“I present to you one of the easiest plants to keep alive—pothos ivy.”
I leaned in, curious.
“This little guy can stay alive with minimal sunlight, although the more it gets, the more it grows. All you have to do is water it once a week. Wednesdays, if you can manage it.”
“Why Wednesdays?”
“So you don’t forget. Watering Wednesdays.”
“That might actually work.” I stepped closer, thumbing a waxy, spade-shaped leaf. “How much water?”
“More than a sip, less than a drenching.”
“I see it’s an exact science.”
He shrugged. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
“Says you,” I teased.
“That’s right, says me. If you can run the Felix wedding, you can keep ivy alive.”
Kash reached for an old, square tin covered in nouveau art. Swirls and swoops shaped like smoke built a frame around a beautiful girl sitting among lilies, brushing her long auburn hair. The details of the frame were shimmering gold, and written in a crisp deco font were the words Gilded Lily with the description of the face powder and manufacturer beneath.
He set it down without ceremony, reaching for the container of gravel, but I scooped the tin up, inspecting it with wide eyes.
“This is beautiful,” I breathed, turning it over in my hands, imagining the woman this had belonged to in some era long ago. “Where did it come from?”
“We have about a million of them in storage. This was probably one of my great-grandma’s, once upon a time.”
“Oh, it’s too valuable,” I insisted, shaking my head. “I can’t accept this.”
He snorted a laugh. “If you saw how many we had, you’d disagree. Trust me when I say you’d be doing me a favor. And anyway, she reminds me of you,” he said half to himself, eyes on the tin. “Her hair. The curve of her nose. The gilded lily—beautiful and perfect without any adornment but adorned all the same. Almost to frivolity.”
The feeling of rightness struck me again, a deep thrum that set an admission rising within me.
“Keep it,” he said. “It was meant to be yours.”
What about your heart? I thought. Was that meant to be mine too?
I clutched the tin to my chest hopefully. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. In fact, I’ll take you down there when we’re finished, and you can fill up a wheelbarrow with anything you want. Just run it by Tess,” he added. “She’d kill me if I got rid of something she needed for a window installation.”
I beamed at him, my mind tripping over what treasures I might find there. What I might find in him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He paused, watching me for a beat. “You’ll have to set it down if you want to plant in it.”
“Oh.” I laughed. “Sorry.”
Once it was on the table, Kash handed me the gloves.
But I waved him off. “I’m not afraid of a little dirt.”
With one brow cocked, he reached for a canvas apron. “Guess you won’t be needing this then.”
I snatched it from him. “That I will take, thank you.”
He stepped behind me as I looped the strap over my neck, his hands finding the strings to tie around my waist. As his fingers did their work, he closed the small gap between us, his chest against my back, his lips against my neck for the briefest of kisses.
“All right,” he said against my skin, kissing me once more before stepping back up to the table. “First, the gravel.”
At that, he launched into his instructional with Brutus watching me from across the table. When he hopped up and took a seat, I half expected him to make hard eye contact while he knocked things off the table, one by one. But instead, he sat silently, tail flicking judgmentally as Kash directed me to pour in a few inches of gravel for drainage, then a couple small pieces of concrete to discourage the roots from growing into the drainage. Then a little bit of fresh soil, mixed with the ivy’s topsoil when I turned the pot to empty its contents into my hand. I squeezed the pot-shaped soil to break up the roots as he instructed, then set the little plant inside and filled it with the remainder of the dirt in the pot, just like I had the cosmos.
Proudly, he handed me a watering can. “Go ahead. Give him a little drink.”
I smiled and did as I’d been told. “Why’s it gotta be a he?”
“It’s whatever you want it to be. You should name it.”
I set down the watering can and held up the tin for inspection, the ivy’s leaves bobbing with the motion. I traced the visage of the girl basking in the sunshine, combing her hair surrounded by lilies. “Ophelia,” I said, utterly certain that it was most definitely a she, and her name was a fact that had been waiting to be uncovered, in that moment, by me.
“Ophelia it is,” he said, leaning on the table to watch me.
And I watched him right back.
He was immovable, a pillar of solidarity and strength. An unwavering truth clung to him, the air of safety and certainty. A worthiness of trust.
I trusted him. He had nothing to gain by deceiving me.
I didn’t even think him capable of deceit.
“Thank you,” I said quietly, from the very depths of my heart. Because that moment of truth was upon me, and I wouldn’t waste it.
“For what?” he asked honestly. As if everything he gave wasn’t a gift and privilege.
“For this. For everything.”
He reached for my hand, that tilted smile on his face as he pulled me into his chest, wrapped me in his arms.
“I told you I was an excellent distraction,” he said.
“You did,” I agreed on a gentle laugh.
“Next time you need a rebound, I’m your guy.”
“And what if I don’t need another rebound?”
Something shifted behind his eyes, but the rest of him maintained that cavalier air he always had about him. “Then I’d say whoever locked you down was a lucky guy. You’re going to make somebody really happy one day, Lila. And I’m glad you picked me for your rebound. It’s been fun while it lasted.”
My admission died in my throat. “It has,” I admitted with a thin smile to cover the sting of those words.
You knew this was temporary. Deep down you knew. Let it be what it is. Because he’ll never want more, not from you.
“Kiss me,” I commanded gently, wanting nothing more than to hide, to seal away my wishes, to kiss them goodbye.
And with the brush of his fingers on my cheek, he did.
Acute was the pain, fading into a dull ache in my ribs, the word rebound a barb that struck me mercilessly.
Because who would help me get over Kash when he was gone?
Deeper we kissed, and I only hoped he attributed my desperation to desire, not the loss of what I’d wished for—that we could be more.
But if this was all I could have, I’d take it.
I’d take whatever I could get.
When the kiss slowed, then stopped, he leaned back. A curious, amused look colored his face. “You okay?” he asked.
And there was nothing to do but smile and lie.
17
Sex Palace