Five
Sylvie
One of my favorite songs is playing in the back room of the store. I’m pulling together some center pieces for Krissy’s wedding. Usually, I’d be singing along but my head isn’t the game.
I’ve stabbed myself with the scissors twice and I got skewered by a rose thorn. I’ve got more band aids on my fingers than I did when I first started training for this.
Why do I have to let things fester? I wish I was like those people who could move on, or compartmentalize their troubles. Not me, I just can’t stop replaying every moment of my date with Ryan.
No one knows. Maybe it is time to put the dating game on the back burner again. If my fingers are anything to go by, dating is hazardous to my health.
“Sylvie.”
Renee is standing in the archway that leads to the backroom from the storefront. She is bouncing on her toes.
“What’s up?”
“There is a guy here to see you.”
“What guy?”
“I don’t know, he just asked for you. And let me tell you, he is fine.”
My heart plummets. It was a possibility that he’d look me up. I figured a guy as hot as Ryan would chalk it up to it being ‘her loss’. He has to have women falling at his feet. Maybe he is here to yell at me? Or what if he still doesn’t realize and just came looking…
My lips twist, the indecision taking over.
“What’s wrong?” Renee steps further into the room.
“Nothing. I’ll be right there,” I paste a smile on my face.
“Okay,” she whirls around.
“Renee,” I take a couple of quick steps after her. She turns and looks at me. “Did he ask for me, or the owner.”
“You. He asked if Sylvie was here. Are you sure you’re okay?”
I press my lips together and nod, she spins and leaves. Probably to ogle Ryan.
Damn. He knows. Is he here to demand answers about why I lied to him? I could drive myself crazy trying to anticipate his reasons. The most likely one is that he’s pissed. But why come here? Surely, he can just leave me in misery and move on…
There is a mirror just to the left of the archway. I fix my hair. Make sure I don’t look like a deer in the headlights and give myself a quick pep talk. You can face this. It’s your own fault.
Good talk.
I move through the archway into the store. It’s a compact space which I’ve tried to make look bigger with strategically placed displays. There is a small counter rather than a long one taking up most of the room, and a small area where I can sit and consult with clients.
The window that takes up most of the front of the store has our name etched into the glass, with a small bouquet, that is my logo.
Ryan is standing by the glass, looking outside. His back is to me when I come into the room. My sharp inhale of breath makes him turn around.
God, he is even more gorgeous than I remember.
We stand at opposite ends of the store, staring at one another. The urge to apologize rises in my throat but I swallow it down. He came here. He can speak first.
I have to bite the inside of my cheek not to say anything. I can’t just stand here, so walk across the room until we’re close enough that I can see the pulse beating in his neck.
Ryan reaches out to the side and fiddles with the head of a carnation in a bucket full of them. He accidentally pulls the head off one flower and I wince. He stares down at it, then back at me.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
“Uh, that’s okay.”
He tosses the head back into the bucket. The door behind him opens, and a couple come in. We both watch as they look at us, then Renee comes over to help.
“We need to talk, Sylvie.”
I duck my head but lift my eyes to look at him. He’s frowning.
“Maybe we should step outside,” he suggests, his eyes going over my shoulder.
No need to ask why. My lips part but I clamp them shut and nod. Ryan’s frown deepens, but he follows me outside. We have displays here too and the air smells fresh and sweet as I walk past them to the small bench outside the barber shop next door.
“We should sit,” I say to him.
He looks a little exasperated but shakes his head and sits. I follow suit, leaving enough room for another person to fit between us. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and looks across the street.
“I got stood up,” I say, before he can ask questions. His head turns, and he looks at me, waiting. “I was getting ready to give up on my blind date, then you walked in.”
His brow creases. “You were on a blind date?”
I shrug one shoulder. “Well, I joined this app, where you don’t get see the picture of the person you’re talking with. It’s a way of getting to know one another without seeing a photograph first. Because you go off that initial attraction to a picture and sometimes people on dating apps don’t use their own picture…” I stop talking.
Ryan is staring at me like I have two heads.
“And well, he didn’t… I guess even our chat wasn’t interesting enough for him. He never came and then you were there, and you assumed I was the woman you were supposed to meet.”
He sits in silence for a moment, taking time to digest the word vomit I just dumped in his lap. This is horrible. I want the floor to open up and swallow me. Maybe some cars could crash in front of us, so he has to go save the day. Oh Jesus, did I just think that?
“And you didn’t think to tell me you weren’t Alison?”
No cars on the street. I’m not getting out of this.
“Yes, I mean. No. Well,” I flap my hands into my lap. Get a grip. You can handle this. He deserves the truth. “Every time I tried to tell you, we got interrupted by the server. Then we were talking, and I enjoyed talking to you and kind of forgot.”
“You just forgot that you were pretending to be someone else?”
I have to look away from those gorgeous, intense dark eyes.
“It sounds stupid now, but yeah. The more I talked to you, I did. I should have told you, it’s been driving me crazy for days. I was even going to tell you before we left but you got that call and… Oh,” I twist in the seat and look at him. “Was everyone okay, at the fire?”
He looks like he has whiplash. Yeah, I do that to people. His forehead clears and he nods. “Yeah, it was an electrical fire that got out of hand. There was no one home, so no one got hurt.”
“That’s good.”
We sit in silence for a moment. I’m about to tell him to forget we ever met, and chalk it up to a crazy anecdote to tell his friends, but he speaks first.
“It took me a while to figure it out,” he runs a hand through his hair and leans back. “You left my texts on read. Well, not you. So, I guess I got stood up too.”
“She didn’t answer your texts?”
“No. Go figure. She probably thought I was a weirdo, telling her how much I enjoyed our date and wanted to see her again.”
“You did? And you do?”
“Enjoy the date?” he asks with a brow lift. “Yeah, I did. Want to see her again? I guess that would only be possible if I met her.”
That hits me right in the chest. “I’m sorry,” I say, looking into his eyes.
He stares back for a moment, then breaks the look and glances at his hands, which are now clasped between his thighs.
“It’s funny,” he says, his brow creased. “I went on a blind date and got stood up. But I didn’t know that, because I met an amazing woman. I guess I should thank you for not letting me look like an idiot with a rose.”
“You have a problem with damaging flowers. The stem was broken. Did you know that?”
Ryan turns to look at me. I chew my lip. Wow, another foot in mouth moment right there.
“I didn’t know that,” he answers, bemused. He almost smiles too and my heart lifts. Till he heaves out a heavy sigh and shakes his head.
“I really am sorry.”
“Yeah,” he gives me a look I can’t decipher. He says the words I’ve been expecting. “I should go.”
“ Sylvie !”
We both turn at the shriek from the door behind us. Renee is standing there, tugging at her hair.
“Oh my God. Come, quickly!”
Ryan jumps to his feet, reacting immediately to the fear in her voice. I lean forward and look around his hips so I can see my employee.
“It’s Lurch,” she cries. “I think he’s dying !”