Beamer and gets out with a smile. “Ladies, are you out here awaiting my arrival?”
He hands Mom a bouquet of flowers, kissing her on the cheek. “No. If you must know, the gardener just left.” Mom throws me a side-eyed look of disappointment. Ugh, not disappointment!
“I think I’ll put these in water,” Mom tells River.
Once she’s in the house, River whispers, “Damn, what’d you do?”
“I didn’t go along with her matchmaking dreams. She hired a guy to come help plant corn in the garden and then called me over to help so we could meet. She’s out of control!”
“Corn? Mom never grows corn!”
I growl, “That’s what you got out of what I said?”
River grins and I realize he’s pushing my buttons. That’s what brothers are good for.
“So, is he a nice guy? I need to vet him if he’s going to be my brother-in-law. It’s in the big brother contract,” River teases, putting an arm around my shoulders.
“Shut up!” I squeal, pushing him off me.
River laughs and leans up against the boxes of memorabilia. I’m betting he has no idea what’s in the boxes with his name, the same way I don’t know what’s in the boxes with mine. More proof that they’re Mom’s memories more than ours.
“You staying for dinner?” River asks.
I shake my head. “I got the gardening call, so you must’ve gotten the dinner call. Besides, I’ve got a date.”
I want to take the words back as soon as they pass my lips. I should not have said that, but I was so distracted with the whole Kyle thing that it slipped out.
River smells blood in the water. Mine.
“A date? Who’s the lucky guy?” he asks, prodding gently and teasing for now. “The gardener?”
Your best friend!
But I can’t tell him that. I don’t want to tell him that. At least not yet.
“Oh, uh . . . nobody special,” I say, hoping it sounds believable.
It must work because River frowns. “Then you shouldn’t go out with him. You deserve the best, Riley. The most special.”
That’s . . . actually really sweet. I wonder if River thinks Noah is special. They’re best friends, so River has to see Noah’s good qualities.
I think about confiding in him, the words on the tip of my tongue.
It’s Noah.
But I don’t say it. That’s something Noah and I need to discuss and decide together. Especially since I think the big brother vetting might be a little more personal this time than some random guy Mom introduced me to.
“Thanks, River. Can we keep the whole date thing quiet, though? I don’t want to get Mom’s hopes up,” I joke with an eye roll.
“Maybe,” he drawls out. “What’s in it for me?”
He’s kidding. Sort of. “How about when Mom tries to match you up with the new seamstress who’s making the living room curtains, I’ll help you out too?”
River pales. “Is that really why she asked me to dinner?”
I shrug so I don’t have to lie. “See
ms to be her MO today, so there’s no telling who’s gonna show up to your dinner. I’m sure you’ll like her, though. She’s probably sweet . . . and nice . . . and smart.”
River groans. “Those are all code words for ugly, Riley, and you know it.”
I hold my hand out. “I’ve got your back if you’ve got mine.”
He shakes on it, and I tell him goodbye, asking him to tell Mom bye for me too. Yeah, I’m a wimp, but I’ve got to get ready for my date, so I hustle to my car and nearly peel out before Mom wants to go over how I could’ve made a love connection with Kyle.
That distracted comment to River about my date is going to come back to bite me in the butt. I know that. But at least for tonight, I got out of there free and clear.
I’m halfway home before I realize that I didn’t take a single picture today and won’t have anything to post to push that drama-filled photo down in my feed. But I do decide right here and now that I’m not going to read those comments when I get home.
I’m going to get cleaned up and have a lovely evening with Noah. Without Mom’s interference, River’s interrogation, or my followers’ commentary.
Tonight is just for me, Riley Watson.
Chapter 14
Riley
We must be jinxed. It’s the only explanation.
Three nights.
Three long, straight nights, and still we haven’t been able to get what we both want.
I went into our date Sunday evening with every intention of being ‘I am Riley, hear me roar’ and doing exactly what I’ve been wanting to do with Noah.
The universe had other plans. Plans that had nothing to do with the dates Noah organized or our growing desperation.
I know he wants me. I can see the hunger burning in his eyes as soon as he sees me when he picks me up. And I can feel it haunting his kisses as he lets me off at the door. He knows I feel the same way.
But the universe keeps stepping in the way, laughing at the irony of trampling all over our best-laid plans.
Laid. That’s exactly what I want to be.
On the date after gardening with Mom, I told him about Kyle and my mother’s ham-fisted attempt at setting me up. I thought Noah might be upset, but he laughed it off, saying he’s glad my mother cares enough about me to mess things up by trying.
The Blind Date Page 18
