11. Heath
CHAPTER 11
heath
I wasn’t a buy-flowers type of guy. Alexa had told me often enough. I was the making-sure-her-car-always-had-gas-and-was-serviced kind of guy. The kind who fixed the leaky sink before she even noticed it was dripping or left her coffee mug filled and waiting on the counter every morning before she got out of bed. I was the one who did the morning run with Juno and bought the groceries. I made sure Juno’s lacrosse gear was packed, and her cleats were clean. I never missed a chance to drop her off or pick her up after practice. I was the guy who stayed up late assembling her science fair project when my kid needed help, and triple-checked her bike helmet straps before she rode anywhere.
I had a gnawing feeling in my chest that I couldn’t shake as Sable had not answered my text from last night or this morning. A part of me thought the hell with it. We fucked, and now we forgot. But another, larger part of me didn’t want that. I didn’t want to ghost her. If we were over, then I wanted to do it as an adult, which was why I was at Mountain Flowers of Aspen.
The door of the florist shop chimed as I stepped inside, the smell of roses and eucalyptus wrapped around me.
“Heath, how’re you doin’?” the florist, a cheerful woman in her sixties with bright purple glasses, asked. I knew I’d met her somewhere but didn’t remember her name.
“Good,” I replied, shoving my hands in my pockets. Fuck! Would everyone and their mother know I bought flowers now?
“What can I do for you?” she cheerfully continued.
“I’m looking for a simple bouquet. Not roses.”
Her eyes brightened with curiosity. “You don’t say. Is this for a special occasion for a special lady?
So, yeah, everyone and their mother, including Alexa, would know I bought flowers for Sable. That put a damper on my plans to take these to her at the Wildflower because half the town would see me with them on Hopkins Street, where the tavern was. I’d have to take them to her place later tonight after her shift. Would the flowers last that long?
Why the hell was everything so complicated?
“How about that?” I pointed to a bouquet on a shelf behind her. It was a mix of yellow daisies, some other yellow flowers, and sprigs of lavender tied together with twine. It looked unpolished, natural, like it had been picked fresh from a meadow on a summer morning. It wasn’t fancy or overly curated, but it had a quiet charm to it that reminded me of Sable: beautiful, simple, and real.
Fuck, but I wasn’t ready to let Bambi go; let go of that feeling I had of satisfied-to-the-toes-of-my-feet I felt when we were together—both in and out of bed.
She gave me a knowing smile and nodded. I didn’t even hear the chime of the door this time, too distracted by trying to decide if wildflowers were the way to go when I heard a voice I recognized.
Small fucking towns!
“Well, this is unexpected.”
I turned to see Alexa’s sister, Natasha. Of course, it was because the universe was taking a shit on me. Now, Alexa, for sure, would hear that I was buying flowers and know it was probably for Sable. I could give them to Juno, but that was so out of character that she’d know something was up. If I gave them to Alexa, it would be…fuck me! Couldn’t a man just buy flowers for a woman whose company he enjoyed without getting the third degree?
She looked at me curiously, her arms crossed over a spring coat. “Who’s the lucky lady?”
“I asked him the same question,” the florist said a bit too sweetly as she wrapped up the flowers for me.
I sighed. Fuck it! I’d go with the truth and not dance around it. “If you must know, they’re for Sable.”
The ladies of Aspen were like bloodhounds, sniffing out half-truths and gossip, and frankly, I didn’t have the patience for that.
“Wonderful,” the florist replied, her eyes now kind and soft. “She’s such a sweet girl, isn’t she? We used to work at the soup kitchen together. She’d be there every Thursday and Friday evening. I told her to be with her husband, but he apparently worked late, and now,” she sneered, “we know who he was working .”
Perhaps she wouldn’t gossip about the flowers since she was Sable’s friend. I hoped so. Not that it mattered because I’d spilled the beans to Natasha, who definitely would.
Natasha’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Well, that’s interesting.”
“What is?” I was on my last nerve. This town needed to find a new hobby.
Natasha tilted her head, considering me. “Nothing. Just didn’t think she’d go for someone like you.”
I frowned, irritation sparking. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged. “Relax, Heath. I didn’t mean it as an insult.” She paused, her tone softening. “Actually, it’s good. She deserves good things to happen to her for once. You’re probably better than the rest of the assholes in this town.”
“That isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement.”
I paid for the bouquet, and when Natasha didn’t make a move to buy flowers, I looked at her pointedly, “You here to talk to me? Or….”
She hesitated, glancing around the florist shop like she was debating what she wanted. “You got time for a drink?”
I remembered how she had defended Sable at the Wildflower when Alexa and Leslie bad-mouthed her, so I followed her across the street to J-Bar. Sable’s flowers were wrapped up, and according to the lovely florist, Dina, they would last at least four to five hours without a vase.
J-Bar was at the Hotel Jerome, and I knew the general manager there well, as we were part of the networking group for hotel GMs in Aspen. I’d been to the bar several times and liked the historic watering hole on Main Street. As a hotel man, I noticed the details, and J-Bar was the perfect blend of rustic charm and upscale polish. The bar designers had paired plush leather seats with rough-hewn wooden beams and used old black-and-white photos of skiers and miners on the walls to create an inclusive ambiance, no matter what you did for a living.
