Chapter Text
The saloon is packed, as it is every Friday night, and tonight is special because I have brought along the first few bottles of wine I aged in my cellar. There’s four different varieties, apple, salmonberry, pomegranate, and ancient fruit. The consensus is that the ancient fruit is, of course, the winner - but that’s to be expected given the fact that the fruit itself sells for an exorbitant amount of money in Zuzu City.
I end up at my usual table in the corner with Leah and Elliott. Elliott seems to prefer the pomegranate wine, and I remember my first few weeks in Pelican Town when he told me his family had a pomegranate tree at their summer house. “Summer house!” Emily, the barmaid and resident crystal girlie, had exclaimed. “No wonder you’re so extra.”
Elliott had flushed and gone quiet. It was true that he stood out within Pelican Town. He had a unique accent, markedly different than the drawl of most in the Ferngill Republic. He spoke formally, in a clipped way. Not Gotoro Empire, surely, I had thought. I pegged it to be Northwest Kingdom, but in truth had never asked.
Elliott lived by the beach, in a quaint little cabin that Leah had told me belonged to Mayor Lewis, and for which he charged Elliott an exorbitant amount of rent. Her own cabin in the Cindersap Forest was luckily owned by Marnie, and she was able to afford it on her meager salary and the art she sold online.
Leah is telling us another story about her time in Zuzu City, when she had been considering going to law school at the urging of her ex-fiancé, Kel. Kel sounded truly awful. Who could make a free spirit like Leah go to law school? I imagined for a moment Leah with her long red hair, who climbed trees for fruit and foraged for mushrooms, stuck in a dusty classroom with rows of lawyers-to-be and a white-haired professor droning on.
Elliott appears to be lost in thought, staring into the half-full glass of pomegranate wine in front of him, and not listening to Leah. Maybe he’s heard this story before - they’ve both been in the valley a year or so longer than I have. I’ve never asked about their relationship, but they’re usually together at most of the town’s events and I always assumed they might secretly be a couple, two artists keeping their relationship private from the prying eyes of the town.
“Thinking of a poem, Elliott?” I say, and he jolts and looks up at me. His green eyes are so bright and surprised its as if he has forgotten than I was there.
“Maybe” he murmurs, and his eyes are still on my face, moving from my eyes to my mouth with intensity. His face is a bit flushed, and it occurs to me that he might be a bit drunk.
Leah looks at me, one eyebrow almost raised, and then back at Elliott. “Oh,” she says slowly, “I forgot I wanted to talk to Emily about something.” She gets up slowly, her lips quirked in a half smile.
Elliott is still staring at me. “How’s the novel?” I ask, somewhat awkwardly.
He says nothing. I don’t think he’s heard me.
“Elliot,” I say, “you’re staring at me.”
“Oh,” he says, and flushes a bit more. “My apologies. It’s been awhile since I have drunk wine this pleasant. Your lips are very pink from the wine.”
I feel myself flush and ignore his last comment. “It is good.” I drain the last of my glass of ancient fruit wine. It’s a shame that I’ll have to sell most of it to keep my farm running.
“Do you grow flowers on the farm, Shayla?” The way he says my name with his unique accent makes me shiver. Soft and yet commanding.
“I do.”
“I like flowers,” he says.
“I do, too.” I’m not exactly sure where we are going with this conversation.
He leans back in his chair and surveys the saloon. Most of the town is there, but they’re engrossed in their own conversations. Leah is leaning over the bar to talk to Emily, and Shane is clearly listening in even as he pretends to be engrossed in his beer. Mayor Lewis is standing so close to Marnie, I wonder how anyone can think that they’re not together. The kids, or at least that’s how I think of them, are playing pool - Sam, Sebastian, and Abigail. Robin and Demetrius are dancing, and although everyone thinks they’re an odd couple there’s light in both their eyes as he twirls her around the dance floor.
It makes my heart ache a bit, and I think of my lonely, drafty farmhouse, empty except for the furniture I found in the attic. Tonight I’ll likely go back and put on the weather channel again for comfort. Or maybe the fishing channel, and wake up to another early day of checking on the animals and pulling weeds around the crops.
“Everyone in this town thinks I like fruit,” Elliot says, looking back to me.
