by A. J. Downey
Bright blossoms decorated the sidewalk outside her business. She had them all up in big old tin milk-cans and washtubs, rustic and simple, on rolling wooden frames so they could be brought into the store and locked up at night. It was a cute little place. Small and narrow, right on the corner and down in the basement of the old building. I went down the three steps to the door which was propped wide open and stepped into a world of polished cement floors and more greenery and blossoms than I thought Indigo City could hold.
“Hi, welcome in! Can I help you find something today?” Avery, the girl behind the counter, was adorable, and once upon a time would have even been my type. Waifish with a short blonde pixie cut, she was busy arranging roses in a vase and gave me a winning customer service smile from around the salmon-colored blooms.
“Uh, yeah, I was actually looking for Lys. She’s my roommate.”
She blinked big green eyes at me in total shock, quickly recovered, and stammered out, “Uh, yeah… Oh my, God how embarrassing, I totally forgot. Um, she’s in the chiller, through there.” She pointed down a back hallway and I gave a nod, and I have to admit, my best panty-dropping grin. She blushed furiously and I made my way through the flaps of thick clear plastic into the colder, refrigerated section of Lys’ shop.
Lys looked up from where she was clipping the end off of a stalk of gladiola before stuffing it in a giant vase overflowing with greenery.
“Hey, you!” She smiled warmly and it did things to my insides. I didn’t think the whole ‘butterflies in the stomach’ thing happened to dudes, but yeah, apparently it did, because I had them. The phone rang out front and I heard the shop-girl pick it up.
“Hey,” I said. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder and said, “I guess I haven’t been here in a minute, Avery forgot who I even was.” I laughed a little and she smiled and nodded, and looked a little nervous.
“I hope you’re not terribly offended.” I chuckled. Somehow, I didn’t think that was the real reason why she was nervous, but she didn’t have anything to worry about. I was still working on proving it, though. I’d talked to Angel; I’d even had a few text conversations with a few of the other guys. I had this big master-plan but fuck, I was nervous as hell.
“No, not at all,” I said.
“What brings you all the way over here?” she asked, leaning against the stainless steel work table in the center of her cooler.
“Was curious, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Oh, yeah? Must be pretty important to come all the way over here.”
I laughed, “You act like I trekked across the Arctic Circle; I walked six blocks, Lys.”
She smiled, shook her head, and opened her mouth to say something, but her assistant, Avery, came through the flaps keeping the cold air in here.
“Sorry to interrupt, Lys. You asked me to tell you if he ordered this week, and he just did.”
Lys’s face fell and I frowned.
“Who ordered?” I asked.
“We think it’s her ex, he’s been doing it for weeks, same request that Lys delivers it personally.”
I turned from Avery back to Lys and demanded, “Do you?”
Lys rolled her eyes. “No. I send my deliveryman, Jeremy. Doesn’t stop him from making the requests, though, and I’ll gladly take his money.” She heaved a heavy sigh of frustration. “I can’t turn down a sale.”
I held out my hand for the slip in Avery’s hand. “Give it to me. I’ll make the delivery this time.”
“Oh, Golden, I don’t know…” Lys’ voice trailed off and I could hear the distress.
“This is harassment, Lys. You have an order of protection in place for a reason.”
“Can’t prove it,” Avery said sadly. “He isn’t using his credit card and I somehow doubt that my recognizing his voice on the phone is something that will stand up in court.”
“Happens all the time,” I assured her. “Gimme the flowers, and the address.” I waggled my hand at Avery for the slip and she looked to Lys.
Lys sighed and her shoulders sagged. She nodded and Avery handed it over. I looked over the address and asked, “What am I taking?”
I took a car service using an app, the dude dubious about the arrangement of roses between my knees. I showed him it wasn’t too full, tried to not call him a pussy, and got my ride to some dentist’s office in the ritzier part of the city.
