Any Blooming Thing: Contemporary Second Chance Romance Novella (Clean Romantic Comedy) (Flower Shop Romance Book 1)

by Marisa Logan

  But then I realized something. I realized that if I was no longer angry, but Jimmy still was, maybe that meant that I'd hurt him more than he'd hurt me. That I'd left a deep mark on his heart that couldn't be forgotten so easily.

  I'd long since given up on being angry, but then, he hadn't really done anything to hurt me. I'd felt rejected when he moved out and left me to pay the rent on my own. But he must have felt like I'd kicked him out of my life.

  I couldn't remember most of what I'd said to him that day, but there was one thing that stuck out in my mind. I'd been the only one yelling. I'd screamed at him, unleashing my anger on him, and he'd simply stood there and taken it. And when I told him to get his stuff out and give me back his key, he'd simply said, “Okay.”

  He hadn't fought back. Our whole lives, he'd never been one to fight back. He'd taken the brunt of my rage, then spent the next six years waiting for me to be the one to reach out to him.

  Maybe, I realized, it was time for me to own up to what I'd done. He might have hurt me unintentionally with his lack of sensitivity. But I'd hurt him on purpose with my rage.

  “Can you tell him I want to talk to him?” I asked. “Tell him...tell him I don't expect him to put everything behind us. And I understand if he doesn't think I'm worth the effort. But I want to apologize to him. I think I owe him that much.”

  “I think that would help a lot,” Casey said. “I don't really know exactly what happened with you two. I just know what he told me, but that's just one side. But he's...stubborn. And I think it would really help if you made the first move.”

  I bounced Liam up and down on my knee, looking at his smiling face. If I wanted this little guy to ever be a part of my life, I was going to have to fix things with his father. “I'll do what I can,” I said. “I just hope it's not already too late.”

  * * *

  Jimmy and I traded a few emails over the next few weeks. I offered him my apologies, though it turned out not to be anywhere near as simple as that. I'd kept my first email simple, just telling him that I was sorry, that I knew I'd hurt him and I'd never meant to, and that I hoped we could set things right between us again.

  His first response was over fifteen pages long. He went on long, meandering explanations about all of the issues that had been weighing on him over the years, going as far back as when we were teenagers, on up through the time we'd spent as roommates.

  He apparently had a much longer memory than I did, listing grievances that I'd either long forgotten, or never realized were an issue.

  He spoke of the way I'd excluded him and not invited him to parties and other things when we were teens. At the time, I'd just been a teenage girl who didn't want to hang around with my little brother. But from the way he described it, it had made him feel outcast and unloved.

  He talked about similar things happening when we were living together, like the time a group of my friends and I had gone to see one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, all dressed up as pirates, without asking him if he wanted to come along. I remembered letting him tag along when he came home and saw us about to leave, but I had never realized that he thought I'd only let him come out of pity. I had never realized that he had thought I didn't want him around at all, and that I would have left him behind if not for my guilt.

  The list went on and on. Right up until the day after he moved out, when he described a story that made my heart clench in my chest.

  Back when Jimmy was living with me, we had a regular dinner Thursday night, with friends and family. It used to be me, Jimmy, Amanda, a few of our friends, and anyone we were dating at the time. It had been our regular thing for over a year, week after week.

  In his email, he described sitting in his new apartment with his girlfriend, watching the phone, waiting for me to call. I didn't remember much about that particular Thursday night, except for a few of my friends asking me where Jimmy was and why he wasn't at dinner. I'd told them he was mad at me, and then waited to see if he would come by the next week.

  He hadn't shown up the next week, or the week after, and before I knew it, years had passed.

  What I'd never known was that he'd been waiting for my call. That he'd assumed he was no longer welcome, because of the way I'd spoken to him the day he moved out. And he told me that not being invited back had convinced him that I must never have loved him at all.

  I sat at my computer and cried when I read those words. For so long, I'd thought he never called, never came over, never reached out to me because he was angry. I'd never realized that it was because he felt unloved.

  Conner came over for dinner that night. I was still in tears when he got to the apartment. Ari let him in, then retreated to her room. Conner found me in the living room, trying to wipe away my tears.

  “What's wrong?” he asked. He dropped to one knee beside my chair and took my hands in his, looking up to me with deep concern in his eyes.

  “Nothing. I...” I shook my head. “It's just, family stuff. My brother.”

  “Oh. Is there...can I do anything for you?”

  I smiled at him and stroked his face. I'd never explained the extent of my family drama to him. He knew I was estranged from most of my family, but that was it. Unless, of course, Ariella had explained any of it to him.

  “I think this is something I have to do myself,” I said.

  “Okay.” He frowned in concern and kissed my hands.

  “But I could use a hug.”

  He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight. I buried my face against his shoulder and cried while he stroked my back and whispered soothingly in my ear.

  I eventually calmed down enough for us to have dinner. But I was distracted for the rest of the night, thinking about everything Jimmy had said. And wondering, were I to reach out to Amanda in the same way, if she'd have as long of a list of grievances against me as our brother had.

  I didn't know if I could face those sins. But if I wanted to mend the rift in our family, I realized that I was going to have to be the one to fix everything. And I had no idea how to do that.

