Hold My Hand [boyxboy]

9: A Flower Buds

Here's something about fairytales from someone who's never lived one: they do not always have a happy ending.

Now let me tell you a story about the best day I've ever had. At least what I thought was the best day.

It started when Maggie opened the steel gate and revealed a small garden. However, it didn't look like any other garden.

The most prominent thing about it was the white gazebo right in the middle. It had vines entangled in it and covered a lot of its surface.

Apart from the gazebo, assortments of winter flowers were strewn all around the edges of the garden, along with the perimeter of the gazebo, even on the windowsills. In between the flowers were paths made of expensive looking marble tiles.

Whenever a whiff of wind would pass upon us and through the rustle of the leaves, it carried a breeze of too many aromas to identify.

Inside stood Thomas, carrying shears and wearing overalls buckled on one shoulder while the other was hanging loose. Underneath it, a white skintight shirt hugged his body snuggly, showing off his well-defined arms, which only made me realise how lacking my arms were.

I was the definition of no muscle definition.

Somehow, Maggie was no longer there. I didn’t see where she went and honestly, in that specific moment, as the flowers swayed to the beat of the wind, my heart was kinda doing a dance of its own, to the same rhythm.

Fuck.

I put whatever I was feeling aside. In the meantime, I was not going to let myself “feel” anything. I just focused on the beautiful scenery that surrounded me.

“This is beautiful.” I said, taking a few hesitant steps inside. I mean should I actually go in or wait for him to invite me? I was so overthinking unnecessary shit.

“You can come in you know” Thomas said. He clipped what looked like a weed and threw it in a trash bag that hung from the gazebo. 

“I didn’t take you for a gardener” I sauntered a bit forward, still infatuated by the intricate colours of the garden.

He looked me in the eyes, which he does quite often while talking to me, “You don’t know anything about me so why are you surprised?”

“Fair point well made.” I strolled to the right pathway, which was leading to a circular path around the gazebo. Thomas was walking around too, and soon enough we were going in circles. Literally and figuratively. Not only with our bodies, but with our conversations too.

“Lavender” he said as I passed by the lavenders. He'd say the name of each genus of flowers I’d pass by, and then continue our conversation. “…I planted those with Mags”

“Maggie seems like a nice lady, is she your grandma or?”

“No she isn’t,” he saw me reach the dark purple patch. “Irises.”

“Oh I thought she was from your family since she lived here”

“Just because we’re not related doesn’t mean she isn’t family”

“Another fair point.”  I gave him credit for that too. He did give off an intellectual impression whenever he talked, moved, or even looked, which I found very attractive—No. feelings were not allowed.

I don’t really know how the day dragged on, and I don’t really remember much of it, but somehow, and after taking 2 flights of stairs, and about three hallways, I ended up in Thomas’s bed.

NO, not that kind of thing. No touching whatsoever was involved. We were just lying comfortably in his bed, in an “|/” shape, just talking.

His house was bigger than my future. It was a huge mansion, and that cottage was just Maggie’s and her husband’s, who were the housekeepers. Thomas's Garden is a personal effort to establish and he built the gazebo with Maggie's husband.