I got out and told him to wait, and he said sure; at least I had that going for me. I went into the dentist’s office and a natural blonde looked up from behind the front wrap. Her eyes lit up and she laughed, putting her hands together and pressing her fingertips to her lips.
“I keep telling him to stop this, but he won’t hear of it. They’re beautiful.” I set the dozen red roses on the counter and she stood up. I felt my stomach drop at the sight of hers. She was definitely pregnant and definitely showing.
Son of a bitch. That was just fucked-up.
“Where’s Jeremy, though?” she asked me. “He usually delivers the flowers.”
“I’m Rodrigo, I’m the new guy. Say, what does your boyfriend do for a living that he can afford to send flowers every week?”
She looked taken aback at the question and looked me over. I was in faded, comfortable jeans, a worn but comfortable gray tee, and my jacket and cut. She smiled and said, “Oh, Raymond? He’s a lawyer. Corporate stuff.” She waved her hand dismissively.
I got out one of my business cards from the ICPD. I wrote on the back of it and handed it to her.
“I'm not trying to start anything, you seem like a nice person, but it’s real fucked-up that this guy buys you flowers every week from his ex-wife’s flower shop. She has an order of protection against him for a reason. You give him this, and tell him to pick a different florist from now on.”
I handed her the card, her expression stunned and hurt, but probably not half as bad as the one that would be on Lys’ face when I told her what her douchebag ex’s master plan had been. I didn’t know what the fuck he was thinking or what he was up to, trying to shove his pregnant mistress in her face. I stopped and raised my cellphone right before walking away, and snapped the bitch’s picture.
I was pissed, and yeah, it probably wasn’t any kind of her bad, but it was. She knew that he was married. She had to by now. And if she was staying with him, that meant she didn’t care, which meant that I wouldn’t care, either.
What I cared about was Lys and how she was going to take it because I would be fucked if I was going to let it continue. I had the driver wait again outside her flower shop and went in, asking Avery behind the counter, “Have you got this?”
“What?” She turned wide green eyes on me.
“I’m going to take Lys home, have you got this?”
“What?” Lys echoed, coming out of the back room.
“Come on, we need to go home.” I stood, tapping my foot, impatient and angry, and Lys’ expression cooled and turned grim.
She nodded, took a deep breath, let it out slowly and said, “Avery, are you comfortable closing up shop on your own today?”
“Yeah,” Avery sounded surprised then got herself together. “Yeah,” she said more strongly. “Yeah, no, go on get out of here. Try to enjoy –“ she caught my withering look and the words died on her lips. Her expression grew sad, and she nodded and said unequivocally, “I’ll be fine.”
Lys was studying my face, and dread and dismay crept into her beautiful brown eyes. She went and got her things and followed me out. I held the door to our ride open. She got in without a word.
The six blocks to our apartment were driven in a silence as hard as diamonds. We went upstairs and she rounded on me as soon as I shut our apartment door.
“Tell me,” she said, and she was already shaking, expecting the worst, and it killed me that the worst was all I had to fucking give her right now. I pulled out a chair from the dining room table and she sank down into it without being asked. I sat down at the head of the table at a ninety-degree angle and pul
led out my phone.
The picture hid the broad’s stomach from view behind the big front desk wrap. I turned it toward Lys.
She pulled out her phone and scrolled back and back and back through her photos, to a picture of a man and the same woman at a candlelit table.
“Well, I kind of figured the flowers weren’t for me, Golden,” she said softly, studying the picture on my phone intently.
I gritted my teeth and was about to set off the bomb when she froze, her gaze becoming intent as she put two fingertips against the screen and opened them up. Her eyes welled and she looked up at me.
I had fucked up. I should have known she was keen, I lived with her, for Christ’s sake. She turned the image toward me, and I was looking at the edge of the mistress’ computer monitor ‒ and the ultrasound picture taped there.
“She’s pregnant?” she asked.
