“There’s a man on the porch!” Eden shouts into my bedroom before my alarm buzzes. I passed out in my stretchy shorts after stuffing my face with Indian food and I’m slow to sit up and rub the sleep from my eyes.
“What?”
Eden tugs her robe tighter across her body. She wakes up early like me, but doesn’t usually start her workday until mid-morning. “The man from the bar, who ruined your life, is on our porch. With papers.”
“Fuck.” I fling out of the bed and shove my feet into a pair of flip-flops, clacking down the steps without stopping to pee. “What could he want?” I shout this over my shoulder before opening the door and snarling, “What do you want?”
He shouldn’t look this good, leaning on a pillar with one arm above his head, his damn polo shirt clinging to muscles I never noticed before now. Before I hated him.
Ben startles and takes a step toward me, glancing up and down my body before directing his eyes to the folder in his hand. “I was hoping I could speak with you.”
“About what? More shit you want to fine me for?” I fold my arms over my chest and lean against the door frame.
He shakes his head. “No. The opposite. I want to help you.”
“I don’t need your help, fuck you very much.”
My sister shouts from upstairs. “Do you want me to call Koa to come over?”
“No. I’m fine. I’ve got the bat right here if I need it.” Eden and I have a bunch of softball bats around the house, not because we think we need protection, but because she organized a rec league one time and forgot to return the equipment.
Ben peers around my shoulder to the row of metal bats propped against the wall by the stairs and rocks back on his heels.
He drags a hand through his hair. “I messed up. I was hoping I could try again.”
“Try again to what?” I squint at him and look for signs of that triplicate notebook he pulled out of nowhere to write me a ticket. He’s got on a pair of Dickies and a belt under that polo, and the combination, frankly, works for him. God. Get it together, Eila Storm. We hate him.
Ben clears his throat. “I’d like to woo you.”
I shouldn’t laugh, but the sound escapes my throat before I can control myself. “You what? Did you say woo?”
Eden appears over my shoulder, poking my collarbone with her chin. “He said woo,” she echoes.
Ben blinks, looking uncomfortable. “I’d like to…make up for yesterday. And also see if you’ll consider maybe going on a date…with me… Romantically.”
Eden squeezes my hip. “Be gentle with him, Eila. Look how hard he’s trying right now.”
I roll my eyes so hard my stomach turns. “Why would I go out with someone who cited me for trespassing?”
“I ripped up the ticket, I swear!” He holds his empty palm up. “Can we sit? I brought something for you.”
I squint at the folder but decide it can’t hurt to look at it. “You’ve got five minutes. I have to finish applying for unemployment.”
“I have to work, too. This will be quick. Honest.”
I sit on the top step and he sinks down beside me, opening the folder. I see Adopt a Lot scrawled across a form with a lot of tiny print and a lot of boxes to fill in. Ben points a clean finger at the form. “I’d like to help you approach your beer project the right way—the formal way—and then see if I have any contacts in that department to help things move quickly for you. If we can fill this out soon, I can even have the lead test guy come out next week. He’s joining me on another inspection nearby anyway.”
I blink at the paper. It all looks very official and reads like a textbook. There’s a reason I ran far, far away from anything involving a textbook, as fast as I could. I don’t want to admit to him that the forms intimidate me; however, so I snatch the folder from him and pull it closer to my face.
I can feel him staring as I try to read the instructions. “Does this say lease? I already pay rent here,” I tell him. “I’m not paying rent to improve a piece of land that’s just sitting here rotting.”
Ben leans back a bit and stares at me. “So…you want to plant things and sell them at a profit, on land you do not own? Like…a freeloader?”
“It’s not like that.” I point at the lot. “Erosion is a thing. Blight is a thing. I’d be doing the city a favor and fixing the soil, keeping it nice. Who knows? Maybe if this lot looks nice, someone will actually buy that house across from it.” I hook a thumb at the vacant building that’s a heartbeat away from getting condemned, probably sooner if Ben has anything to say about it.
He nods his head. “I hear you. And I think you’re right, and that this lot adoption program would be great. I wanted to offer to help you with the process.”
I look at the papers again. “It says I can’t profit from anything I grow.”
He looks again. “There’s another section for what you have in mind. But there are FDA regulations. I can help. I’m great at this type of lingo.”
“Confident much?” I scowl at the forms again, seeing numbers and code abbreviations and Roman numerals galore. I definitely need his help if I have any hope of going about this in an above-board manner. “This all seems way too complicated. I swear I can grow this shit and sell it all before I even manage to translate this application.”
He shakes his head. “You can’t sell it, though. Not to any reputable brewer. I have no doubt that you’d grow the most delicious hops in all the land. Let me help you make it official.”
I fold my arms around the folder and stare at him. “What makes you so confident I can grow good hops?”
He stares at me again, intently. His eyes are brown, but in the morning sun with my blurry no-contacts vision, I can see little flecks of gold mixed in. “Because everything about you is amazing, Eila.”
I’m not sure what to make of this comment, so I stand up, keeping the folder tucked against my side. I really need to pee now and I’m dying to put my contacts in so I can actually see the outlines of things. “Come back tomorrow after work and we’ll talk.”
He seems undeterred by my brevity and holds a hand to steady my elbow as I stumble on the top step leading up to the door. I yank my arm away from him and glower. Mostly because it shouldn’t feel so arousing to have this man do something nice for me.
“Can I get your number? In case there’s a problem?” He waits a beat and fishes a pen from the pocket of his polo shirt, waving it at me.
I sigh and scratch out my cell number quickly on the folder, half hoping he can’t read my handwriting. I rip off the corner with my number and hand it to him, then stare in wonder as he slides it into his pocket, reverently patting it and grinning as he backs off my porch.