Page 23 of Kylo
I tried to convince myself that I was going to try to gather more information to share with Huck when we had our meeting the next day.
But I knew damn well I just wanted to see Rue again.
Why, I had no idea.
There was just something about her that felt like it had been drawing me in since I’d seen her. Like she was her own fucking gravitational field. And I just wanted to be pulled in deeper.
The problem was that I didn’t really consider the shop hours of Vital Greens.
By the time I got there, I only had maybe forty-five minutes, which somehow didn’t feel like long enough.
“Oh, hey!” Rue greeted me, looking up from her notepad on the desk where she’d been tapping the tip of her pen frantically. “How are the plants doing?”
“Still alive, surprisingly. The charts really helped, I think.”
“So, are you back for more then?”
“I think I am. I recently got a townhouse, and it’s got a lot of light. And feels kind of empty.”
I’d gotten some new furniture in, but I hadn’t gotten around to any of the painting or hanging art or anything like that.
“Well, we can certainly put all that light to good use. Maybe it’s time to invest in a big plant,” she suggested, gesturing toward the giant plants and trees at the front of the shop.
“You mind if I cut out early and hit the kiln for—oh, hello there,” her employee, Traeger, said, coming to a stop behind the counter, his eyes going round when he spotted me.
“Hey,” I greeted him.
“Go ahead, Traeg. I know you’re drowning in orders.”
“You’re amazing. Make sure he buys a planter or two,” Traeger said before rushing out the door and heading around the building.
“You don’t have to buy pots.”
“Nah, I like to support artists. We’ll pick out some once we choose some—what the hell is that?” I asked when a metallic slamming noise sounded somewhere in the back.
I stepped automatically in front of her, standing between her and what I figured might be some sort of intruder.
Then the source of the noise came into view.
Ernest was toddling in with his metal food bowl hanging from his droopy mouth.
“He picks up and slams his bowl around when he wants to be fed. It’s the most active he is all day,” Rue admitted. “Want to come back and have a coffee? Or, you know, you can totally just browse if you want.”
Her voice had gotten tight and high, like she was uncomfortable with the idea of me turning her down.
“I can go for coffee.”
“He, uh, eats better than I do,” Rue admitted as she added kibble to a bowl and then started scooping extras in: bone broth, Greek yogurt, a few baby carrots, blueberries, mushed orange stuff that was maybe pumpkin or sweet potatoes, and some shredded turkey. “But he deserves it.”
The second the bowl hit the ground, Ernest was going to town on it, pushing the damn thing around the room.
“I should probably get him a stand for it,” she said, catching me watching him. “But he’s so lazy that I figured any movement he gets a day is good. Plus, it forces him to slow down so he doesn’t get a bellyache.”
“He seems to enjoy the process.”
“Do you have any pets?” she asked.
“I help take care of a macaw that kind of belongs to a bunch of buddies and me. And by ‘take care of,’ I mean slip him snacks he’s probably not supposed to have because it’s hard for me to say no to him.”
