Page 8 of Earth-Bound

For a moment, I considered just avoiding Broadmire and getting on with my work but then I changed my mind. I rarely spoke to Broadmire, especially if Randall wasn’t there. I admit I was still wary of him because I always got the impression that he wanted to punch me on the nose just for existing. It was difficult to relax around someone like that.

Still, he’d turned out to be a decent sort. He’d given me a job and actually he was the best boss I’d ever had. The wage wasfair and he didn’t monitor me the way other people had. The fact that he’d basically given me free rein to do what I wanted with his garden made me feel particularly warm and fuzzy towards him right then.

I decided to go and say hello. No harm in staying on his good side while I was planning to make some expensive improvements, after all.

I strolled over and called out to him when I was still a fair few yards away. I got the impression he didn’t like people sneaking up on him and, since I didn’t like being punched on the nose, I wasn’t going to risk it.

“Hello there, nice day.”

He turned to look at me. Broadmire rarely smiled. Sometimes he gave a grin that was filled with malice but since Randall looked up at him like the sun shone out of his ass, I’d come to the conclusion that it was just an unfortunate thing that Broadmire had a really awful smile and it was nothing personal.

“Morning,” he said and promptly turned back to look at the house.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and went over.

“That house belongs to you too, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

From the way he was studying it, I wondered if he was thinking of selling it. He might get a pretty penny for it – I didn’t know, I didn’t know anything about houses. In all my life, I’d spent less than three months living in one.

“Going to fix it.”

“Fix it?” I gave a low whistle. “That might take some work.”

“Randall likes it.”

“Ah, that explains it.”

He glanced at me and I laughed. Broadmire was such a goner for his boyfriend. I admit I liked the look of Randall – he was pretty and had the brightest blue-green eyes I’d ever seen – but we’d settled firmly into the friend zone and both of us were very happy with that. I moved around too much to make any really good friends and I’d felt comfortable around Randall from the start, so it was nice to count him as a friend. Broadmire, though, couldn’t quite get it through his head that I didn’t want to steal Randall away from him.

The strange thing was, I liked Randall more and more. The better I got to know him, the more I realised how little of himself he’d been allowed to show back at the Winters place – his grandmother’s estate where I’d first met him. He’d been one of the family, strutting around looking important and I’d been a lowly gardener. To be fair to him, Randall had never treated me with the same disdain the rest of the family had. That had been why I’d liked him so much. I liked him better now, though.

I cast a look at the tree behind us. The one he chatted away to like it could understand everything and I took in every detail of the way it was flourishing. That tree had been nearly dead before but was flourishing now. It was yet more proof that talking to plants was a kind of magic. They always responded to it.

Beside me, Broadmire moved. He didn’t say goodbye, just walked over to the house and disappeared in through the gate. I let my eye-roll loose and wandered over to the tree.

Yes, it was definitely healthier now. I’d looked at it before, trying to work out why it hadn’t been growing. The problem had been that it wasn’t dead, either. I could spot dead wood a mile away. This tree had been… frozen. It hadn’t been growing the way it should, but it hadn’t died, either.

Now it had several fresh green leaves and even the first hint of fruit ripening on its branches. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was a miracle cure.

I reached out to place my hand on the trunk and got a strange bolt of energy through me. Above me, the wind rustled the leaves and made the branches shiver. Although… I couldn’t feel the wind. It had to be… a very localised breeze?

This week was getting weirder.

I quickly withdrew my hand and wiped it down my jeans to get the sensation of energy off it. I needed to be normal. I needed to stick to my job like a normal person. It wasn’t healthy to get carried away by fanciful things the way I used to.

Luckily, at that point Broadmire came lumbering out of the house and over to me. I waited, forcing a smile onto my face and trying to dispel the lingering weirdness. He didn’t smile back and I didn’t take it personally.

He stopped at the tree and looked back at the house. He seemed to be studying it.

“Trying to decide what to work on first?”

“No. Trying to decide whether he’d notice or not.”

“Notice what?”

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