They'd been at it from eleven to two, hauling macetas from the porch to the backyard like it was some kind of marathon no one signed up for. Well—no one except Amor, who treated the whole thing like her personal meditation retreat. Matthew, on the other hand, was convinced he'd died sometime around noon and this was his punishment. Not the lifting—that he could handle. It was the smell of wet soil, the sticky heat, the cling of sweat, and the unforgiving summer sun pressing down like a hand on the back of his neck.
"How much more?" Amor asked, sweeping the back of her hand across her forehead, the hose still running like a halo of mist around her. This was supposed to be Matthew's job—lifting the pots, moving the sacks. But somewhere along the way she'd roped him into her full-blown landscaping fever dream, and somehow he hadn't stopped her.
"That's the bloody last one," he groaned, dropping the pot with a thud. His sando had given up the fight a long time ago, plastered to him like tissue paper. He tugged it off in defeat, tossing it over his shoulder and dragging a towel across his chest.
Amor kept watering, sunlight catching the droplets like glitter. Matthew clenched his jaw. This was miles beyond their deal. If agreements had borders, she'd crossed the border, set up camp, and applied for dual citizenship. And if he weren't bound to his own stupid terms—if he weren't doing this penance for the favor he'd asked of her—he might've flung a handful of dirt right at her smug, sunlit face.
But he'd asked her for something big. Something she wasn't sure she wanted to give. So he was here, sweating and loyal and irritated, doing little good deeds like a kid working off a debt for a shiny new game console.
"So… about the thing." Matthew finally said it, still breathing like he'd been wrung out and hung to dry. If anyone else in the house had been home, he was sure there would've been iced tea, snacks, maybe even a mercy sandwich. Instead, the universe had decided he deserved heatstroke.
Amor's smile faltered—barely, but enough. The shift was so small it might've been a shadow passing overhead, but Matthew felt it like a drop in air pressure before a storm. She looked at him the way a witness looks at a defendant she knows is guilty but wishes wasn't.
She exhaled—not her usual dramatic sighs she used when gossiping or hating her hair, but a real one. Heavy. Honest. She opened her mouth like she might actually answer him.
Then the hose lifted.
Matthew didn't even have time to process it before a whole monsoon crashed down on him.
"What the hell was that for?!" he sputtered, dragging water off his face in handfuls. For a second he looked like he might commit horticultural homicide—rip up every plant they'd spent the past three hours nurturing, maybe uproot the entire backyard just to prove a point.
"Be patient," Amor said, maddeningly calm as she shut the hose. "We're not even done yet."
Be patient.
Be patient.
If only she knew what patience meant to him. Sitting through her endless chismis about people he'd never met. Listening to rants about a bad hair day that had apparently changed the course of human history. Her dream job. Her dream life. Her dream everything. And he took it—every word, every tangent—because he had asked her for something impossible, and he needed her to say yes.
"We had a fucking deal," he managed, though his voice sounded strangled, like it was trying to escape his throat.
"And we agreed—after we're done!" she shot back. "Come on! We still have a long way to go!"
They didn't. They were basically done. But she needed time—he could feel it in the way she didn't meet his eyes, in the way she kept talking just a little too fast, too bright. She was stalling. Buying seconds like they were currency.
"Amor—?"
"Oh my god! Felix!" she blurted, whipping around so fast Matthew almost got whiplash by proximity.
Why the hell is he here? Didnt he had something to do? It registered in his mind that Amor didn't specifically said Felix couldnt come, she might've implied he was busy, but never specified at what level. He groaned his mind rushing back to the scene where they nearly—
"Thank you! Thank you so much for this. Like, the merienda! I promise Ill pay you back once mama's home! Anyway sit! We're almost done!" She said takking a handful of plastic bags, placing them on the table of the shaded patio before dragging Felix like how she dragged him into this mess, only with a little bit more control as if she was handling her favorite student.
"A-Amor slow down!"
"There!" She said placing Felix beside Matthew. It made felix feel incredibly small, and to be honest, embarrassed and intimidated. He didn't know what to feel standing beside the bare chiseled man he fantasized about late in the evening.
He gulped.
"Mind telling me, why the fuck is this person doing here?" Matthew asked, slightly inching away from him—subtly in a way that he was adjusting where he stood.
Why the hell was he here?
