Nine Years of Heat

Claire counted the reasons Ollie Thorne was currently occupying the prime real estate next to her Amorphophallus titanum.

One: He was standing on the gravel path where the sprinkler heads were supposed to be, effectively blocking the drainage. Two: He had pitched a navy blue dome tent, zipped shut like a sleeping cocoon, directly between the flower and the thermometer station. Three: He was humming. It wasn’t a tune, just a low, rhythmic vibration that sounded suspiciously like he was trying to vibrate the heat out of the air himself.

It was seven-fifteen. The hothouse locks at eight sharp, a rule Claire had enforced since the incident with the escaped tarantulas in ’19. If Ollie didn’t pack up his thermal sensors and his pretentious equipment by then, he would be spending the night in the humid dark, listening to the corpse flower uncurl the secret it had kept for nine years.