  Chapter 12

  A few days before the start of the new school year, I convinced my brother and sister to meet me at our dad's house. Dad took Ari and Casey off to play XBox in order to give us some time to talk.

  We sat in Dad's dining room, surrounded by awkward silence. I noticed Jimmy's hands were shaking a bit, and I worried that he was going to have another panic attack. I sat across from him, taking a deep breath to steady myself, and I spoke in a calm and quiet voice.

  “I've had a lot of time to think about everything. I know there's a lot of problems between us. And I know a lot of it is my fault.”

  Amanda crossed her arms and turned away from me, refusing to meet my eye. Jimmy sat there quietly, looking down at his hands.

  “I want you both to know that I'm really sorry for the things I've done and said. I really didn't mean to hurt you. Either of you. I think that back then, before we all stopped talking, I used to have a lot of anger in me. I was still hurting over what happened with PJ. I was under a lot of stress. And that doesn't excuse the way I treated you, but that's how it is.”

  Jimmy looked up at me. He had a pout on his face, but at least he didn't look angry.

  Amanda glanced at me and asked, “So, that's it? You say you're sorry, and we're just supposed to leave it at that?”

  I sighed. “I don't know. I don't expect you to just forgive me just like that. But I hope maybe you can realize I'm a different person now than I was back then. I've grown up a lot. I've been trying to be a good mom. I've been back in school finally. I finally met a new guy and we're really happy together. And I feel like I've been maturing and I'm on a good path in my life.”

  “Good for you,” Jimmy said. “But just because you're doing better doesn't make you a better sister.”

  I pressed my lips together to keep from snapping back at him. Six years ago, I'd snapped at him and driven him away. I didn't want to do that again.


  “I'm not going to say I'm a good sister. What I'm saying is I want a chance to try to be one. I want to know what's been going on with your lives. Jimmy, I want to get to know your wife and son. Amanda, I want to know what you've been doing, and what your plans are in life. And I want you guys to get to know Ari again. You haven't seen her since she was a toddler, but she's grown into such a bright young girl. Too smart for her own good, even.”

  Amanda chewed on her lip. “I have missed her.”

  Jimmy picked at a strip of wood on the edge of the table. “But how do I know you're not going to...” He trailed off, looking away.

  “I'm not going to be perfect,” I said. “But I'm asking for a second chance. It doesn't have to start right away. We can just get together for dinner sometime soon. And if that goes well, maybe we can all have Thanksgiving together, instead of making Dad go to three different houses like he's had to for the past few years. And we can just give it a shot. And I promise to try to be as good as I can be.”

  Amanda looked at Jimmy, but he wasn't meeting anyone's eye. “I guess,” she said. “I mean, it wouldn't hurt anything.”

  There was a long silence at the table. I looked across at my brother. “Jimmy?”

  He chewed on his lip. I tried to study his features and figure out what might be going on in his mind. I'd never been able to figure him out. But I thought he looked scared.

  When it came down to it, I knew he was the most vulnerable one here. He'd never known how to handle confrontation or complex emotions. He was probably worried that if everything got screwed up again, he wouldn't know how to react. And I didn't know how to comfort him or convince him that everything would be all right. I didn't even know if it would be all right. But I knew that we had to try.

  “Jimmy,” I said, “you don't need to decide right now. Just think about it, okay? I know Ari would like to get to know you. She's really into video games, just like you always were. I'm pretty sure she thinks she could kick your ass at those shooter games.”

  He snorted, his lips twisting in a challenging smirk. I figured that was a good sign.

  “And I think you'd like Conner, too. You guys have a lot in common. I think it'd be cool if you could be friends. At least think about it? All I'm asking for is dinner.”

  He didn't meet my eye. But he nodded. “I'll think about it.”

  Everyone fell into silence. I figured that was probably for the best. We'd made it through the talk without snapping and yelling at each other, and that was probably the most I could have hoped for.

  “So, I'll email you guys about dinner, how's that sound? We can get together at my place. If you want.”

  “Yeah,” Amanda said, shrugging. “Sure.”

  Jimmy just nodded without saying anything. I decided not to push him. I knew trying to make him talk when he wasn't ready just made him shut down.

  Amanda headed home, and Jimmy went to go get his wife and son. Before they left, Casey flashed me a grateful smile. I gave her a thumbs up while Jimmy wasn't looking. I knew she was on my side, and I was betting that she'd be able to convince her husband to give me a chance. She seemed to understand him and his emotions better than I ever could. It was probably what made them perfect for each other.

  Chapter 13

  My siblings and I had dinner together twice over the next couple of months. Things were tense, but we managed to work past it. During the second dinner, we even started laughing again when we shared some stories from our childhoods, and we remembered that there could be some good times mixed in with the bad.

  The big test came when Thanksgiving rolled around. Dad offered to cook the turkey, something he hadn't done in years, since he could never get all three of his children together in one place at the same time. But between the three of us, Dad and our stepmom, the grandkids, and of course Conner, it would be the biggest family dinner we'd had for as long as I could remember.

