Must Like Spinach Read online

  Their home is right there, drawn like it doesn’t matter, carefully carved up into profit and loss.

  But the worst thing—

  Jon clutches the doorframe, only vaguely aware that both Stan and Carl express concern for his pallor.

  —the worst thing is that Tyler can’t have missed all those dollar signs that Jon drew right over their roof.

  They must look like circling vultures to him.

  “Jonathan? Jon? What the hell, son?”

  He doesn’t even know who’s speaking. And there’s no way to explain his reaction. It doesn’t matter that he’s more than twenty stories above the city, his heart sinks to the level of the lobby when he pictures Tyler seeing all of that without him there to offer a translation.

  Jon breaks the last of Bettman’s rules about professionalism.

  There’s nothing cool, calm, or collected about the way he takes off running.

  Chapter 29

  HE’S TOO late, of course.

  Far too late.

  The glass is opaque when he gets to the meeting room, when it was transparent earlier. There’s no way his sketches won’t be as clear as day against its whiteness.

  Jon breathes much harder than running the length of the floor truly warrants, sucking in deep breaths as he reaches for the door handle. Still, he can’t seem to get enough air. He doesn’t say a word when Eric pulls the door wide open. He’s alone instead of with Tyler. Jon simply pushes past him and then stops. Eric’s stuttered apologies fall on deaf ears while Jon sees all the ink he’s expended through Tyler’s eyes instead of his own.

  He stands stock still, a pillar of salt in the face of this profit-driven vision.

  It’s a financial forecast that spans the glass, not a home where people live like family.

  The one place in the world Tyler cares about looks awful the way that Jon’s drawn it. Each place they’ve kissed and touched and loved has a dollar value attached. Jon’s written numbers above the garden where Tyler trusted his throat to his hands, like he already knew they had potential. And there are more figures scrawled next to the garage where Tyler got to his knees to check Jon wasn’t injured. He’d done it without thinking twice, like Jon already mattered to him. But what can he think now that he’s seen the worthless written across the garage doors in Jon’s distinctive cursive?

  “Did he say anything?” Jon’s voice sounds like it comes from a stranger.

  “Uh….”

  “Tell me.”

  “He… uh… he said that this is what he should’ve expected.” Eric closes his eyes, like he can’t look at Jon’s expression. “He said this is what happens when you trust someone whose whole life is about money.”

  It’s fury, not a sob, wrenching its way out of Jon’s chest—anger at himself that has him grabbing a whiteboard eraser and scrubbing the glass as Eric tries in vain to stop him. Disgust, plain and simple, makes Jon shake him off, sending him stumbling backward, set on destroying every speck of evidence that profit was his only motivator. Ink blurs as he rubs away dollar signs over the first house Stan Hallquist flipped. It cost the man his family and did something to harden his heart that’s taken thirty years to thaw out. If Tyler feels as bad as Jon does now, his own must feel shattered.

  Peggy’s house proves harder to erase.

  He can’t.

  He can’t make himself do it.

  He braces himself, palms flat against the glass instead, and shudders.

  “Mr. Fournier?” Eric’s voice is low-pitched and so much calmer than Jon could manage after witnessing a grown man’s meltdown. He’s careful, oh so careful, when he asks, “You doing okay there, big guy?”

  Jon closes his eyes rather than answer, lips pressed tight together.

  “Only you have to know that I didn’t mean to….” His touch on Jon’s wrist is unexpected. “I didn’t think… I mean I didn’t notice right away that your boyfriend saw something different here than I do. He only came here to give you this.” That touch to his wrist turns into a firm tug, and Eric presses something into his hand. “You do know I’m sorry don’t you?”

  Jon’s too focused on what he holds to answer that question, or the next one he asks.

  “What are you going to do now, Mr. Fournier?”

  Seconds pass as Jon studies the single, red cherry tomato that Tyler delivered. It’s fresh from a plant that he’s tended for weeks; a tiny sun-warmed harvest meaning more than he can explain. Getting it would’ve made his whole day, and of course Tyler knew that.

