by Hart, Renee
“Oh God, oh God, oh God.” She got up and started pacing back and forth in front of Conner's display, wringing her hands.
“Hey, don't be so nervous,” Conner said. “It ain't the end of the world if we lose.”
She ignored him. All she could think about was how she was such a horrible person for going through so much effort to crush Topher's ambitions, when he hadn't done anything wrong at all. She hadn't even talked to him about her concerns. She had always thought Topher was an odd fellow, and a bit standoffish, but she should have at least given him a chance. Treated him like a human being.
The judges were only one table away. She looked between them and Conner's display, trying to think. She thought about smashing the tomato, ripping the vine up by its roots, or flipping the table over. Anything to keep from winning. But then she saw the eager smile on Conner's face. She'd dragged him into this, and it wouldn't be fair for her to ruin things for him.
She was stuck. There was nothing she could do but stand there and wait.
She stood there wringing her hands as the judges walked over to their table. She felt like she was going to throw up. She never wanted to look at another stupid tomato again in her entire life.
She forced a smile as the judges greeted them. The judges were quiet as they made their assessments. Then they thanked Tessa and Conner, before moving on. Tessa sat back down, burying her face in her hands, and silently praying for this to all be over soon.
It felt like forever before the judges came over to make their announcements. Tessa sat on the edge of her seat. She saw Topher leaning forward nervously. He looked as anxious about winning as Tessa was, though for completely different reasons.
“And first prize,” one of the judges said, “for best tomato is...Topher Caldwell!”
Tessa heaved a sigh of relief. Conner made a frustrated gesture with his hand and said, “Aww, well. Good show, anyway, right?”
Conner ended up taking third place and winning a yellow ribbon. He held it up with pride and beamed as his picture was taken. Tessa congratulated him, then headed over to Topher's table.
“Hey, Topher.”
He looked up at her, then ducked his head back down, fiddling with the leaves of his plant. “Hi.”
“I just wanted to congratulate you. You deserved this.”
A shy smile showed on his face, though he didn't quite make eye contact. “Thanks. I had a bigger one last year.” He patted his tomato lovingly, then shrugged.
She touched his arm and smiled. “Well, congratulations. I'm happy for you.”
She turned away, feeling waves of relief wash over her. She'd made a fool of herself, dragged people into her crazy scheme, and nearly ruined the biggest day of Topher's year. But at least, she told herself, things had worked out in the end.
Except, she realized, for one last problem. She still had to go home and apologize to Samson.
Chapter 13
When Tessa got home, she headed for Samson's apartment and knocked on the door. She hadn't knocked for months, but somehow, it felt like she needed to this time.
There was no answer. She knocked again, and waited. When there was still no answer, she let herself in. Samson wasn't home. Though when she looked outside she saw him out in the garden, laughing with some of the neighbors as he passed around mugs of his herbal tea.
She stood in his apartment, wringing her hands. She knew she needed to go out there and talk to him, but she didn't know what to say. “I'm sorry” was the obvious thing, but it didn't seem like enough. Looking back on her behavior over the last few weeks, she knew she'd been a complete idiot. And now that it was time to face up to it, she realized she had no idea how to do it.
She was pacing around his apartment when she saw him look her way through the window. He gave her a wave, and she paused in her pacing, waving back. He set down his mug of tea on a bench outside and entered the apartment through the back door.
“Hey,” he said, a small smile touching his lips. “How did the show go?”
“We lost.” She shrugged.
“Ahh.” He stuck his hands in his pockets, looking down at his feet.
“Listen,” she said. She chewed on her lip, trying to figure out what to say.
He waited for a moment, then smiled at her and said, “Let me guess. You realized you were being kind of an ass, figured out how wrong that was, and now you're feeling guilty?”
“See, now that's not fair!” She threw her arms out to either side. “You don't get to come in here, and be all...all...”
“Right?” he asked, a smug grin on his face.
“Well...yeah.” She pouted, looking up at him.
“Tessa, it's okay.” He stepped forward and slipped his arms around her waist. “I was just as much of an ass as you were. I just figured it out a little bit sooner.”
“So, we're a couple of asses, then. Is that what you're saying?”
He shrugged. “Well, we do seem to have a track record of making bad decisions together.”
She laughed and laid her head against his chest. “Can we do anything right?”
“We did one thing right.”
He touched his fingers under her chin to tilt her face up towards him. She smiled, fighting back tears. “You're going to be a total dork,” she said, giggling, “and say 'the one thing we did right is us.'”
He laughed and rolled his eyes. “Well, way to take away my romantic steam!”
They held each other close and laughed, then they kissed, and Tessa's worries and tensions started to melt away. She looked up at Samson, smiling, and thinking how lucky she was to have someone who was so understanding, and so willing to put up with her craziness.
“I love you,” she said.
“And I love you.”
“Just promise me one thing?”