Matthew blinked hard, like maybe Felix would disappear if he tried resetting his vision. No such luck. Of course. Amor had never actually said Felix couldn't drop by—she'd just implied he was busy. Busy how? Busy to what degree? Apparently not busy enough.
A groan crawled up Matthew's throat as his mind flickered—unhelpfully—back to the last time he and Felix had been in a room together. The almost-kiss. The almost-everything. The moment that had been so charged it could've powered all the garden lights twice over.
"Thank you! Thank you sooo much for this," Amor burst out, already reaching for a handful of plastic bags and plopping them onto the shaded patio table. "The merienda, the timing—I swear I'll pay you back when Mama gets home. Anyway—come! We're almost done!"
And just like that, she took Felix by the wrist and dragged him across the yard in the same way she'd dragged Matthew into this entire horticultural nightmare—except with a little more care, like she was guiding her favorite student through a science fair project instead of abducting him into manual labor.
"A-Amor—slow down!"
"There!" she declared triumphantly, depositing Felix right beside Matthew like she was arranging chess pieces.
Felix froze. Then flushed. He suddenly looked impossibly small next to Matthew—the broad, bare-chested, sun-drenched Matthew, all muscle and sweat with the inexplicable heroic aura that followed. Felix didn't know where to look, which part of Matthew's torso was socially acceptable to avoid staring at. Unfortunately, he'd spent the previous night not avoiding it in his imagination, which didn't help.
He swallowed, visibly.
Matthew angled his body away by exactly an inch. Maybe two. A subtle shift, like he was pretending to adjust his footing instead of admitting he was thrown off balance.
"Mind telling me," Matthew said through clenched teeth, "why the fuck this person is here?"
Amor beamed, cupping Felix's cheek before pinching like how people used to do when she was younger.
"O-O-ouch! Amor!"
"I asked this sweet little guy to come over after he was done with his chores and you know? Buh some food for us so we could take a break!"
"C-chores, but I didn't—"
She then piched his cheeks a little harder, just enough to not let Felix finish the truth.
"Let go!" Felix finally said lurching his head away from Amor, who was still comedically smiling. Matthew practically felt the exhaustion get heavier against his back. That was it—that was his limit, he had to get out of there before the two of them eat him alive.
"Anyway, since we're basically finished, I need someone to comtinue watering the plants qhile I go prepare our food in the kitchen."
Felix sighed, of course she did. She shoved the hose unto Felix's hand before skipping towards the patio.
"Wait Amor! Let me help!" Felix said walking towards Amor's direction but he paused mid-way, he didn't want to be left alone with him, after he almost invited him for a kiss.
"No! I'll be fine! Just...go on!" Quickly, she spun towards the inside of the house with the weighted plastic bags—seriously, the girl was stronger than she looked.
Amor beamed like she'd been waiting for this exact moment, cupping Felix's cheek and giving it a playful pinch—the kind adults used to attack her with when she was small.
"O-ow—Amor!" Felix squeaked.
"I asked this sweet little guy to come over after he finished his chores," she announced proudly, "and, you know, buy some food for us so we can finally take a break!"
"C-chores? But I didn't—"
She pinched his cheek harder—just enough to censor him without leaving marks.
"Let go!" Felix jerked back, cheeks flushed an alarming shade of red while Amor kept that infuriatingly cheerful smile. Matthew felt the weight of the day slam back onto his spine. Nope. That was it. He was absolutely at his limit. One more second with the two of them tag-teaming his sanity and he'd combust.
"Anyway," Amor said, turning toward the plants like she was a foreman assigning shifts, "since we're basically done, I need someone to continue watering while I go prep the food."
Felix sighed—the sound of a man resigning himself to fate. Of course she'd do this. She shoved the hose into his hands and practically skipped toward the patio, her ponytail bouncing like she was starring in her own summer montage.
"Wait! Amor—let me help!" Felix said, taking a step toward her, only to freeze mid-stride. His face dropped. The realization hit him: he'd be left alone with Matthew. The same Matthew he'd nearly kissed. The same Matthew currently glistening under the sun like a marble statue of a greek God,
"Nope! I'm good!" Amor called back brightly. "Just—go on!"
"W-wait a sec!"
And with that, she spun into the house with the plastic bags. Heavy ones. Because apparently Amor was secretly built like a Marvel side character.
And then the door swung shut.
Leaving Felix.
And Matthew.
With a hose.
And a silence loud enough to swallow them both.