“Have you decided?”

Cam jumped at the voice coming from behind. He looked over his shoulder and took in the black, paint-stained work pants hanging low on Grayson’s hips and a tight-fitting white T-shirt. He had white paint on his arm and some splatter on the back of his hand.

“Decided what?” Cam straighten his back, prepared to be growled at again.

“Which beds you want.”

He rolled his eyes. “Do we need to divide them? Can’t you be civilized about this?”

“I could if you weren’t destroying everything. I want to grow food, real food, but you keep pulling up my plants.” And the growling was on.

Cam gritted his teeth. He could see the allure of growing some vegetables, he could, but Grayson was talking vegetables everywhere. Cam wanted to be able to walk out into the garden after a long day at work and soak up the sweet scent of blooming plants, watch the colors, and hear the bees buzz around.

“Fine, we’ll divide them.”

Grayson nodded. “Good. Good. I’ve eh ... I’ve already --” He narrowed his eyes as he looked out over the raised beds. “I’ve already planted garlic with the strawberries --”

“You’re saying you should have the strawberries?” Camden put his hands on his hips and glared at Grayson. He wanted strawberries too.

Grayson sighed. “No, take the strawberries, but don’t pull up the garlic.”

“If it’s my bed, I can do what I want to.”

Grayson’s jaw tensed. “Fine. Mark up the ones you want.” He swung around, his feet slammed against the ground with far more force than necessary, and Cam winced. He could’ve handled that better.

He took a step in the direction of Grayson’s house but stopped himself. It had been a long day, a long week, and he’d walked out into the garden to clear his mind, not to fight with Grayson.

Walking along the raised beds he wondered how they’d divide them fairly. They weren’t the same size and some had permanent trellises. He assumed Grayson had put them there. They’d been there before he’d moved in, but Grayson had helped Frances a lot, and putting in rebar grid trellises seemed like a Grayson thing to do. He didn’t mind much, he might have preferred something more decorative -- like the arched ones in the garden center -- but once the plants were climbing, you didn’t see much of the rough metal.

Camden walked on, noting where some of his favorite perennials grew. The problem was that Grayson had planted things around them. Radishes, or was it some kind of turnip or something? Cam couldn’t tell by looking at the leaves, and he wasn’t going to pull one up. Grayson had told him he was welcome to grab what he wanted from the garden as long as he planned to eat it -- throwing plants away was not allowed.

He sighed.

Grayson had put a lot of work into the garden already this spring. The greenhouse was brimming with seedlings, and Camden didn’t know why, but it pissed him off. He’d turn every single garden bed into chaos, putting in plants willy-nilly.

When the sound of a window opening flew over the garden, Camden jumped. Looking at Grayson’s house, he smiled. The bathroom window. It was tempting to bend and pull a plant out of a bed simply to see if Grayson would come running without clothes again. Cam sighed. He shouldn’t picture Grayson naked. He should fix some food and get some rest.