by Angie Pepper
“Why’d you rip that up?” he asked.
She braced herself as she looked up into his breathtaking blue eyes. Holding on to the edge of the counter would keep her from falling in.
“Luca, you asked me what I know about women. Let me give you a bit of advice. There’s not a woman out there who wants to get the usual.”
“You don’t know the particular woman I’m dealing with.”
“Apparently, I don’t.” She held out the pen. “Write the note yourself.”
He took the pen from her hand. His fingers grazed her fingers in three separate and distinct spots. She felt the contact in every part of her body.
He picked up a fresh card from the stack on the counter.
In simple block letters, he wrote: SORRY I’M A JERK. -LUCA
He looked up at her, a devilish grin on his lips. “Hope you don’t mind me plagiarizing you.”
She shrugged. “Good luck with that,” she said.
He leaned across the counter. For a panicked moment, she imagined he was coming in to kiss her. He was so close. His wavy brown hair brushed her cheek, then he pulled away.
He hadn’t been coming in for a kiss after all. Tina had made the bouquet in one of the largest of the vases they carried. Luca was a big guy, but he’d had to carefully wrap his arms around the big arrangement. He held it to his chest, the highest orchids touching his nose. He blew them away, and they smacked him right back.
“These flowers are fresh,” he said. “I couldn’t have given you enough cash for all this. I may not know a tulip from a daffodil, but these don’t look cheap. Can I give you some more money? Take it from me. I insist. My wallet’s in my back pocket.”
Tina chewed her lower lip and considered doing it. Not for the money. Only for the back pocket. Her sister would have done it without hesitation. But Tina was not her sister, so she politely declined.
“What you gave me worked out perfectly,” she said. “If anything, I owe you change.”
“Keep the change,” he said. “Everyone loves change.”
He thanked her then fought his way through the ferns again to reach the front door. “I swear this jungle is thicker now,” he muttered.
Tina made a mental note to rearrange the ferns to make it easier for men like Luca to find their way to her.
When he got to the door, Luca said, “I can see why everyone in the ’hood has such high praise for this store.”
“Thanks. You can leave a review online, if you’d like. It helps us a lot.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “I could, but I prefer to keep things more personal.”
Just then, the door opened. Tina’s sister, the one she’d joked about throwing in as a two-for-one-brides deal, and also the one who would have happily dug into all of Luca’s pockets just for giggles, was coming in.
“Hello,” Megan said to Luca.
He nodded. “Hello and goodbye.” He left without another word.
Tina’s sister walked up to the counter, her eyes and mouth wide open. “Who was that big hunk of man-candy with half the store’s flowers?”
“Some lucky girl’s boyfriend.”
“Ugh. Hate on me all you want for being a cliché, but it’s true that the best ones are always taken. Or geeks. Or live with their mother.”
Tina shook her head. “Meenie, we live with our mother.”
Megan, whom Tina usually called Meenie, shrugged. “So? It’s not a bad thing for girls to live with their mom.”
Tina started closing the cash register and running the end of day reports.
Megan came to look over her shoulder then wrapped her arms around her sister and gave her a hug. “Rough day?”
Tina shrugged off the unwanted hug. “No. What are you doing? Did you stick something on my back?”
“Would I do something like that to my favorite sister?”
“You’d do that to your only sister.”
Megan came in for another hug, which was really a cross between a regular person’s hug and a wrestling hold. Both sisters had been on the wrestling team in high school. With Megan, nobody had been surprised. Tina’s interest in wrestling surprised people, but it wasn’t really anyone’s business what she did to let off steam.
As Megan squeezed her sister, she said, “Tina, I saw the blue roses in the cooler. Don’t act like everything’s fine when I know it isn’t. Prom’s coming up soon, and then…”
She didn’t have to say it. The sisters had been through ten years of Tina falling apart at prom season, especially if anyone ordered blue roses.
“I’m fine,” Tina said, wriggling her way out of the wrestling hold and reversing it.
Megan squawked in protest and sputtered, “Stop strangling me, you psycho.”
Tina released the hold. “You started it.”
A red-faced Megan put her hands on her hips and stared at her sister. “If you keep doing everything the same way, nothing’s ever going to change.”
Tina turned back to the cash register and the printouts. “Stop looking at me like that. I’m not going to your loser support group.”
Megan snorted. “As if they’d even want you in the group.”
“I don’t need talk therapy. I’m fine.”
“If you really were fine, you might do more than work here, hang out with Rory, and hide away with your sad movies. What was going on last night? I had my window open and I heard some horrible sounds coming from the cottage. Were you torturing a wild creature in there? I haven’t heard sounds like that since we gave Muffins his anti-dandruff bath.”
“It was just a stupid movie with a golden retriever. I should know better. The dog on the poster always dies. People who make movies with dogs are the worst.”
“But it’s not just the movie. Admit it. You always get bad this time of year.”
Tina had never, ever admitted it to anyone but herself, and she wasn’t about to start. If you ever showed people your vulnerable side, sooner or later they would use it against you.
Tina cursed and slammed the cash drawer shut.
“Leave me alone,” Tina said. “If you don’t like what you hear, keep your window shut. And stop spying on me.”
