Eventually, I pulled back, just far enough to catch his eyes. “You’re staying. You really meant it.”
“I’m staying,” he said, no hesitation. “For this garden. For you. For every stubborn, beautiful inch of this life we’re building.”
I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the blur in my eyes. “I really didn’t expect that sign to hit so hard.”
“Should’ve used glitter paint. Might’ve softened the emotional blow.”
I smacked his arm lightly, laughing through tears.
Then I looked back down at the flower bed and exhaled slowly. “You know what this means, right?”
“That I’m about to become a very confused gardener?”
I grinned. “That too. But mostly... it means we’ve got roots now. Together.”
He slid his hand into mine, our fingers locking like they belonged that way.
“I like the sound of that,” he said. “Roots. Flowers. Maybe even a little chaos.”
“You’re definitely getting the chaos,” I warned.
“Perfect,” he said, lifting our joined hands to kiss the back of mine. “I’m counting on it.”
…
Dirt flew.
Not in a graceful arc, not with the precision of an expert gardener—but in a wildly chaotic cloud that narrowly missed my face.
“Damien!” I shrieked, laughing as a clump of soil landed on my shin.
He froze, crouched at the edge of the new garden bed like a mischievous raccoon caught red-handed. His hair stuck up in every direction, and there was a smudge of dirt on his cheek. He looked way too pleased with himself.
“What?” he asked innocently, holding up the tiny trowel like it was a weapon of mass destruction. “I’m digging.”
“You’re excavating.” I grabbed a bulb and scooted closer. “This is why I told you to let me mark the rows first.”
“You were taking too long.”
“I was making a plan!”
He grinned at me, all smug and unrepentant, then promptly dug another crooked hole. I sighed and reached for my little wooden tray of daffodil bulbs, determined to maintain some level of floral dignity while he tore through the garden like a toddler with a spoon and a sandbox.
“Supervising,” I muttered, plopping down on my knees beside him, “was clearly a mistake.”
“Supervising is code for judging my technique, which, by the way, is called ‘freestyle botany.’”
I snorted, brushing my hair off my face and gently pressing a bulb into the earth. “More like ‘botanical chaos.’ Honestly, how did someone with hands that steady in surgery manage to plant a flower upside-down?”
“You noticed that, huh?”
“Pretty sure the bulb did, too.”
He glanced at me sideways, then flicked a clump of soil toward my boot. “I’ll stick to hearts. You stick to flowers.”
“I’m trying,” I said, reaching for another bulb. “But you keep planting them sideways and giving them an existential crisis.”
He laughed, deep and carefree, the sound curling around me like sunlight. For all his seriousness, Damien was learning to laugh again. With me. Around me.