  Conner and I drove down to Dad's house early, with Ari in the backseat playing a game on her phone. She was about to turn eleven, and she had been trying to convince me that she needed an upgraded phone, since the one she had was now considered an obsolete model. I'd told her she'd have to make due with the one she had until I graduated from college and we could collect the rest of the inheritance. Though classes had been going smoothly enough that I was now confident I'd have little trouble graduating on time.

  Conner held the pumpkin pie in his lap in the passenger seat. It was store-bought, since I still wasn't much of a cook, but I doubted anyone would complain. “I'm really nervous,” he said when we reached Dad's neighborhood.

  “Why? You've met everyone before.”

  “Not all in one group like this,” he said. He hadn't been to the dinners with my brother and sister, since we'd been focused on strengthening our family bonds. This would be the first time he was part of a real family event with all of us.

  “You'll be fine,” I said. I reached over to squeeze his knee. “Everyone loves you. Especially me.”

  “I love you too,” he said. And while he'd said those words before, there was something more tender in his voice today. Something that made me feel like we were moving towards a new stage in our relationship. We still hadn't started talking about marriage or anything like that. And maybe we wouldn't for years. But I was confident that Conner was going to be in my life for a long time.

  When we got to Dad's house, I started helping him and my stepmom in the kitchen. Conner and Ari went off to play Xbox, and when I went in to check on them later, I saw that Jimmy had joined them.

  Jimmy and Conner were trash talking each other with friendly grins while they hacked each other up with some kind of chainsaw machine guns. I watched them playing their game and I smiled, glad that they were starting to bond, even if the virtual violence of male bonding was strange to me. But then again, Ariella snuck up behind both of them and stuck a grenade to one of their backs, blowing them both into a million pieces. So if it was a strange sort of bonding, at least she was a part of it, too.

  When dinner was almost ready, my stepmom asked me to go upstairs and fetch some extra chairs from the storage space. Since the boys were still too busy killing each other, I decided I could haul the chairs down by myself. I headed upstairs, then into the upstairs bathroom, then opened the little crawlspace door tucked away next to the bathroom sink. I flipped on the light and crawled inside, wondering what the early 1900s architects had been thinking when they designed this house.

  I crawled back among boxes of Dad's old junk, then moved his Festivus pole out of the way (Dad had always been a big Seinfeld fan). Right next to the folding chairs I found an open box, and I caught sight of a picture of Grandma lying on top of it.

  I picked up the picture and looked at it. Grandma looked like she was in her twenties, and she had a smile on her face like I'd never seen on her when she was alive. I sat there staring at the picture, wondering what her life had been like back then. I wondered what had changed when she grew older to make her so strict and unforgiving. I sighed and shook my head. I still regretted never having the chance to get to know her. Though I knew it was long since too late for that.

  But as I dug through the box, I realized that it might not be so late after all. I pulled the box out and carried it downstairs with me, forgetting all about the extra chairs. I set it at the end of the dining room table and started pulling stuff out.

  “What are you doing with that?” Dad asked when he saw the box. “I forgot that was up there.”

  “Just wanted to see what's inside,” I said. I pulled out a few more pictures, then a folder with a watermarked certificate inside. It was Grandma's security clearance for when she worked at the FBI. I looked through the rest of the papers in the folder, then showed them to Amanda. “Looks like that's one mystery solved. Grandma was a secretary. She needed a security clearance because she was the one typing up all the top secret documents.”

  “Whoa.” Amanda flipped through the pages, a wide-eyed look on her face. “Go
Grandma. And here I was thinking she was a secret agent at Roswell or something.”

  I dug deeper into the box, then pulled out something that I handed to Jimmy. “Looks like Grandma had an old coin collection.”

  He started pulling the coins out, checking their dates and looking them up on his phone. “Some of these are actually pretty rare,” he said. “They might be worth something.”

  Ari stuck her head over my shoulder, which reminded me of just how tall she was getting. Another year or two and I'd be stretching up to reach her. I dug out an old photo album and set it on the table in front of her. I flipped the book open and said, “Now, see, Ari. These are called 'photographs.' Back before everyone had smartphones and Instagram, you had to get them developed as hard copies like this.”

  “Mom, stop,” she said, smacking me on the arm. “You're such a dork.”

  I laughed, and we sat down for dinner, flipping through the old photo album while Dad carved up the turkey. We passed pictures around, trying to make guesses about who some of these people were and what they had meant to our grandmother. Dad managed to fill in a few of the answers, but a lot of the people in the pictures were strangers even to him.

  We passed around the old memories, sharing in good times, old and new. I reached under the table and held Conner's hand. I wondered if one day, he and I would have children of our own, then grandchildren, who might one day dig my old cell phone out of the attic and start flipping through the pictures, wondering about the people who had been part of my life.

  I decided today was a good time to make sure I preserved these moments, so that even after I was gone, they wouldn't be forgotten. I made everyone gather round, then set a timer on my cell phone's camera and perched it against Grandma's box. I hurried over to join my family, Jimmy on one side, Conner on the other. And we posed for the first family photo we'd shared in half a decade. Though I was sure it wouldn't be the last.