Page 18 of Fun Together (Make Romance #1)

Eli

Two weeks into being a plant dad and I’ve already encountered my first emergency.

One of the pothos has two dead leaves and I’m trying not to freak out. I’ve frantically flipped through the binder and don’t see anything in the FAQ section related to this problem with this plant.

Wow, have I managed to create a never-before-seen plant ailment?

I even Googled it and that didn’t help. Everything I read said things like, “This plant is impossible to kill!” or “If you manage to kill this plant, you might as well kill yourself !”

Obviously, the easiest route would be to text Andrew and tell him that we have our first casualty.

But what if this is a special plant to him?

And then he decides to cut his trip short just to fly back to deal with a problem I’ve created?

No, I refuse to text Andrew about this because I don’t want to admit that I couldn’t handle this relatively simple task.

The only person I can think to ask for help from is Faye. It’s shitty, but maybe she will know some sort of secret trick about this plant from living with Andrew for so long.

I dial her number, hoping she isn’t still at work. It’s 6:30, but she always stays later than I do so I wouldn’t be surprised if she was still there.

She picks up on the third ring. “Hey,” she says.

“Hey, are you busy?”

“I’m still at work. Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Everything is fine . . .”

“Why do you sound like someone is dead?”

I look down at the dry crackled edge of what was once a beautiful green leaf. “Well . . .”

“Oh my god, Eli. What happened?”

“No person is dead.”

She sighs and waits for me to say something.

“I’m at Andrew’s place and I think I killed one of his plants.”

“That’s even worse. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“This is bad.” Faye bends down so she’s at eye-level with the dead leaf.

“I know.”

“These are impossible to kill,” we both say at the same time.

“Should I just pull the dead leaf off?” I ask, reaching out to touch it.

She grabs my wrist. “No!” She lets go and says, “That could make the plant freak out and decide to self-mutilate it’s other leaves.”

I widen my eyes. “Plants can self-mutilate?”

“Yes.” She looks unsure. “I think.”

“Is that why that one is called a monster?”

She looks to where I’ve pointed to a large plant in the corner of Andrew’s living area and giggles. “That’s a monstera .”

“Are there, like, plant doctors? Maybe someone in the agriculture department at State could help.”

She rubs her hands up and down the tops of her bare arms. “That could be an option.”

I walk over to the thermostat and turn it up a couple of degrees. Maybe I gave the plant hypothermia when I adjusted the room temperature last night? Andrew keeps his apartment at a sauna-like temperature, and I couldn’t take it. “Maybe I should just hide it.”

“Hide it?” She looks skeptical. “From the man who paid someone to create an app where he could track his plant inventory and health?”

“I’m so dead.”

She walks around the small table. “When’s the last time you watered it?”

“Um, two days ago.” I know it wasn’t yesterday because I had a softball game then crashed afterward. The day before that I was involved in a minor traffic incident that resulted in three-hour AutoZone visit. “Give or take.”

“Let’s give it a little water and see how it looks tomorrow. No reason to worry just yet.”

“Good idea. Maybe it just senses that Andrew isn’t around, and this is some type of plant separation anxiety or something?” How do these things survive in nature?

“Sure, or that.” She looks around. I see her eye the empty pizza box sitting on the kitchen counter, and then the duffle bag sitting on the dining table. “Are you staying here?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. I figured the place was sitting empty and only a few nights. And . . . . the plants were lonely?”

Plus, it momentarily got me out of my parent’s house. I forgot how nice it is not to share your space with decades of family junk. I’m hoping Andrew won’t mind. Again, I didn’t want to bother him on his trip to ask. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

“Andrew doesn’t know you’re sleeping here?” The way she asks this confirms that I am making a mistake by not asking him. But what’s the harm, really? It’s not like I’m using his toothbrush.

“He’ll be back in a few weeks, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything.”

“It’s your funeral,” she says, grabbing her purse from where she’d placed it on the kitchen counter.

I don’t want her to leave yet. “Let me buy you dinner. As a thank you for helping me.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she says. “I didn’t really help that much anyway.”

“As a thank you for the emotional support, then. How about Mexican food?”

She tries not to grin. “I guess a burrito would be a fair exchange for talking you off the ledge.”

We go to a local Mexican place that was a regular stop for us back in school. It’s crowded, but we manage to get a booth in the back corner.

The waiter brings chips and salsa to the table and takes our order. Faye gets a chicken burrito, and I get beef enchiladas. We both get margaritas.

“So what should I expect from the town hall at work tomorrow?” I ask, loading up a chip with salsa. Apparently, the company has these meetings once a month where they make important announcements and introduce new employees.

“Nothing too crazy. Although, I happen to know that we’re short on quarterly sales goals so they’ll probably say something vaguely encouraging, but what they really mean to say is that no one will get their bonuses.”

