Chapter 24

BENNY

I'm kicked back in the greenhouse on the foldout chair I brought with me. There's a class on across the other side, but Harrison is working hard on whatever it is in front of him, and I tagged along because I'm a moron who has a boyfriend, and apparently, that makes me a little obsessed.

"Why don't you play anymore?" Harrison asks without looking up from the notebook he's scribbling in.

"Play what?"

"Hockey. I'm guessing you played for a while to get the body you have."

"Basically my whole life."

"So …"

I make a farting noise with my mouth because I goddamn hate talking about it. "I'm sort of a … legacy. My two older brothers played, and Asher was cocky enough to win the Stanley Cup in his rookie year. You think I'm a pain in the ass? You should meet him."

"It sounds like you had a future there, then. What happened?"

"I hated it."

Harrison looks up at last. "Why'd you play for so long, then?"

"It's not the sport I hate. It's the pressure. The media. The way they treated my brothers, especially Asher, was fucked-up, and then I went back and saw some of the things they wrote about West before he left to look after us. My brother was wild, but it went too far."

"I'm really sorry."

"Me too."

"If you don't like the media, then why are you looking at sports journalism?"

"It's easier to change things from within than without. Those fuckers need stricter guidelines."

"Yeah, but they don't have those guidelines because the more sensational what they're reporting, the more it sells."

"I know that, but …" I bounce my foot where it's rested on my other ankle. "There has to be a better way. I hate that they can hurt people and get away with it. When Em and I were headed for the draft, they dug up everything about our parents. It's all we heard about. If we think they're proud of us, how they'd feel if they were alive. How the fuck were we supposed to know that? We were eight when they died. We barely remember them. Em felt guilty about that, and every time some fucking reporter asked some variation of the same question, he died a bit inside. It's why I got us the fuck away from there. I got tired of seeing my brother drowning." And I got tired of drowning myself. The constant doubt about whether I'd have any skill at all without Em was eating at me.

Harrison smiles my way.

"That was supposed to be a depressing story. Why the fuck do you look so happy about it?"

The bastard is smug as fuck when he says, "You talked feelings to me again."

I cross my arms. "I'm gonna cut my tongue out."

"Not allowed. I have too much fun with that tongue."

He sure does. I finally got his dick in my mouth the other day, and he was begging by the time I was done with him.

"We could be having fun with it now, but you're all wahh schoolwork."

"Sorry I don't have a twin brother to do it for me."

"Fuck you very much. I went to class today, didn't I?"

He hums and looks pointedly toward my bag on the floor. "And you're supposed to be reviewing it."

Reviewing it isn't going to help when it's like reading another language. My brain was screaming at me the whole time I tried to note, word for word, what Professor Brooks was saying. None of it makes any sense.

I'm well and truly fucked, but I can't tell Harrison that.

"If you're not going to study, want to help me so we can get out of here?"

"To fuck?"

"To go to the library and study."

I pretend to die in my chair.

"Come on, Benny. You'll feel better once you've wrapped your head around it."

All lies, but I pull my ass up anyway and head his way. "What first?"

"I'm going to do some pruning, and I'll get you to make up some more baking soda spray. All the shit we need for it is down there." He points toward the lower shelf of a metal cart.

I duck down and glance between the mix of unfamiliar things.

"Grab the spray bottle," he says.

I pick it up.

"How much is left in there?"

I look from him to the bottle and back again. Then I lift it higher so he can see. "Ah … this much."

"It needs to be a liter. The measurements are on the side, so check what's in there and top it up."

My eyes go unfocused, brain chugging along at a snail's pace. "What the fuck is a liter?"

"Metric system, baby. Just under … about a quarter of a gallon."

"A gallon." My cheeks are getting hot, and my tongue feels too fat to swallow. Right. I know what a gallon is. We constantly had milk in the fridge growing up. So, if a gallon is that and this spray bottle is this size, and then it needs to be a quarter … it means … it means …

I toss the spray bottle back on the cart with a forced laugh. "No way am I doing that while you get to massacre a tree. Budge up, I want a turn."

"We're not massacring my babies."

I lean in to inspect Stacy. "That leaf looks kinda brown."

"It's not."

"How do you know?"

"Because she's perfect. Seriously, I just need the spray to keep them safe from bugs. These guys need to be perfect."

Shit. Distract, distract. "Why do they have to be perfect?"

"Because I want to show people how beautiful plants are. How they thrive with the proper care. If we look after them?—"

I let out a loud snore. "Tell them about the poison."

The look he gives me is all indulgence. "Not every plant is poisonous."

"Look, you know I adore you, and Stacy is my most favorite girl ever." I blow her a kiss. "But I'm sorry, if you want people to care, you have to talk about cool shit."

His whole face morphs into confusion. "But plants are cool!"

"Yeah, of course they are. I know." I'm totally fucking lying. "But you have to make them cool for other people."

"I'm trying."

"Are you though?" I throw a look at Rich. "Zero shade to Rich, but who hasn't seen a rose before?"

"Women love roses?"

"No." I gesture at Stacy. "Women love death. Women want to hear stories about carnivorous plants out for revenge. Ones that slowly strangle the lives from their partners."

Harrison gives me a blank look. "You really know nothing about plants. Or women."

"Maybe, but find me a woman who wouldn't rather learn about how to make poisons for their enemies from plants."

He grunts and pets Rich. "Women are weird."

"Hey, you're the one who's attracted to them."

"So, if that's what women want, what do men want?"

"Sex."

Harrison's gaze runs hotly over me. "For you, maybe."

"Every single, allo man wants sex. It is what it is. Why do you think it's so well known in advertising that sex sells?" I prod Stacy. "Think you can conduct a pollination porno? That'd get people interested."

"I don't think it'd be anywhere near as sexy as you're imagining."

"Ah. Damn. Then I'm out of ideas." Although … "Maybe we do the porno … on top of plants. And you ramble a whole bunch of plant facts while you fuck me. Screw having a charity event—just put it up on OnlyFans and rake in the money. If you dress up as a plant, it'd still be hot as fuck but also weird as hell, which would target two markets. Then I'm sure there's more weirdos like you with a plant fetish—Ooh! I could dress up as a bee. Your Benny-Bee. Mmm … pollinate me, Harrison."

He laughs so hard at my ingenious idea that the class on the other side of the greenhouse looks over our way.

"I take it that's a no, then."

He's wheezing. "That's a please never put that image in my head again. Oh, god. All I can picture is one of those flowers from the Alice in Wonderland cartoon, doing the creepy caterpillar. Fucking hell, Benny-Bee."

"Ah, but you like the nickname."

He sighs when he catches his breath. "That was fun, but you actually have given me an idea."

I light up, but he quickly shakes his head.

"Not porn. No costumes."

"Then …"

"People want the weird shit. Death and sex and whatever. I know weird shit. Mother nature is full of weird shit." He starts excitedly tapping away on his laptop. "Look at this."

I move beside him to see the screen and the little purple flowers on it before reading the title across the top. "The naked-man orchid—what?" My face almost hits the screen in my hurry to look, and sure enough, the purple flowers look like little men wearing flower hats with something unmistakable between their legs. "Look at their little peens."

"Cool, right?"

"Very. This is the shit people want to know about. What else you got?"

And that's how we spend the afternoon with Harrison excitedly telling me about plants.

I don't even have to pretend to be interested this time.