If he ever came to a point where he needed to survive in the wilderness, the Stone knew which plants helped with what. When it came to gardening, he never made the time to keep up with it. Aside from watering and mowing the lawn every so often, the only plants he had in his house were artificial and that included the bonsai tree he had in his living room, but when Teagan invited him to the closest nursery, he held no reluctance to help. She wasn’t looking for a gardener. She was looking for a friend to bounce ideas off of, and he liked to think he had an eye for things. Plus, he’d be useful when it came to lifting the bushes and shrubs.
At the end of the day, he’d be there for her just as she had been there for him when his dad was at the hospital. He didn’t count how many times she had checked up on him. It didn’t matter. It spoke to him that she did, and it wasn’t the Bobby Caldwell vinyl and doll for Julianna that swayed him. His dad told him about Teagan. How she checked up on him at hospital the weeks before they let him go home. “That neighborhood girl that used to watch over you —Lucille’s girl,” George had explained, her name slipping his mind until Anita filled it in for it. Something told him that Teagan had been checking on his dad since before his old man opened his eyes, and for that, he’d be forever grateful. Words alone didn’t feel enough. Part of it was his own guilt for not being there for her grandmother. He wasn’t delusional into thinking there would’ve been a different outcome had he been there. However, if he just would’ve made a little more effort to take the left turn into the Antique Shop to check in on her, he might’ve had something more to give to Teagan. A comforting thought that her grandmother wasn’t in it all alone, but no one knew...until it was too late.
As he sat in the golf cart waiting for the forklift to come around with more boxwood, Teagan had walked up to him with two different flower types and set them in front of him. He looked between the roses and ranunculus. His mind immediately jumped to the conclusion that she was indirectly asking him which one he liked better. “—A rose bush would look nice?” The uncertainty in his voice became more apparent in the last few words since it was the first thing that came to mind, especially when he forgot the other ones were called buttercups. This was taking him back to when Nia asked him for help in picking out the flower arrangements for their wedding, so he might’ve been a little tense in saying something Teagan already made up her mind in. And so, he added. “Here’s some trivia for you, which of these do you think you can eat?” He asked, lifting his view to look at her.
