Pornstar (hiatus)

Chapter 24

After parking the car, they headed to the elevator, with Warren carrying his eggplant and looking extremely uncomfortable, and Tristan berating himself for bringing all that nonsense up. He had been trying to keep things casual and comfortable between them so they could maintain the very delicate friendship they had, and now he went ahead with crap like that; what was the matter with him?
Warren always made him do stupid things.
Had he ruined it? Had he made things so awkward between them that Warren wouldn't want to spend time with him anymore after this?

The elevator ride up to his penthouse was spent in total silence, while Warren stared down at the floor, looking uncomfortable.

After unlocking the door, Tristan let him into the apartment first, where they changed into slippers and headed out to the balcony, still in that horrible, uncomfortable silence. Tristan wanted to say something but didn't know what.

"Thank you for not firing me," Warren mumbled awkwardly once they were outside. For the first time since the car, he looked at Tristan, giving him an apprehensive look.

Tristan smiled weakly. "No problem."

Warren also smiled a little. Though he still looked a bit uncomfortable, by far not as uncomfortable as before.

"Okay," Tristan continued as brightly as he could. "Shall we plant Eggward then?"

Warren giggled in a funny, light way that Tristan had never heard from him before. "Yes, let's plant him."

Maybe thing's would be alright after all?

"We still have plenty of other space," Tristan shrugged while he looked at all the empty space left on the terrace. It was, in fact, a very large terrace.
"Any ideas?"

Warren looked at him in surprise. "You don't have any other plans?"

Tristan shook his head. "Not really. I mean, we need the shelves and the sink... maybe a counter? Or at least another table. Maybe we could also get a couch or bench or something. I was thinking over there." He gestured with his head towards the large, empty part of the terrace, on the right of the apartment where there wasn't anything at all yet.

"And the rest?" Warren asked curiously while they headed towards the second bed in the outer row, the one behind the asparagus and next to the cucumbers. The raised beds didn't even make up a quarter of the terrace.

"I don't know. Maybe some more raised beds? I don't think these are going to be enough. There's a bunch of stuff I still want to plant. What about you?" Tristan asked curiously as they came to a halt in front of the raised bed where they would be planting Eggward. Warren had been reading up on plants during work, so maybe he had found something he was interested in?

Warren bit his bottom lip with a slightly hesitant, albeit excited smile that told Tristan there were apparently quite a few things he wanted to plant.
"Um... Do you like berries?" he asked tentatively while he vigorously dug his bare hands into the soil, making a large hole for Eggward. Apparently he wasn't as squarish as the day before yesterday.

Tristan grinned, both at the berries and at Warren's enthusiasm. "I love berries. We could make a berry corner somewhere." He gestured at both empty corners on the far end of the terrace, while he carefully removed Eggward from his plastic container.

"We could build a strawberry tower!" Warren said excitedly making way for Tristan to place the eggplant in the hole.

"What? A strawberry tower? What is that?" Tristan asked surprised, placing the plant in the hole and then carefully pressing down the soil around Eggward to make sure he was comfortably settled in.