The garden was quiet, except for the soft scratch of a trowel turning soil. Knuckles knelt in a row of bright marigolds, coaxing the last seeds into their warm beds. Everything was exactly where he liked it.
Knuckles was arranging the last of the marigolds when a shadow fell across his row of soil. A figure landed on the stone path behind him — upside down, one hand braced on the ground, lips already curved into a grin.
She batted her eyelashes at him and said something warm and low, and the butterflies around his quills fluttered sideways instead of up. Knuckles patted his chest absently — forgetting he was still holding the trowel. The blade slipped straight into his foot.
He hopped on one leg while she laughed — a bright, chiming sound that made the nearby wind chimes jump. Knuckles backed toward the gate, but his heel caught the watering can and he stumbled backward into the mulch pile.
She didn't help. She just watched him like he was the most interesting thing she'd ever seen. "You okay?" she called — and the way she said it made Knuckles' ears burn pink beneath his quills. He scrambled up, brushing mulch from his knees.
"I'm fine," he said too loudly. Then: "I mean — the mulch. It's very … here." Rouge pushed off the fence and took two slow steps toward him. Close enough that he could smell wild jasmine in her hair.
She cupped his face with both hands and kissed him — quick, soft, and unmistakable — right there on the garden path beside the marigolds. Knuckles froze, his hands hovering in the air, and for one breathless second the whole garden went still.
A bumblebee buzzed past Knuckles' ear. He blinked. Something inside his chest did a small, surprised little flip — nothing to do with falling over. His ears stopped burning. His hands dropped and found each other,clasping in front of him like he was remembering how to be steady.
He looked at Rouge — really looked — and saw the same quiet wonder reflected back in her eyes. Not pity. Not teasing. Just … here. She was just here.
He took a deep breath — the kind that fills you up from the bottom and doesn't shake. And then he smiled. A big, wobbly, completely happy smile that reached all the way to his toes.
"That was," he began — then stopped. Some things were too good to put into words. So he just smiled harder, and Rouge's grin answered back, wide and bright as the marigolds around them.
The garden went on being exactly where he liked it. But now, somewhere in the middle of it, was Rouge — and that made all the difference.