He looked at me, then he looked around. A process he repeated quite a few times, occasionally stopping for a mouthful of beer.
“I don’t know you, Vaughan,” I said, when I couldn’t take the silent questioning any longer. “Not really. And you don’t know me.”
His brow furrowed.
“What Andre said was enough to send you spiraling into some sort of frenzied gardening bender. I’m not going to add to it.”
“The yard was just a job that needed doing,” he mumbled around the top of his beer. “No need to make it a big deal.”
“Right. Just a job that needed doing … for seven hours without a break.”
One shoulder lifted. “That’s how long it took.”
“In your underwear.”
“It got hot.” He took another mouthful of beer. “Thanks for putting out the bottles of water earlier.”
“No problem.”
For a while, we drank in silence. Up high the tips of the old pine trees swayed in the breeze like they were waving at the stars. Someone somewhere played Simon and Garfunkel a little louder than necessary. Otherwise the night was peaceful, nice.
“Good thing about the fences,” I said eventually.
“Hmm?”
“Otherwise the neighbors would have had a wonderful time watching you trim the hedges in your boxer briefs.”
He snorted. “True. Those fences aren’t tall enough to keep out runaway brides, though.”
I breathed in through my teeth, making a hissing noise. “A nasty invasive breed. I’d be surprised if anything could stop them.”
He motioned to the neat line of hedges with his half-empty bottle. “This is how Dad used to keep it, all neat and tidy. Then Mom would plant flowers everywhere she could fit them. They’d be spilling out all over the place. Total chaos.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m pretty sure she did it just to drive him nuts.” A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “Every year she’d do a different color. All white flowers one summer, all yellow the next, and so on. Want to hear another of my embarrassing stories?”
“Hells yes.”
“One year, I accidentally broke a lamp. I was throwing a ball around inside the house, completely against the rules,” he said. “Anyway, I blamed it on the dog. This yappy ball of fluff Nell had begged them to buy her for Christmas. She even called the stupid thing Snowball.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well, Mom knew I was lying about the lamp, but she couldn’t prove it.”
“What about your dad?”
A laugh. “He hated the dog too. Gave me the benefit of the doubt.”
“Poor Snowball.”
“Mm. He had to spend more time outside after that,” he said. “Nell wouldn’t talk to me for weeks and Mom was definitely not impressed.”
“I bet. You sound like a terrible child,” I joked.
“Hold on, I’m not finished.” He turned my way, his smile definite this time. “So I was having a water fight in the backyard for my eighth birthday party. Had been planning it for months. I’d stockpiled all these water balloons and me and Eric spent weeks building these giant forts out of cardboard boxes. It was going to be excellent. Absolutely no girls allowed.”
“And?”
“Mom planted pink that year. And not just light pink, oh no. Big bright pink flowers everywhere. They were hanging in baskets and filling pots. She went berserk with them, far worse than normal.” He paused, drank. “You couldn’t come out here without being struck blind by it all. It looked like a flock of flamingos had exploded.”
“Oh, no,” I cried out dramatically. My senior year drama classes were finally proving useful, thank god. “Your poor burgeoning masculinity and street cred. Gone!”
“Right? I was completely humiliated.” He stretched out his legs, semi-reclining back on his elbows. “Eric wanted to dig them all up right before the party and try blaming it on Snowball. But I really didn’t see how that could work twice.”
“Probably a wise call.”
A nod.
“You mom sounds awesome,” I said with no small amount of wonder.
“Yeah. She was.”
With no ace parenting tales of my own to share, conversation lapsed again. This time, however, it didn’t feel awkward. We were just two people hanging out, star gazing on a summer night. It was all good.
“I do know you,” he said quietly. “You’re wrong about that.”