  “What am I going to do now?”

  Jon tucks Tyler’s gift into his pocket.

  “I’m going home to fix this.”

  JON KEEPS half an eye on the speedometer out of habit as he takes shortcuts he wouldn’t have guessed existed when he first relocated. Now it’s second nature to bypass the worst spots where traffic might hold up his progress. He takes a route past the dog park instead of listening to his GPS instructions, and drives through a neighborhood where he now knows a pond is hidden.

  He pays little attention to his surroundings, not even taking a second look at the gardens full of produce he’s admired each time he’s passed them. He’s focused on the distant tall shape of the pizzeria signage. It peeks between gaps in the houses he passes, and he needs to get there sooner. Bumping over speed bumps make his teeth click together, and he abandons his car half off the driveway when he eventually gets home instead of parking neatly beside Lorna’s rental. The lurch of the stairs under his feet has nothing on the jackhammer of his heart, which almost seems to stop dead when he finds the front door open.

  “Tyler?”

  No answer comes from inside.

  His step across the threshold has him wondering if, for one split second, time turned back during his breakneck journey. The living space, which had been neat as a pin, now reminds him of his first day. Belongings are strewn between the front door and bedroom, and his closet stands wide open when he follows the trail of clothing. His suitcase is missing; only empty space remains below the ribbon-tied bunch of lavender that swings in a lazy circle.

  Something thumps loudly underneath his feet. And then another thump comes from below, followed by the drag of something heavy.

  It takes seconds to slam his way out of the apartment, followed by a swift clatter of descent so noisy that the whole city has to know he’s coming, but Tyler doesn’t look up when the garage doors creak open. He crouches beside the crates that Jon still hasn’t looked through, his head bowed over something that he’s pulled from their depths.

  The doors creak closed behind him again, casting Tyler in shadow. When Jon’s eyes adjust to less light, Tyler looks right at him. He doesn’t even try to hide his hurt. It’s right there in his gaze, so sharp that the stab of worry Jon felt earlier is a pinprick by comparison.

  “Tyler?”

  “No.”

  It’s a one-word answer that tells a complete story.

  “Plea—”

  Tyler’s next “No!” is another entire sentence signaling the end of this chapter.

  “I want to expl—”

  “Oh, no need to explain. I already guessed what you want. I guessed when I saw this place drawn up there on the glass for every bean counter you work with to rub their hands over. I guessed you thought you struck gold when you saw—” He swallows and shakes his head, his voice gritty when he continues. “When you saw this place and the backyard. I didn’t even have to guess what you planned to do, or how much money you’d make if you could talk Peggy into selling. You wrote it all up there for me to see, right down to the last dollar.”

  Jon takes a step closer. “It’s not what you think.”

  “You got that right. I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking, okay?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “I’ve been thinking that you’re a liar, and that I’m worse, because I let myself believe you.” It’s hardly a laugh that he lets out, and there’s nothing humorous about the way his eyes swim. “I believed you so hard, I probably
would’ve helped you talk Peggy into signing whatever you wanted. I trusted that you had her best interests at heart, right up until this morning. Then, as soon as I knew the truth, I just wanted you gone. I wanted you out of here today, before I have to pick up Peggy and Lorna from her doctor’s appointment. I was going to lie ’cause that’s the theme of the day. I was going to lie right to Peggy’s face and tell her you got a promotion. And do you know what she’d do if I told her that you’d left without any warning and had flown out right away?”

  “She….” Jon hangs his head. “She’d be happy for me.”

  “Damn straight. Happy, even though she’d be sad too. Happy because that’s how you feel for people you love when they get a chance to do well. And sad because you miss them before they even left town. When people leave with no warning, you miss them so much you’re not sure how you’ll stand it. That’s how I—”

  “Ty.”

  “You have to stop interrupting.” The way his voice thickens is horrible. “You have to stop, or I’m not going to get through this. Let me finish.”