I closed my mouth grimly and licked suddenly-dry lips. I couldn’t even bring myself to say it. I simply nodded, cowardly fuck that I am.
She thrust my phone at me abruptly and picked up her own.
“No more flowers for her, he won’t be contacting you again,” I said and she sniffed and stood up.
“I need a minute,” she said and made for her bedroom, her heels making a clipped, sharp sound on the tile. I closed my eyes as she shut her door and I listened to her burst into sobs.
Fuck.
I waited a minute, and got up myself, putting the chairs silently to rights, back in their places, tucked beneath the table, before I went slowly up the hall. I stopped outside her door and called out gently, “Lys?”
“I’m all right,” she called back, her voice watered down by her torrent of tears.
I let myself into her room, where she lay sobbing on her side, clutching a pillow to her chest.
“Move over,” I ordered, ushering her with my hands. She hesitated, but finally put the pillow back at the top of the bed and eased back to make room for me. I dropped onto the bed on my back and pulled her to me. She rested her head on my shoulder and shuddered, hitching in a fresh set of sobs. I curled my arms around her and buried my hand in the soft fall of her hair, massaging the back of her scalp. I pressed my lips to the top of her head and murmured into her hair, just whatever came to mind.
I let off a string of Spanish, too, telling her how I felt, that she was amazing, that she didn’t fuckin’ deserve this, no one did, but not once did I tell her to be quiet or not to cry. I didn’t know how much she understood of what I was saying. I didn’t care, either.
She wet the front of my tee with her tears and I wore it like a badge of honor that I was the one to be here for her. I smoothed my other hand up and down her arm and waited for the tempest to pass. She lay quietly with me for some time, before finally drawing a shuddering breath deep into her lungs. She let it out slowly and pushed up into a sitting position and I let her go.
I looked up at her and asked curiously, “What’re you going to do?”
“Call my lawyer,” she said and I smiled at the barely-suppressed rage in her voice.
“Atta girl,” I said and sat up.
“You don’t have to go,” she said and reached across me to the bedside table for her phone. She dialed out and put it to her ear and I sat with my forearms braced on my knees as she made her call.
“Deanna Bewley-Davis, please?” she waited a moment. “Yes, this is her client, Alyssa Tanzer.” She looked as if she’d tasted something bad when she said her last name and I had a feeling she would be going back to her maiden name when the divorce was final.
“Deanna, hi, yes I know, I’m sorry.” She told her lawyer everything and punctuated her story with a demand. “I want everything I can get out of him and double the alimony,” she said. Her lawyer sounded optimistic on the other end of the phone, from what I could hear of it.
“Yes, thank you. Um, I haven’t formally informed the police of his break –“ she stopped when I emphatically nodded. Oh, yes the fuck, she had. “Um, I take that back, apparently I have.” She paused. “Yes.” Paused again. “Uh-huh, okay.” She looked at me, searching my face, her own slightly troubled, but recovering quickly.
“Thank you, Deanna. Yes. Take it to court if you have to, I’ll figure it out.” She nodded and said, “Uh-huh, thank you again. Bye-bye now.” She pulled the phone away from her ear and tapped the screen. She took another deep, cleansing breath and let it out. I put my hand on her shoulder and rubbed her arm reassuringly, delighted when she didn’t jump at my touch, figuring she was just distracted with the disaster at hand.
“You did good, there.”
She swallowed hard and said, “Deanna is going to try and argue that I never took any of the orders so I didn’t know it was Ray. I think Avery will attest that she didn’t know. I mean, I’m not really sure. I guess going through with the deliveries for as long as I have, that it could complicate things.”
I shook my head. “None of that matters,” I said. “These things are always messy and complicated and never as easy or cut-and-dried as everyone likes to think they are or should be. You’ve got no guilt, Chica. Not in this.”
She swallowed and bowed her head, pressing her fingertips to her forehead between her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Headache?” I asked and she nodded. “Yeah, my sister gets ‘em too when she cries.”