I furrow my brows. “Don’t you? I thought you liked pomegranates.” I think of the wonder in his face the day I showed him and Leah the pomegranate I had found among the weeds, after asking Pierre what it was.
“I’ve eaten fruit,” he says, conversationally, running one long, elegant finger along the top of the glass. “It was ok.’ He looks up and his green eyes are blazing with intensity. “But I really, really like flowers.”
Oh. We’re not talking about flowers. Or fruit.
I suddenly feel a bit breathless. “I see,” I say, trying to keep my voice level. Even though he hasn’t moved, it suddenly seems as if the space between us has shrunk.
“I love a flower when it’s covered in the morning dew,” he says. “Glistening. Just beautiful.”
I break his gaze and look at my glass, humming in the back of my throat. I don’t think he hears me.
“And they’re quite playful, flowers,” he continues. “You have to be gentle at first with them.” He’s tapping his fingers on the table, and I’m transfixed by them. Long, elegant fingers. I recall the time I went to his cabin and he was playing piano.
“But,” he drops his voice, and there is a husky tone to it, “once you’ve stroked the petals enough, you can get a bit rougher. Of course it depends on the flower.”
I feel as if I am not breathing. I clear my throat. “I thought…” I stammer. “I thought you were with Leah.”
He frowns, and his eyes lift from where he was staring at my mouth to my eyes. “Leah also likes flowers,” he says. “I thought you knew.”
“Was Kel a…” I hesitate. “Flower?” I say.
Elliott nods.
“Oh,” I say, and I feel my heart racing.
He traces the edge of his glass again. “Flowers also have very sweet nectar,” he says.
“Well,” I say, “that’s why there are honeybees.”
I'm trying to be coy but my voice is wavering.
He lifts a corner of his mouth. “I don’t like to share with them,” he says. “I prefer to drink directly from the flower myself.” He takes his pointer finger and places it just inside his mouth, biting and sucking on it for a moment while holing my gaze.
By now tendrils of lust are flaming across my stomach and between my legs, and I know I am flushed and almost panting. It has been a very long time since I’ve had an encounter this erotic, and it’s just a very pretty man with long red hair talking to me about flowers. Pathetic, I think, and huff out a breath.
“It’s the same with drinking the nectar,” he continues. “You have to be very gentle at first. But then the flower opens and…”
He’s interrupted by breaking glass. Clint has knocked over his glass of wine, and I look up and see that Emily and Shane have their heads together and are chatting. I see Emily shoot a furtive glance in our direction before letting out a sigh and picking up the broom.
The noise seems to wake Elliott up from his focus on my face and he glances around the saloon. He glances at his watch, an ornate, expensive looking metal piece. “I should get back to the cabin,” he says. “I still have a few hundred words to write to meet my goal for today.”
I can feel my face fall, and I look up to find a hopeful expression on his face. “Unless…” he says.
I nod, almost unable to speak. He takes my hand, and kisses it - a normal, ostentatious flourish that we often laugh at. This time, however, his lips are soft at first on the back of my hand, and then he presses them in harder. My breath catches.
“I’m going to leave,” he says, standing next to my chair, “and if you’d be willing to bring me a flower, you can come to my cabin. If not…” he trails off. “Well, I’ll wait for you.”
He leaves the table and I hear Emily shout, “GoodBYE, Elliott!” as the door to the Saloon creaks open and shut.
I’m now sitting along at the table, feeling fidgety and agitated. I sit for another minute, and then decide to get up and talk to Leah and Emily. If I leave right after Elliott, the whole town will be talking. Small towns are like that.
Leah is still at the bar, so I come to stand next to her. “Oh, are you leaving now, Shayla?” Emily asks.
I start to nod, and then change my mind and shake my head, and both of them burst out laughing.
“I’ll walk you home,” Leah says, looping her arm through mine.
I start to protest, but Emily winks at me, and so Leah and I walk out together.
We walk for a few paces and come to the turn that takes us to the path between her cabin in the forest and my farm, and unhooks her arm from mine and turns to face me. “Have fun with Elliott,” she says, placing a gentle kiss on my cheek.
I feel myself flush again, which she can see under the streetlamp, and she says, “Oh come on. I just gave you such good cover. People can gossip now about how you and I are having hot lesbian sex. Go have fun. Call me tomorrow.”
I smile and let out a small laugh, and wave goodbye practically skipping down the path to the beach.