Page 23 of An Adventure For Aster

“You can have anything of mine you want,” he said. “You just have to come and get it.”

Her mouth opened. “Good way to throw my words back at me and put us in a stalemate.”

“I doubt we’ll stay there long,” he said.

8

ACTIVITY NUMBER TWO

“It smells like baking in here,” Aster said on Sunday when Raine opened the door to him in her apartment.

“I told you I was baking today,” she said. “Activity number two.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “I’m helping you bake? I thought I was getting the food.”

“Please,” she said, waving her hand. “You have to bake too. Gender equality and all.”

She was laughing when she said it so he cracked a little grin.

“If you say so,” he said. He looked around her place and noticed that it was just as neat as his. “Did you clean before I came over to impress me?”

“Did you crack a joke?” Raine asked.

He could tell she wasn’t sure, but she still had a grin on her face. “I did. I think I need to do better at that.”

“You’re trying and that is all that counts,” she said.

“Something you tell your students?”

“All the time. Please come in, sorry that you’re standing there in the doorway. I’ve got no manners.”

“I find that hard to believe,” he said. “Shoes on or off?”

She had slippers on her feet. Cute little bunny faces.

“One of my kids gave me these at the end of the school year,” she said. “Sophie’s mother told me that Sophie had so much fun with our Easter activities that she’d made her mother buy me bunny slippers.”

“I bet you get a lot of gifts like that,” he said. Not that his parents ever gave gifts to his teachers, but other kids did.

“I do,” she said. “I never expect it. Sometimes it’s just candy and cards, flowers, or plants.”

He saw a bunch of plants on a stand by the big window in the living room. Her space was pretty small. Just had a little loveseat and chair. There was a two-person table off to the side against the wall and he could see into her kitchen.

“Do you have a green thumb?” he asked.

“Average,” she said. “I think. I’ve got lots of people I can ask advice from. Do you like flowers and plants? You’re staring at them as if I’m doing something wrong.”

He moved closer and stuck his hand in the dirt. “They are too dry.” She got a cup of water and brought it over, but he took it out of her hand. “These need less sunlight and these more. Switch them around.”

He tended to her plants and then looked up to see her grinning at him. “I guess you don’t have to cook now since you just taught me about my plants and what I was doing wrong. I didn’t see any in your place.”

“I have some in my room to start. There is a lot of light. If you laugh at me I’m out of here,” he said.

“Why would I do that? And what is there to laugh at?”

He shrugged. “I always had plants or flowering plants where I lived. Maybe it’s the name, no clue, but at times it was just a sign of life when life was so hard where I was.”

She moved closer and rubbed her hand on his arm. “That’s a nice thought.”

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