“Anything.” He smiled and stroked her hair.
“Next time I come up with some crazy scheme,” she said, “just pour me a glass of wine, lock me in my room, and tell me to forget all about it.”
He laughed and hugged her tight. “Tessa my dear, you've got yourself a deal.”
THE END
***
If you enjoyed this book look for
Tessa's Autumn
by J.L. Starr on Amazon.com.
Crazy Sweet Love
A Sweet Contemporary Romance Novella
Flower Shop Romance Book One
MARISA LOGAN
Copyright © 2016 by Marisa Logan
All rights reserved, worldwide.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Description
Arjun Vaswani and Chleo Matthews have properly established their relationship and it’s time to set some ground rules. Rule number one: There are no rules.
They spend their time helping each other fulfill their adventurous dreams while crossing off things from their joint bucket list. According to Chleo, their relationship is virtually perfect.
There’s just one problem: Chleo is afraid of what could happen given her past relationships. She’s not ready to take their relationship to the next level yet.
When Chleo figures out just how much Arjun means to her, he drops a bomb. Could this new development drive a wedge between them?
Chapter 1
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” Chleo Matthews squeaked. Her hands wrapped so tightly around the man in front of her that her knuckles almost looked white.
“I’m not making you do anything. I’m not even holding you,” her boyfriend Arjun Vaswani teased. Their heads were covered by white plastic helmets, and they were almost 15 stories high. Wind would have blown their hair around their faces if not for the helmets, and Chleo was still shaking
with fright.
“Are you ready to sit?” Arjun asked her patiently. His hands were on a steel beam above them. They could see the entire city before them as well as the eerie streets below.
“You know this seemed like a good idea until we actually did this,” Chleo said.
“Most bucket lists work that way, my dear.”
Arjun kissed the top of her head, but he was stopped short when he found he was kissing a hard hat.
“Great. Curiosity plus adrenaline minus will to live equals bucket list,” she said. She was loosening the grip on Arjun now and doing her best not to look down. Arjun in turn wrapped one arm around her waist. It was impossible to pull her in any closer, but he tried just the same.
“No need to worry. I’m right here with you. Like when your bucket list had steal something expensive and we got that pearl brooch somehow like in Breakfast at Tiffany's. And when your list had run around a block in just underwear. What makes you think that could change now?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The looming fear of imminent death if either of us takes a tentative step in any direction? And they stole animal masks in Breakfast at Tiffany's. But I think there was a pearl brooch in it somewhere,” Chleo said once she finally released Arjun. “And we ran around the block just last week. Sweet words about staying right here with someone usually requires months or maybe even years of dating.”
“I thought three months was a good enough time as any; especially since apparently there’s the possibility of imminent death with any tentative step in the wrong direction. Maybe we should sit,” he said. His voice cracked just the slightest bit. Chleo was so concerned about her own fears that she didn’t stop to consider that Arjun could possibly be afraid too.
Chleo had written 76 things on her bucket list, and Arjun had written 53. Some of their items meshed, and they thought it was better for them to tackle those together.
Have lunch on top of an unfinished building was number 51 on Arjun’s list and Have an unusual romantic anniversary dinner was 63rd on Chleo’s. They decided to combine the two and have a picnic on a widened scaffold of a building under construction. They were both harnessed at the waist in case they fell, but that didn’t stop them both from being afraid that they were out in so much open air 15 stories up.
They were standing on a thick plank that was securely fastened to the steel beam. Chleo sat on it with her legs crossed while Arjun let his feet dangle over the edge. There was a picnic basket with wine and leftover food from the restaurant they were in the night before.
Arjun had had enough of his helmet, and he took it off of his head. His thick wavy hair flew free with the breeze. His hair was long enough to be tucked behind his ears and it was getting almost long enough to touch his shoulders. His hair was one of Chleo’s favorite things about him. Her hands were constantly in his hair, searching and exploring. It was soft and luscious and always smelled of rosemary mixed with peppermint.
Chleo watched him run his hands through his hair then. The wind blew it around his face and wouldn’t keep it still no matter how much he tried. He soon gave up and gave into the wind being in control of his hair.
Arjun had dark piercing eyes, thick eyebrows, and a prominent jawline that made him seem more serious than he really was. His lips were an unusual shade of pink and they looked beautiful against his caramel skin. He had started growing out his beard, and it gave him a different sort of allure. He looked like a scientist so involved in his work that he had no time to worry about frivolous things like shaving a beard and mustache, and Chleo would tease him about it before kissing him on both cheeks and then once on the lips.
To her (and to anyone who had functioning eyes), Arjun was gorgeous. He stood over 6 feet tall and he looked like something straight out of a magazine. Instead, Arjun was a veterinarian. His passion was medicine, but he also loved all kinds of animals. He decided to mix the two, and that was where his heart was.
