Cam

The first time my phone buzzed against my thigh, I was with a customer, so I didn’t check it. The next few times I was still with the same customer, but I was a bit worried someone might have died, so I found a moment to slide it out just enough to take a quick glance at the screen. A glimpse of a picture of a plant, immediately followed up by a different one, left me more confused but less concerned. 

I took my time talking to the customer, a lovely lady who didn’t really need my help sorting through our toy cars to pick a few out for her grandson but clearly loved the company. A pushy seller might win themselves a sale—or lose themselves one, if they took it too far—but I found that listening to people was more likely to earn you repeat business. At least that was how it worked with antiques, which was, admittedly, a little different from regular commerce. It was easier to form a connection with people over something more unique and interesting than bed linen or shoes.

Or maybe it was all the same, if you happened to be into those sorts of things. I’d never done anything else, so I wouldn’t know, would I?

By the time I rang the lady up and had another long conversation with her on the way out, I had so many text messages from a number that wasn’t saved under a name in my phone that I had to scroll up and up and up through dozens of pictures of plants to figure out the context. Though even then, all that told me was that the sender was Flynn, the helpful guy we’d shown the house to yesterday. Did he get me mixed up with someone else?

Justin must have noticed the bemused expression on my face, because he shot me a raised eyebrow.

“Flynn,” I explained. “He sent me a bunch of pictures of plants?”

The snort of laughter and impish smile that accompanied it caught me by surprise. Justin could be stoic at times, especially when he was in a dark mood. That had been a lot of the time, lately—and a lot of the past, too. We’d had a few good years of clubbing and apartment living in there when he’d actually been happy.

He had a nice smile. It made his dark eyes go all soft and warm.

“He saw the botanical murder scene out back yesterday,” Justin explained.

“Oh, god,” I said, glancing back at the pictures. The stream seemed to have stopped. “That’s embarrassing. He works at a nursery, too.”

“He mentioned that. He said the flowers died because they need more sun.”

“I could have sworn it was too much water. Or maybe not enough.”

“Mm,” Justin said. “He offered to send some suggestions for plants that’ll do better, though I’m a little surprised he actually did it. I thought it was just one of those things people say but don’t actually follow through on.”

“Well, he definitely did,” I said, flicking my thumb over the screen as I scrolled back through all the pictures. “I don’t even know where to start with all this. I just bought whatever looked nice last time.”

“And look where that got us,” Justin said. “We could drive down and take a look at what they’ve got. Give Flynn a sale for all his hard work.”

“Do nurseries work on commission?”

“Doubt it, but it can’t hurt.”

I checked my watch. 12:47. “We close at one today, so we may as well.”

I texted Flynn back and got the name of his workplace, but when I looked it up on maps, I felt my lips pull into a frown. “Ah. It’s a forty minute drive.”

Justin tucked his head over my shoulder to look at the map. “Nice one, though.”

“You still want to go?”

I felt him shrug against me. “I don’t have any projects waiting at home.”

Justin had always liked to keep himself busy, distracted, maybe to an unhealthy degree. In a twisted kind of way, he’d thrived when Tammy was sick. He was needed, constantly. It gave him something to do with himself. Something that mattered.

He didn’t wear grief nearly as well. He wasn’t the type to be dramatic about it, to want to make it anyone else’s problem, but I couldn’t reach him anymore. To an outside observer watching us talk like this with his body pressed against mine, maybe that would have sounded delusional, but he wasn’t the same. There was a distance to him, something deep inside held clenched and tight.

“Sounds like a nice day out, then.”

And it was. Once we were in the van, driving together, it didn’t even matter where we were going. Or it did matter, but only in so much that it wasn’t anywhere we really needed to be. We’d become so practical, so efficient. It’d sunk into our bones in a way I hadn’t really noticed until we weren’t down in it anymore. We used to do things like drive out to pick up a coffee table together, then have fish and chips by the beach while seagulls demanded tribute and pelicans waddled around eying up small dogs like they were thinking about giving it a go. These days, if only one of us was needed, the other just wouldn’t go.

“You’re excited about seeing this boy.”

I took my eyes off the road just long enough to flash Justin a look of confusion.

“You were smiling.”

“I was thinking about how nice it is to be out and about with you. Asshole.”

“Oh. Hm.”

“But sure, it’ll be nice to see Flynn again. He’s very sweet.”

“That look on his face when you catch him doing something he shouldn’t. Like a guilty kid.”

“I bet he’s wrapped so many men around his finger. Or women. Both, probably, regardless of what he’s into.”

“He could wrap around my—” Justin cleared his throat. “Sorry. I shouldn’t.”

“Oh, God,” I said around a laugh. “No, you definitely shouldn’t.”

“Mixing sex up with someone who’s looking for somewhere to live would be all kinds of fucked up.”

“Definitely. Still, he’s fun.”

“Still fun,” Justin agreed.

Honestly, it was good just to be talking like this with Justin again, to be enjoying shared desire. Maybe anyone else would have thought we were insane, but it was just part of how sex worked between us. When it was just the two of us, we fell into something that felt a lot like masturbation. 

It wasn’t that we only wanted other people, though. Above all else, I did want Justin. I wanted him there, involved. I wanted to share experiences with him. I would have rather sat back and watched him fuck someone else and not get touched at all than do anything without him. We just liked the same things, and that worked out okay, except for the part where neither one of us actually was those things.

You’d think that would have been a dealbreaker, and maybe it should’ve been. Maybe any normal person would have accepted that we were destined to be nothing more than best friends and left it at that. Only, if I was dating someone else, I didn’t think they’d feel too happy about the way I felt about Justin either. Because he really was my whole world. Stacked up against everything else he was to me, the sex parts just didn’t seem like that big of a deal. 

Besides, the sex parts weren’t bad. They were fantastic. They just benefited from the occasional guest appearance.