  It’s a command Jon obeys, helpless to do anything else in the face of so much pain.

  “I believed you, like I believed—” There’s that headshake again, like he can’t even voice Danny’s name. “I believed you so hard, and Lord knows I didn’t want to at the start. So finding out that all of this was a means to an end? That you fucked me and fucked with me, just like he did? No one does that to me. Not again. Not after last time.”

  Tyler puffs out a long breath and closes his eyes, beautiful, shadowed, and so strong that Jon can’t believe he lost this.

  He can’t lower his gaze when this might be the last time he sees him.

  He’s almost startled when Tyler speaks again.

  “I packed up your shit so fast, Jon. I couldn’t fit all of it in your suitcase. Then I opened these crates, thinking I’d stuff the rest of your lying crap inside, but I found some things that messed with my mind so bad that I don’t know what to believe now.”

  His eyes shine so much when they meet Jon’s, it’s hard to focus on them.

  Jon’s voice comes out gravelly. He crouches too, edging closer when Tyler doesn’t tell him to back off. “You found some things in one of my mom’s boxes?”

  Tyler’s nod is jerky, just enough to dislodge an angry tear he swipes away so fast it might never have been there.

  “I told myself you’d been lying from the get-go. That you couldn’t have any real interest in someone like me or in this old place. Then I find this….” He turns a photo frame over.

  A six-year-old Jon smiles ear-to-ear from behind its glass, kneeling next to a pumpkin almost the same size as him.

  “And this.”

  It’s hard to see Jon in this image, hidden inside a teepee built from beanpoles covered with string beans.

  “And I don’t even want to tell you what I thought when I found this.” It’s a framed, painstakingly drawn picture that Jon did the year he turned ten. It was on his mom’s desk forever—so long that he’d stopped noticing it until he had to pack it away. His drawing skills had shown promise even back then—it’s clearly him who holds hands with his mom beside the greenhouse they left behind.

  “So if it turns out that all that crap about loving to garden is actually true, like these pictures suggest, then….” Tyler looks somewhere over Jon’s shoulder rather than make eye contact. “Then I have to ask what else is.”

  Jon starts with the most important truth first. It’s the only thing that matters. “I love you.”

  Tyler’s eyes close again. His lashes are damply dark fans, and his low-pitched “Don’t” is a warning. “Don’t say it if it’s bullshit.”

  Jon takes a bold chance.

  He has nothing left to lose here.

  He goes ahead and leans in to nose from Tyler’s cheek to his ear. He whispers a quiet “Gesundheit” because if this is his last time Tyler lets him close, he might as well go all out. Then he presses a kiss to the small dip by his mouth that Tyler doesn’t pull away from. He holds himself painfully still instead when Jon kisses him again in the same spot, marking his favorite place one last time.

  “It’s true,” Jon easily admits. “I drew everything you saw this morning. But it was meant to be an example, that’s all. A training exercise to get Carl to pull his head out of his ass and to help Eric’s interns learn more than filing paperwork three times could ever teach them.”

  “Yeah?”

  Fuck the blade he imagined between his ribs earlier; the hope in Tyler’s voice is much more painful.

  “Yeah.” This time Jon curls a careful hand around Tyler’s neck and holds on. From this close, even in such dim light, the furious pace of his pulse is visible at the base of his throat. “I love you. And I love Peggy, just like I love this whole place.” He knows it’s true as he says it, and he lifts his head to make sure Tyler sees and hears him.

  “So why did you call it worthless? I saw what you wrote.”

  “That was before I knew you. Before I knew any of this. You know how long I’d been here when I wrote that?”

  Tyler slowly shakes his head. When he’s done, he’s definitely leaning closer.

  “I’d been here for one weekend. On the Friday, I almost got kicked of a fast-track program I hated, but I couldn’t let myself fail out of. I flew in overnight, saw this place on the weekend, and you have to remember how it looked. Then I went in to Hallquist Holdings on the Monday, expecting to come home to a dump. ‘Worthless’ was how I felt about more than this place, if I’m being honest.” He blows out a quick breath. “Then you made everything better. You’ve done that just about every day since then, even when I didn’t want to see it at first.” Now he regrets every single second he’s wasted. “If I had a pen in my hand right now, I’d write priceless instead.”