“Leave you alone?” Megan narrowed her eyes. “Careful what you wish for, because one of these days, you might get exactly what you ask for.”
Tina rolled her eyes and walked away. Megan meant well, but she was a sister, and nobody could get on someone’s nerves like a sister.
Megan yelled out, “Hey! What’s going on with the till? Did you do a cash drop?”
“Not yet.”
“Well? Where are you going? Are you actually walking away from me?”
Tina called over her shoulder, “Since you like getting involved so much, you can close up the shop yourself.”
Chapter 3
When Tina got home, the lights inside her place were on. That meant her best friend, Rory Taylor, would be waiting for her inside. Rory wouldn’t take a key for herself—too intimate—but she did regularly use a hidden key to let herself into the place the Gardenia family called the cottage. It was actually a converted former garage, and it sat in her mother’s backyard. Tina and Megan did live with their mother, but at least Tina had a bit of yard as a moat between her and the other two.
The cottage had been featured on a TV show about tiny home living. The siding was corrugated metal, painted an indigo blue. The windows were salvaged and mismatched, but all painted the same shade of red. Every window had its own exterior flower box, and every flower box was filled with colorful blossoms. How could a person possibly be more comfortable than that?
The cottage wasn’t the only tiny home on the street. For years, homeowners in the neighborhood had been taking advantage of the city’s new zoning. Some people built brand-new mini-houses to rent out, and others, like Tina’s mother, converted their garages.
At first, everybody had complained about the construction, the extra cars parked on the street, the destruction of the neighborho
od. City Hall’s push for higher density was the End of Days.
But then the most vocal complainers start building mini-houses in their own backyards, and the ruckus died down.
Tina entered the cottage and found Rory seated at the big—relative to the size of the home—desktop computer. Tina had bought the computer secondhand from an old boyfriend because she’d planned to teach herself graphic design, or programming, or something. So far, she’d only used it to look at takeout menus and social media.
“Hey, gorgeous,” Tina said. “Are you here for that booty call?” She knew it would annoy Rory to be greeted that way because it included the phrase booty call.
Rory jumped up and shook her whole body, like a dog stepping out of the ocean, to communicate her disgust.
To call Rory Taylor quirky would have been an understatement. She was unlike anyone else Tina knew. Rory was, and had always been, mortified by any mention of sex, in conversation, or in books or movies. A single word, such as moist, could send her screaming from the room.
Rory and Tina had been best friends since they’d met in kindergarten. Tina loved Rory as much as—or even more than—her sister. Rory was often mistaken for one of the Gardenia girls. With her curly brown hair, she fit right in with her family. She was in most of the annual family photos.
When the girls had been teens, Rory spent more time at the Gardenia house than at hers. Things were rough at Rory’s house. The more you knew about Rory, the more it explained her quirks.
Tina tried to be sensitive to her best friend’s issues, but that didn’t mean teasing was off the table. If Tina was ever losing an argument with Rory, Tina would drop one of Rory’s no-no words into the conversation, and Rory would clam right up.
“You’re home early,” Rory said. “Did you sell out of flowers?”
“Ha ha,” Tina said. “I got Meenie to close up the shop.”
“But it’s her day off.” Rory was very good at tracking dates and schedules, especially other people’s.
“Long story.” Tina squeezed past Rory and grabbed a drink from the mini-fridge. “What brings you here? Did you come for the booty call?”
Rory gave her a dirty look. “No.” Rory didn’t run away screaming. Booty call could be a no-no word, but it was also on the sometimes-okay list. She swiveled to face the monitor, clicked the mouse a few times, then swiveled around again. “Everything is booked and confirmed,” she said. “It’s so much easier to use the dropdown menus on your big computer. The resort’s website is buggy as H-E-C-K.” Rory could say the word heck, but she preferred spelling it out for dramatic emphasis.
Rory was talking about the trip she’d been planning for the two of them.
Tina jumped onto the sofa, which also folded out into her bed. She grabbed a throw pillow and got comfortable.
“Rory, don’t take this the wrong way, but wouldn’t you rather take a boy with you?”
“Boys are yucky,” she said, sounding like she was ten, and not twenty-nine like Tina.
They’d been through Rory’s issues a thousand times. She wasn’t into girls, and she did like the idea of dating a guy eventually, but not yet. She couldn’t even watch R-rated movies. It was a quirk that Tina tried to accept.
“Speaking of boys, I met one today,” Tina said. “Not a boy, actually, but a man. He had the biggest hands.”
Rory scowled.
Tina continued, “His name is Luca Lowell. He’s the guy who bought Ralph’s Garage. He’s turning it into a bike repair shop.”
“You mean for bicycles?”
“No. Bikes.” Tina made vroom-vroom gestures with both hands. “Like Harleys and stuff.”
“That does sound like something a man would do. Are you interested in going out with him?”
“Not likely. I’m only mentioning it to you because it was the only thing interesting that happened today.”
Rory was tapping away on the keyboard. “Luca Lowell. Found him.”
Tina sat up straight in alarm, causing the springs in the sofa to protest. “Rory! Don’t you dare stalk him. Not on my computer.”
