In the Moment//Ed Sheeran

T.H.R.E.E

Ed

June, 2007

I rode down the street on my bike, looking between the house. There was a short, chubby woman checking her mail, sorting through it at the box. When she spotted me, she waved. "Hi! Can I asked you something?" She called. I slowed a bit and stopped on the curb besides her.

"Sure." I replied.

"I know this is a bit weird, but it seems like no one in this damn town does lawn work, and my back yard looks like hell. There are some weeds that need to be pulled and the grass needs to be mowed. I'll give you seventy five pounds if you do that for me."

I looked around left and right. I had thought that she was one of those crazy women who hit you over the head with a rolling pin once you were inside and kept you chained to her deep freezer as a sex slave. "I don't know. I've never met you before."

At that moment, the door to the house banged open and shut again. I looked past the woman and found Bethany, sipping from a tumbler, a book held up to her face. "Oh, Bethany." I said. It was like she had been yanked from my imagination. I had been thinking about her for days, unsure of why.

The woman looked back at Bethany. "Oh, you must be Ed!" She cheered. "Bethany's told me all about you." She winked at me. My whole body felt hot. Bethany looked up from her book.

"Ed!" She said, flying down the stairs and over to where I was. Her hair was up in a ponytail and it bounced, reflecting her secret personality. She had her book, worn out and dogeared, pressed to her chest. It was the same one she had been reading when we went to the beach the other day. "Mom, this is Ed. He's Minnie's kinda-boyfriend."

I felt my cheeks grow red. Mina's kinda-boyfriend sounded much better than being her on and off boyfriend. "Oh that's great. I asked Ed if he would help you with the backyard since you can't do it alone."

The thought of being so impossibly close to Bethany sent me over the edge. I knew that I would have turned Mrs, Cartwright down if Bethany hadn't been her daughter, but because she was, I jumped on the idea. It was highway robbery  practically. She would pay me seventy five pounds to do something I would have done for free. "Sure," I said, a bit overly eager. Mrs. Cartwright's  eyes widened.

"I just got something!" She shouted per her shoulder, hustling towards the house. "Beth, sweetie, please show Ed to the backyard. I'll be in my study if you need me." The door slammed shut after her and I was left alone with Bethany. She wore a plain, baby blue t-shirt with a circular neckline. This did nothing to take away from the fact that she had breast, and not only were they bigger than Mina's, but she wasn't wearing a bra either. I felt like a pervert staring at her that way when she wasn't even my girlfriend.

Bethany crossed her arms and looked towards the door which her mother just went through. "She gets ideas and she hates losing them."  She explained. "Come on to the back."

I left my bike on their front lawn and went inside with her. A lot f things were still in boxes, but their house was large and nice, despite its age. I followed close to her, smelling her scent as it swam from her body as to my senses. I didn't want to look at the back of her head, so I looked down. Her shirt was tucked into her pants and she wore a belt around her hips although it looked like her pants fit fine.

We walked through French doors outside. Mrs. Cartwright hadn't lied; the backyard did look like hell. "I want a flower garden." She said softly, setting down her book and walking over to the rotting chairs. "My mom can't garden at all and my dad is a business man. My mom said she'd fund me if I wanted to redo the garden."

"Yeah?" I said, looking around. The backyard had great potential, but the house had been vacant so long that the weeds had overrun almost everything. "Look, your mom doesn't have to pay me. I'm not doing anything, so I'd love to help you."