Page 11 of Digging Deeper

“This is room one-oh-four, right? Hendrix Weston?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” I say loudly, causing the medium-built man to turn toward me. He smiles cheerfully, and strides over with a clipboard extended in one hand, and a pen in the other.

“If you could just sign for this, that would be great.”

I notice the flower emblem on his navy blue, short-sleeve shirt. “This is seriously for me?” I ask as I sign on the line.

“Yes, sir. It’s a Dracaena Michiko.” As soon as I’m done signing, he removes a letter-size manilla envelope from under the clipboard. “The care directions are right inside this packet. But don’t worry, whoever got this for you picked a good one. You don’t want this baby in direct sunlight and it only gets fed”—I glance at Gav with wide eyes. Fed?—“every four months or so. But the owner of the florist I work for has that all in there for you along with the gift card.”

“Uh, thanks.” I notice Gav pulling out his wallet and handing the man a tip as I turn my attention to the large, lush green plant in a chocolate brown pot.

“Who’s it from?” Gavin asks as he walks over to the plant and strokes one of its long, green leaves. “It really gives the place a homey feel.”

Deciding that is an excellent question, I open the envelope and pull out the card.

Big Bro-

While plants are therapeutic, and I don’t mind you killed the last one, I thought maybe I’d replace it with one a little more your size to give it a fair shot. I love you.

Lil Bro

A smile spreadsacross my face. “Hey, Gav?” I ask, not looking up from the card from my brother.

“Yeah?” He sounds distracted. I glance to see him fussing over my new plant.

“Did you see Holds this weekend?”

“Yeah, I went straight from work on Friday. Why?”

“No reason,” I answer. My heart softens a little more toward the guy who I thought had stolen my brother from me. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that Holds still loves me, but Gavin really didn’t tell my brother about my epic meltdown. Even though I didn’t ask him to, he protected me from disappointing Holds. Maybe… maybe it is time to… try.

6

Gavin

Okay, what the hell has gotten into Hendrix today? He’s being almost cheerful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile as much as he has since I walked into the room. It’s a great smile, don’t get me wrong, but… it’s weirding me out.

Especially because I’m pretty sure he was checking out my ass. I mean, maybe he was daydreaming and just happened to be looking in my general direction, but I kinda don’t think he was. I think he was checking me out.

But that makes no sense.

Hendrix is straight.

Maybe he’s been cooped up in this room so long, he’s decided my ass is the only one he’ll get to see for a while.

Yeah, that’s gotta be it.

Right?

I clear my throat and glance around the room before focusing on Drix and asking, “Do you want to go out to the gym today?”

His happy-ish face falls for a second before he seems to gather himself together and nods. “Um… yeah… okay.”

“You know the chair you’re in moves, right? I can wheel you down in it,” I say, remembering how much he hates the idea of a wheelchair.

“Won’t that be weird?”

“No. It’s what we usually take people down in so we have a comfortable place for you to sit.”

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