What the hell is the hot Scottish stranger from the pub doing here? In my mom’s greenhouse?
There is no good explanation. So much for him being some innocent, sleeping guy. This man followed me from Scotland! He’s been here, biding his time, pretending to be asleep—
That’s when it hits me, the danger I’m in. And that’s when I lift the shovel over my head and scream.
The man ducks my swing, then rolls away and springs upright in a display of athleticism that has me deeply concerned for my odds against him. “Wait!” he yells. “Hold on!”
I’m just processing that his accent is American, not Scottish, as I swing at him again and miss, knocking over a damask rosebush. He lunges and successfully catches the rosebush, which, come to think of it, is odd for an assailant to do, but I’m already swinging at him again as I process that thought, too. I miss him entirely, losing my balance as the shovel whips out of my hands, then crashes into the table. Thrown off by the momentum of my forceful swing, I stumble back, straight into potted gardenia that wobble, then start to tip off the table’s edge behind me.
The man lunges again, catches my hand before I fall, and yanks me toward him, almost like a swing dance move that swaps our places, before he somehow also catches the gardenia plant and rights it on the table. When I try to yank my hand away, he turns suddenly, which pulls me with him, and, in a chaotic tangle of feet and pinwheeling hands, we crash to the floor, him on his back, me sprawled on top of him.
In an uncharacteristic feat of agility and speed that I can only attribute to the power of adrenaline, I lunge for a trowel that’s resting on the table beside me, then bring it to his throat, staring down at him, breathing heavily. “What,” I gasp, “the hell are you doing here?”
The man’s breathing heavily, too, eyes wide, hands back in surrender. “I . . .” He shakes his head. “What are you doing here?”
“Nuh-uh, you don’t get to ask questions.” With my free hand, I shove back the drenched hair that’s fallen into my face, trowel still at his throat. “You’re in my mom’s greenhouse—”
“Your mom’s?” he croaks.
“—and the last time I saw you, you were in the same Scottish pub as me seven and a half months ago, sitting at the bar, so you’re the one who’s going to do the explaining. Now tell me why you’re here.”
He swallows. I watch his Adam’s apple roll beneath the trowel’s tip. His mouth parts, working silently, until finally, he says, “I’m staying next door, with Christopher. I went for a walk and stopped in here.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Prove it.”
“Call Christopher right now; he’ll vouch for me.”
The man reaches for his phone in his pocket. I slap my free hand down on his wrist and pin it there, searching his eyes. “I’ll get your phone, thank you.”
I tug his phone from his pocket, swipe it to open, then spin it so it uses facial recognition to unlock. Straight to his contacts, I scroll down and find . . . Christopher’s name, and his cell phone number.
My jaw drops. Then the trowel follows suit, landing with a clatter on the tiles. Oh my god. The pieces fall into place. He’s here for the party, the one that I now remember Christopher saying was a birthday bash slash reunion for his friends from college—friends I’ve never met because Christopher kept to himself in his college years, while he was in the city. Christopher is my next door neighbor, has been my whole life; he’s like a brother to me. And I just tried to bludgeon his college friend with a short handle shovel.
Then I held him at trowel point.
Heat floods my face as I stare down at the man beneath me. I am mortified. And confused. Why, when he’s here for a party at Christopher’s, is he in the greenhouse?
“What are you doing in here, then?” I ask.
He swallows again and his hands start to lower to his sides. “Would you mind . . . if I answered you . . . while you’re not on my lap?”
If my face was hot before, it’s incinerating now. I glance down to where I sit, straddling his waist. My thighs are pinned against his ribs. My pelvis rests on his pelvis, where I feel a solid, thick weight—oh my god, I have to get off him.
I list sideways and scramble off the man in a very ungainly tumble of limbs, thanks to my embarrassment making me clumsy, my stiff joints resisting sudden movement. “Sorry,” I mutter, trying to arrange myself in a dignified seated position on the floor. I’m not even going to try to stand yet, not when I’m this turned around and discombobulated.