“Ah yeah. The good old ‘maybe next quarter’ pep talk.”

“Exactly. Meanwhile, the CEO is off doing CEO things like renting out a villa in Italy.”

“Or a submarine to explore the Titanic.”

She snorts. “Do you know what you’re going to say?”

“For what?”

She dips a chip into the salsa and takes a bite. “For your two truths and a lie.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She looks at me with concern. “Didn’t they tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“When you’re introducing yourself to the company, you’re supposed to show your personality by telling two truths and a lie. And then we try to guess what your lie is.”

When my manager told me about having to introduce myself, I do vaguely remember her mentioning something like that. “I’ll probably just see what I feel like saying in the moment.”

She looks at me like I sprouted another head. “Couldn’t be me. I agonized over what I was going to say for days.”

“What were yours?”

“I don’t remember,” she says, busying herself with taking her silverware out of the napkin.

“After agonizing over it for days, you don’t remember?”

“That was like five years ago.”

She definitely remembers, but doesn’t want to tell me for some reason. Which only intrigues me further. “I bet you don’t want to tell me because you know I’d guess it too easily.”

“There’s no way you’d guess it. You’re not familiar enough with my lore.”

I’d like to be. “So you do remember what you said.”

She almost smiles but runs her tongue along her teeth to keep from fully allowing one to form. “You need to stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Tricking me.”

The waiter returns to the table with our food. We both thank him before digging in. “How am I tricking you?”

“You get me to say what I don’t want to say.”

“You mean the truth?”

She rolls her eyes. “Shut up.”

“When have I ever tricked you before?” I know I push sometimes, but I don’t want her to think I’m ever trying to embarrass her.

“At the coffee shop. Suggesting we have espresso martinis, but really you just wanted to prove a point.”

Was she disappointed about that? I know I set myself up for frustration with that one, putting the thought of a cozy bar date with Faye into my brain. Snuggled up in a corner with our cocktails, talking and flirting with each other. Kind of like right now.

“Sorry if that came across . . . wrong. But I did prove that point, didn’t I?”

“You sure did,” she says with a smug expression. “I’ll be having espresso martinis with Cameron this weekend actually.”

“You’re going to that bar with him this weekend?” I don’t know why this would bother me. It’s not like I staked some kind of claim on espresso martinis in that particular bar.

“Actually, I’m not sure where we’re going. He said he likes to be spontaneous and doesn’t want to plan it too far ahead.”

That’s obviously his way of giving himself an easy out if he needs one, but I don’t say that to her.

I also don’t say that she can do better than this guy, especially after seeing the videos he posts.

But based on some of the comments I read, some people seem to be really into these latte fondling videos. Is Faye into that, too? “That’s great.”

I guess it’s good that I have the date with Dani this weekend. Maybe that will keep me from focusing too much on how Faye’s date is going.

“We’ll see how it goes,” she says in a way that almost sounds like she isn’t looking forward to it.

I hate that there’s a part of me that wants her to bail on him. But that would be a shitty thing for a friend to be thinking. I should want her to have a good date. “I’m sure you’ll have a great time.”

My phone lights up with a text from my sister.

Evie: Dress code for party is backyard chic. Make sure you look presentable.

I sigh and send her a one-word reply: Unsubscribe

“Everything okay?”

“It’s my sister texting about my parents’ party. What in the world is backyard chic?”

“No idea. Is that the party’s theme?”

“That’s the dress code, apparently. And she thinks I won’t follow it appropriately, I’m sure.”

“What are you planning on wearing?”

“I don’t know, probably something similar to what I have on.”

Faye gestures to my outfit—a white T-shirt and a pair of black athletic shorts—and shakes her head. “I can see why she’s worried, then.” She has the tiniest teasing gleam in her eyes—almost gone as fast as it appeared, but I saw it.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, you are single-handedly keeping those Hanes white T-shirts in production.”

I look down at my shirt. “What’s wrong with that? You find something that works, and you stick with it.”

“Okay, but this is a special occasion. You should try to dress up a little.”

“It’s being held in a backyard with plastic tables and chairs. How do I dress up for that?”

She takes a sip of her margarita. Her lips leave a pink impression on the rim of the cup where the salt used to be. “Maybe a linen shirt?”

“I don’t think I own anything like that. Is linen stiff?”I hate wearing uncomfortable, itchy clothes.

She gives me a pitying look, like my lack of fashion knowledge is much worse than she thought. “What are you doing after work tomorrow? I was planning on shopping for something to wear on my date, if you want to come along.”

I groan. “Does that mean we’d have to go to the mall?” Does that also mean I have to watch you pick out a dress to wear for someone else?

“Unfortunately, yes,” she says sympathetically. “It’ll be fun.”

Not exactly my idea of fun, but since it means more hanging out with her, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to it just a little.