“He won’t know, as long as we don’t click on anything.” She started clicking.
“Stop it! Stop clicking!”
She went back to typing. “His photos must be set as private. There. I requested access.”
“As me?”
“Of course not. I’m logged in under my secret account that I use for stalking.” She paused, staring at the screen. Her posture slumped. “Oops. Don’t kill me, but I think this is your profile.”
“Undo!” Tina yelled from the couch. “Undo! Undo! Command Z!”
The computer made a sound. Rory clicked a notification icon. “Too late. He already accepted.”
Tina muttered to herself, “I need to hide my spare key somewhere better than inside a plastic rock.”
“Don’t freak out,” Rory said, which was ironic as H-E-C-K, coming from the Queen of Freaking Out herself. “Here’s the good news. You two have a dozen friends in common already, mostly people from the businesses on Baker Street.”
“That’s bad news, Rory. That means it’s him for sure, and not some other Luca Lowell.”
“If he asks, you can tell him it’s for business networking.”
Tina glared at her best friend, who was moving down the most-loved list to a spot below her sister.
“This isn’t fair at all,” Tina said. “You freak out if I make one little suggestion about your love life, but it’s fair game for you to go chasing after boys with my account? And not just boys, but actual grown men who run businesses and probably have a savings account?”
“It was an accident,” she said. “Besides, what’s wrong with having a few more friends?”
Tina narrowed her eyes at Rory, as if to say, I will burn you to the ground.
Rory widened her eyes, as if to say, Bring it. I’ve got the firehose.
Oh, but Tina could bring it. She could have Rory beat with just one word. Not booty. Not even the words for private parts. No. This was war.
Tina warmed up her mouth then said, “Panties.”
Rory’s face went pale. She froze then awkwardly jumped up from the swivel chair.
“You didn’t,” she said. “You. Did. Not.”
Yes. She. Had.
And there was more. Tina pulled together more of Rory’s no-no words and strung them together like artillery fire. “Rory, don’t get your panties in a bunch. Let’s Netflix and chill. I’ve got a craving for some moist chocolate cake. Would you like to go out for some moist chocolate cake?”
Rory grabbed her coat and purse. “Whatever. I need to get packed for our trip, anyway. Don’t get mad at me. You shouldn’t leave your account logged in by default. It’s bad computer security.”
“You’d better get out of here before I drop the nuclear bomb.”
Rory’s eyes widened as she backed up toward the door. “You wouldn’t.”
“You shouldn’t have sent that request to Luca.”
She stared back at me. “If you say that word, Tina Gardenia, you’ll need to make yourself a new best friend, and it’s not going to be easy to replace me.”
Tina pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows, then said the word. That word. The one that was a euphemism for a body part. Not the British one. Too far! It was the one that meant cat, but not the word cat.
Rory covered her ears with both hands and ran out of the tiny house, howling.
Chapter 4
After stewing about it all night, Tina called Rory on Thursday morning before work.
“I’m sorry I overreacted,” Tina said. “I don’t know what got into me yesterday, but I’m not mad at you. Please don’t be mad at me forever. I’ll have to send you flowers at work, and I know you hate that.”
“I’m not mad,” Rory said. “I would have canceled our trip if I was mad.”
“You’re not mad?”
“Of course not. I was the one who was meddling. I should have been more careful on you
r computer.”
“I accept your apology, and I’m sorry for saying the p-word.”
There was a pause, then Rory asked, “Did you get any messages from your new friend?”
“No. Nothing. And Luca’s profile is weirdly bare. It looks like he only uses the account for business. He’s been posting a bit about preparing for the garage’s grand re-opening, but not much else.”
“How did you say you met him?”
“He was in the shop, buying flowers for someone. I assume it was for his girlfriend. He said it was for a woman, and she was mad at him because he did some sort of thing he always does.”
There was a pause. She was still there, but not talking.
“I wonder what he did,” Tina said, talking to herself as much as to Rory. “He told me he was going to keep doing it, whatever it was.”
On the other end of the call, Rory made a strangled sound then said, “I don’t know if I can talk about this.”
“Why? Do you think it was a sex thing? Like he was in bed with her, and he did some sort of thing that offended her? I can’t even imagine. Actually, I can imagine. I’m imagining all sorts of things.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
She held the phone away from her ear. The call had ended. Rory had probably hung up as soon as she’d said the word sex.
Tina sent her a text message apologizing for crossing Rory’s boundaries less than thirty seconds after being forgiven, and then headed off to work.
Thursday went by like a typical Thursday. Tina got a postcard from an old high school friend, saying that the honeymoon was great. The friend was one of several that had gotten hitched that year already, and there were more Save-the-Dates coming up.
On Friday, another friend dropped into the flower shop to show off her new baby. He was twelve pounds of adorable.
Even while the girls chatted, Tina kept watching the door, hoping Luca would stop in.
When she was alone, Tina used the office computer to check Luca’s social media profile for updates. Nothing happened all day. As for his relationship status, that part of his profile was empty, so there were no clues to be found in the present, or, scrolling deep into his photo history, in his past. There were lots of pictures of bikes, but not much else.