Chleo was beautiful herself. She had long curly black hair, almond shaped brown eyes, and dimples in both of her cheeks. Her smile gave her an air of innocence, but Chleo could be pretty silly and vulgar when she wanted to be. She was voluptuous and was unfazed by any negative energy that told her that she needed to lose weight or do anything to change herself.
She owned Any Blooming Thing, a flower shop in the heart of the city, with her best friend of almost 20 years. A lot, but also nothing, had changed since Jessica got married almost three months prior. They were still a dynamic duo, but now Jessica had a husband and step daughter to think about. That didn’t bother Chleo though. Things changed without getting worse…but the change reminded Chleo that she didn’t have someone of her own.
She met Arjun when her friend and coworker Petey had kittens. To be honest, she wasn’t a big fan of cats, but she took it in because, to her, it was a last resort to quiet her feelings of loneliness.
“You know, once you get over the initial fear of plummeting, it's actually quite beautiful up here,” Arjun said. He scooted closer and closer to Chleo who was opening a Tupperware container. There was leftover shrimp Alfredo with black olives and salad on the side. Arjun put a hand in the container and popped an olive into his mouth.
“I’m just happy we got permission to do this and we have harnesses.”
“I guess if you’re sweet and pretty enough, you can get away with doing a lot of things,” Arjun said.
“Are you talking about yourself?” Chleo teased. Arjun scooted even closer until he was sitting with his side up against one of Chleo’s folded legs. His fingers grazed her knee. His touch was always gentle and always so sure. Chleo had no doubt in her mind that he cared about her. It was like they could both tell what the other was feeling at any given moment, even without words.
“I could be talking about both of us,” Arjun said with a smirk. His hair blew in front of his face and Chleo’s heart melted. She still wasn’t used to just how beautiful he was. And he was hers.
“I keep saying that you and I would make an amazing crime couple. We’re very smart and persuasive, you and I,” he said when he ran his hands through his hair.
“Once we get through the rest of both of our bucket lists, then it’s something I’m willing to consider,” Chleo said. Arjun tried to steal another olive from Chleo’s container, but she playfully jabbed her plastic fork in the direction of his greedy fingers. He pulled away, but she pierced an olive with the fork and fed it to him.
Arjun turned around and pulled his own container out of the basket and then picked up the bottle of wine to start fiddling with the cork. When he managed to get it open, he let the excess foam spill out into the breeze and plummet towards the earth below. He poured a plastic cup with some of the white wine and did the same to another cup.
“I’d like to propose a toast,” he said. He kept having to brush his wavy hair out of his face, and eventually he kept one hand on his head with his hair pulled back.
“What are we toasting?” Chleo asked. The butterflies in her stomach floated up towards her heart.
“Us,” Arjun said. He furrowed his eyebrows and moved his head back a bit as if to say, ‘what else could we be toasting?’
“Yeah? And what about us?” Chleo asked. She wanted to be coy. She wanted to play dumb so that he could spell it out for her. He had never said he loved her, and she didn’t want to say something like that so soon into their relationship.
Arjun’s romance was more playful than anything. She hadn’t really seen him vulnerable or extremely romantic. She didn’t want to change him, she was just curious to see how their relationship would blossom over time.
Arjun lowered his face shyly and eventually took his hand out of his hair. It wasn’t so windy anymore so the coils fell about his face and neck. She was expecting him to say something silly, and to tease her like he usually did. He used his free hand to brush against her cheek like he did the first time that they kissed. His thumb paused and grazed against her bottom lip. She smiled and turned her head to rest her ch
eek in his hand as if it were a pillow.
“I’m just grateful that I have this time to spend with you. I’m grateful that out of all the vet offices, you chose mine. I’m grateful that it’s been three wonderful months with you and it feels like the first day, and at the same time it feels like I’ve known you for a lifetime,” Arjun said. His words surprised her. He wasn’t his usual casual self. His fingers were still rubbing against her face and she looked up at him.
Words escaped her. She wanted to say the same to him. In her mind she was telling him more. She was going to let him know that she was happy that he had been there to encourage her, to remind her to never give up on anything that made her happy, and just for being the man in her life who truly cared. She wanted to say all of that, but her words caught in her throat when she thought of how happy he had made her by his words.
Chleo swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat and held onto the hand that Arjun had still rested on the side of her face.
“Happy three months, Arjun,” she finally said when she had collected herself enough. She turned her head and kissed the palm of his hand.
“Happy three months to you too, Chleo.”
Chapter 2
It was a beautiful morning in the middle of fall. The leaves on the very few trees that were in the city had faded to amber, shades of maple, to a bright pumpkin color. It was time to say hello to the pumpkin lattes and goodbye to the bright sun dresses. That didn’t stop Chleo at all though. She stepped into Any Blooming Thing in a bright green sundress with teal and darker green paisley patterns; wrapped around her waist was a thin rope belt. She had on shin high black boots, a jacket, and a big smile on her face.