I got up and went into her bathroom, checked her medicine cabinet and plucked down a bottle of Excedrin. I got a glass of water from the tap and went back to her. She took the pills and asked, “So what did you want to ask me? Earlier. You came all the way to the shop to ask me something and then never did.”
I smiled kindly and shook my head, “It’s not important,” I said.
She frowned and looked up at me. “It was important enough for you to walk six blocks just to ask, so yeah, it kind of is.” I touched her cheek, flicking my thumb in a light caress along it but she wouldn’t be distracted. She kept her eyes locked on mine, searching my face.
“It’s not important right now,” I told her. “You should take a nap, get settled; I’ll get some dinner started.”
She swallowed hard and nodded, looking at me like she didn’t quite believe me, but I didn’t want this hanging over what I had planned in any way, so I would wait and ask her later, when she was well clear of it.
“Thank you,” she murmured when I reached her door. I turned and looked at her and lightly popped the doorframe a couple times with my fist, wishing it was her ex’s face and I was punching a lot harder.
“No problem,” I said and let her have some alone time. Well, that, and I called some of my buddies down at the station-house to have Ray picked up for violating the protection order – because fuck that guy.
20
Alyssa…
“Dinner?” Kenzie echoed in my ear. I tucked my phone between my neck and shoulder and sighed.
“Not just dinner, Kenzie! Like fancy, like a date.”
“How fancy?” she asked suspiciously.
“Like, ‘The Grotto’ fancy,” I said and tried not to wince as I said the restaurant’s name. It was someplace I had always wanted to go at least once, but it was oh-my-god expensive. You could easily drop three hundred dollars for a dinner for two, but the place was magic.
“Holy shit, Lys. This guy is taking you to ‘The Grotto’ on a cop’s salary? He’s, like, totally sprung on you. What have you been doing? Putting Viagra in his coffee?”
I snorted and shook my head, dropped the phone and bit out a curse. I picked it up off the cement floor and said, “I dropped you,” but I don’t think Kenzie heard me, she was too busy laughing her ass off on the other end of the phone. I smiled and resisted giving her the satisfaction of joining in. I was trying to be serious here. I was nervous about it.
Kenzie got herself together and said, “When are you supposed to go?”
I clipped the end off of a rose and admitted, “Tonight.”
Dead. Silence.
“When did he a
sk you, again?”
I blushed and said, “Um, the middle of the week, last week.”
“You waited a week-and-a-half to tell me about this? Lys, come on!”
“I know, I’m sorry! I guess I was still in shock and couldn’t believe that I actually said yes!”
“What are you wearing?” she demanded.
“Can’t go wrong with an LBD,” I sang out.
“Okay, you have like three little black dresses, which one? You know what, never mind, when are you supposed to go? I’ll come over and help you out.”
“Tonight, I said that already,” I said, exasperated, and Kenzie spluttered.
“Oh, what the fuck, Lys? What time?” she demanded.
I told her and there was more dead silence on the other end of the line, which I rushed to fill.
“I know, I’m sorry! I should have told you about it a lot sooner, and I was thinking the cocktail dress, you know the one –“
“With the slit up to there,” we both said in unison. We laughed.
“Yes, that one,” I said.
“Good choice! I think you should go, I think you should have a fabulous time, and I think you should let your sexy-as-sin roommate bang your brains out.”
“Kenzie!”
“What? There’s life after Ray, you know, and you should totally be living it.”
I groaned, “Why’d you have to say his name?”
She heaved a heavy sigh on the other end of the line and said, “Lys, I’m worried about you.”
“I’m worried about me, too!” I declared.
“Okay, why? Why are you worried?”
I chewed my bottom lip carefully and let out a defeated sigh; I hated talking about me and my feelings. It always felt like I was opening myself up to drama… but this was Kenzie and she hadn’t said a thing to make me feel bad about any of this, so I went with it.