  Tyler’s arms fly around him so fast that Jon almost falls back.

  He sits on the garage floor, and holds Tyler as tight as he can. “For fuck’s sake, Ty. You really think I could fake the way I feel about you?”

  Tyler’s voice is muffled against his shoulder, his back stiffening all over again when he says, “It happened before.” Then he melts in Jon’s embrace. It’s not gradual, like a glacier’s slow drip. The way Tyler trusts is like an iceberg shearing from a landmass, fracturing completely in two when he clambers onto Jon’s lap to get even closer.

  They hold each other in the dim glow of the overhead light until Tyler says, “We should get your stuff upstairs before I have to go pick up Peggy and Lorna.”

  “Yes we should.” Jon doesn’t move a muscle.

  Tyler wriggles a little. “You love me?”

  “Yes.” It’s easy to be this certain.

  “I don’t want to love you right now,” Tyler admits. “But I can’t seem to help it.”

  Jon has to focus hard on breathing when relief overwhelms him.

  “You still have to let me go, Jon.”

  “I’m just about to,” he lies. It’s the only untruthful thing he’s said that whole day. He’ll have to let go at some point, he supposes, if only to remove the tomato in his pocket.

  It’s okay if it’s squashed. He’s got time now to grow another.

  Epilogue

  Winter in Seattle

  CHRISTMAS EVE brings the coldest day in Seattle since Jon’s late-spring arrival, but a sharp drop in the temperature isn’t enough to keep him from the backyard. It’s dull out there and gloomy, unlike the bright cheer of the holiday party he just left at Hallquist Holdings. The new interns had gone all out to decorate the breakroom with fake mistletoe and tinsel, but the garden’s still more appealing, even if most of the raised beds are now empty.

  It’s not sleet that makes him shiver.

  No.

  It’s the fact that magic is already happening under the weed barrier he laid. All the compost that took weeks to fork into the dirt will break down over winter. Come spring, all the nutrients his seedlings need will be right ther
e waiting for them. Just like his mom’s investment in him, he’s laying down careful groundwork to enhance their future. He can’t control the weather or predict blight and cutworms, but he’s already excited about what the next four seasons will bring.

  Truth is, he still wakes up surprised some days that he gets to have this.

  It’s a gift that still has him grinning right when Stan Hallquist calls him.

  He steps into the garage to answer his phone, but Stan speaks before he can greet him.

  “I just picked up your Voicemail, Jonathan.” He’s abrupt, cutting to the chase real quick. “You can’t resign.” His voice wavers before he says, “Hold up, I’m pulling over.” It comes back stronger once he’s parked to take Jon off speaker. “I won’t let you quit. You said you’d stay for a year.”

  “No, I said six months.”

  “What about integrating your new system? You’re not done working for me until you get it set up.”

  “Already done.” He spent the last week perfecting a streamlined system for a department where only leadership was missing. Now employees who spun their wheels for too long will help drive Stan’s business forward, as long as they’re managed. “I signed off on the last stage this morning. There’s a report in your inbox.”

  “But what about filling your spot? You can’t quit before—”

  “The ad went out at the beginning of the week. You’ll have a stack of résumés to look through when you get back from Chicago.” He adds a personal question, because fuck his training. “How’s it going, by the way? Did you get to catch up with your ex? I know you wanted to—” Finally make amends? Show her that he eventually figured out what he really valued? “I know you wanted a chance to clear the air.”

  The silence lasts so long that Jon wonders if the call dropped. When Stan eventually speaks again, he sounds entirely human for once, instead of business-focused. “I-I think I left it too long.” He expels a breath and verbally regroups. “But I’m still working on it, so how about you keep working too by staying on my payroll instead of leaving like a quitter.”