A gardener and a phone call

You carry Margot's book downstairs to the kitchen, where HAVEN has already prepared breakfast—Greek yogurt with honey and granola, a cup of green tea, sliced strawberries arranged on a small plate. You eat with one hand and hold the book open with the other, re-reading the chapter on drape and how fabric behaves differently depending on grain direction.

Selvage runs parallel to the warp. Cut on the bias and you get stretch without elastic. That's why bias-cut skirts move the way they do.

You photograph a diagram of weave structures—plain, twill, satin—and add it to your notes. The strawberries are gone by the time you reach the section on hand-finishing, and you're underlining passages about invisible hems when HAVEN's voice interrupts.

"Chloe, the gate sensor has activated. A vehicle is approaching the main entrance."

Your stomach tightens. You set down the tea.

"Thank you, HAVEN."

You hear the crunch of tires on gravel, then the engine cutting. Through the kitchen window, you can see a battered green pickup truck parked by the front steps. A man climbs out—tall, broad through the shoulders, wearing a faded grey t-shirt tucked into work jeans, heavy gloves hanging from his belt. He pulls a pair of hedge trimmers from the truck bed and walks toward the side of the house.

You smooth your sundress, check your reflection in the microwave door—the forms look good, the makeup is light, you look like a normal twenty-one-year-old woman—and open the front door.

"Hi! You must be Theron. I'm Riley—Vanessa's niece. I'm house-sitting while she's away."

He stops mid-stride and turns. Up close, he's... a lot. Square jaw dusted with a day's worth of stubble. Dark brown eyes under thick brows. Arms that fill out his t-shirt like it was painted on. He's maybe thirty-four, thirty-five, with sun-weathered skin and a quiet stillness about him that reads as confidence rather than aloofness.

"Theron Calloway," he says, extending a hand. His grip is firm and calloused. "Vanessa mentioned someone would be here. Didn't say it was family, though."

"Surprise visit arrangement," you say, keeping your voice in that husky alto you've been practicing. "She asked me to keep an eye on things."

He nods, no follow-up questions. Practical. Efficient. "Hedges are the priority today. Should take a few hours. You need anything else looked at while I'm here?"

"No, just the hedges is fine. There's water in the kitchen if you need it."

"Appreciate it."

He heads toward the side garden, and you watch him go. The way his shoulders move under the t-shirt. The easy, unhurried stride of someone who does physical work every day and carries his body like he knows exactly what it can do.

What the hell was that?

You retreat inside, but find yourself drifting to the living room windows that overlook the side garden. Theron has already set up a ladder against the tallest hedge, and he's working with mechanical precision—trimming, stepping back to assess, trimming again. His forearms flex with each cut. Sweat begins to darken the collar of his shirt.

You're watching a man do yard work and your pulse is elevated. That's... that's new.

You try to read. You really do. But your eyes keep drifting to the window, to the way his t-shirt clings when he reaches overhead, to the casual strength in his movements. It's not sexual—not exactly—it's something more fundamental. An awareness of masculinity as a physical fact, something you're noticing from the other side of a divide you didn't know existed until three days ago.

At 9:07, your phone rings. Vanessa.

You answer on the second ring, stepping away from the window. "Hey, Aunt Vanessa."

"Riley! How's my favorite house-sitter? I've got about twenty minutes before my meeting. Tell me everything."

Her voice is warm and busy, the sound of someone checking a task off a list. You sit on the sectional, the sundress pooling around your thighs, and take a breath.

"I'm... actually doing really well. I've been thinking about something, and I wanted to talk to you about it."

"Oh? That sounds serious. Everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, everything's great. I just—I've been thinking about what I want to do next. Career-wise."

You tell her. Not everything—not the heels, not the corset, not the silicone forms currently sitting warm against your chest—but the adjacent truth. That you studied psychology to understand people but never actually learned how to be around them. That you felt detached in college, always observing, never participating. That you're getting a retail job because you want to connect with people on a human level, not a clinical one.

Vanessa listens. There's a pause when you finish.

"Riley, that's... that's actually really mature. I'm impressed."

"You're not going to tell me I'm wasting my degree?"

"Honey, half the people I hire have degrees that have nothing to do with what they end up doing. Life isn't a straight line. If you want to learn how to be present with people, that's a skill worth developing." A beat. "So tell me about this retail job. Where?"

"A boutique in town. Petal & Thread. The owner's giving me a trial shift tomorrow."

"Margot Sinclair's place? Oh, she's wonderful. Very discerning, but fair. You'll learn a lot from her."

Outside, you can hear the rhythmic snk-snk-snk of Theron's trimmers. You press your palm flat against your thigh.

"How's Barcelona?" you ask, redirecting.

"Gorgeous. Chloe's dragging me to every designer outlet within fifty miles. I think she's trying to bankrupt me before we even get to Paris." Vanessa laughs. "Listen, I need to run. Call me if you need anything, okay? And Riley?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm proud of you. For figuring out what you want. That takes guts."

She hangs up. You sit with the phone against your chest, the sundress soft against your skin, and stare out the window at Theron Calloway trimming the hedges with his shirt now dark with sweat across the shoulders.