As the GM had told me, “ This is where ski bums rub elbows with socialites over craft beers .”
Natasha and I found a seat in the corner near the window, surrounded by precisely that mix of clientele.
I ordered a bourbon while Natasha went for the Burgundy Chardonnay. The flowers I’d picked up for Sable sat awkwardly on the chair next to me, like they didn’t quite belong in a bar like this. Then again, I wasn’t sure if this conversation did, either.
Natasha hadn’t said much since we sat down. She toyed with the stem of her wineglass, her eyes darting toward the window as if weighing whether or not to escape. I could feel the tension coming off her in waves.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I wondered if she’d lay into me like Alexa had about my spending time with Sable— but her demeanor, I suspected, indicated that wouldn’t be the case.
She set her glass down with a heavy sigh and finally met my gaze. “I heard about you and Sable.”
“Of course, you did.” I sighed and wished I’d declined her suggestion to meet for a drink because if she was going to call Sable trailer trash, I was going to lose it.
“I want to preface this by saying that I’m thrilled you’re with Sable. She’s good people.”
I arched an eyebrow.
She laughed, but it was hollow. “I know, Alexa must’ve painted a less-than-flattering picture for you.”
“I have been told I’m ruining your sister’s reputation.”
“More like hurting her ego by having the audacity to date when she’s been vying for a reconciliation.”
This was the second time someone had mentioned this to me, and I wasn’t happy about it. I had zero plans to ever be with Alexa again as anything other than a co-parent.
She licked her lips. “I want to tell you about Sable…what I know, that is, and why the town talks about her the way they do.”
“Okay.” I took a sip of bourbon.
“It’s mostly my fault. I treated Sable very, very, very badly in high school. See, Alexa was the top mean girl, and I was her sister, and even though I was a year behind her and Sable, I was the shit, at least I thought I was.”
I didn’t say anything; I just waited. I’d known Natasha almost as long as I knew Alexa, and at the start, they seemed similar, but over the years, Natasha had matured in a way Alexa had failed to. Natasha, I knew, took her time to speak and didn’t just vomit words, so I gave her time.
She wrapped her hands around her wineglass, her knuckles whitening as she stared at the table. “You probably don’t know this, but Sable didn’t have an easy time growing up. I mean, yeah, you’ve probably heard the whispers—trailer trash this, foster kid that—but it was more than that. We made it more than that.”
She was obviously distressed, so I put a comforting hand on hers.
She looked at me and smiled. “When we were in high school, Alexa and I—and Leslie and a few other mean girls —we were awful to Sable. Like, really awful.” Her voice cracked slightly, and she cleared her throat, forcing herself to continue. “There was this one time....”
The server came by to check on us, and I nodded to him in a way that he understood to make himself scarce. Natasha looked like she was about to fall apart. Maybe we should’ve had this conversation in private.
“An ex-boyfriend of mine said he was interested in Sable to make me jealous. I got jealous. Alexa told him to go for it, and if he could prove that he had sex with her by recording it”—she paused and took a deep breath—“I’d give him another chance.”
I removed my hand from hers, utterly disgusted with Natasha…well, the high school girl she used to be. If Juno behaved like this, I’d lose it and think it was a personal failure in how I raised her .
Natasha flinched at my expression but soldiered on. “I didn’t think he’d do it. You know, it wasn’t easy to make a video in those days.”
I couldn’t look at her and instead downed my bourbon, which was a mistake because my stomach dropped, and the fine alcohol was bitter in my mouth.
I could guess what was coming. Fuck, but this was awful. How did someone get over such things? Sable had been what, seventeen-eighteen then? She was in foster care and, as she’d told me, dealing with handsy foster parents. That, combined with someone having sex with her at that age to prove he did, and now that asshole husband of hers leaving her—it was no surprise she was as skittish as she was.
“He made the video. You know, set up a camcorder. It was grainy and shit quality, but you could see it was Sable. We showed it to her and a few others—but then everyone heard about it. It was?—”
“Fuck, Natasha,” I cut her off. This was painful to hear. My heart broke for Sable. I couldn’t imagine this happening to Juno—I couldn’t imagine the devastation that would wreak.
“I know,” she said sadly. “I know. The teachers found out, but we were the Vikar girls. Daddy was the mayor. The principal lectured Sable on her behavior and how she shouldn’t give it away. It ruined her reputation. Everyone found out.”
“What did you get out of doing that?” I asked, unable to hold the question inside me.
“Points for being a head mean girl? Alexa and I were queens after that,” she replied ruefully, full of self-loathing. “There were other things. I started a rumor she was sleeping with a chemistry teacher. We kept…we just kept at it. Then high school ended, and we went to college in Boulder.”
“Where did she go?”
Natasha gave me a blank look. “Colorado Mountain College.”
That was a community college. I didn’t know what education Sable had, and I didn’t care to ask. But it made sense. My privilege showed in the question I asked her. Sable couldn’t afford to go to a university. No, she’d have gotten a job after high school, which she probably did because she aged out of the system. So, she’d probably juggled work and college. She got a job in a bank. She elevated herself.
“But then we came back, all grown up.”
“Did your reign of terror continue?” I waved to the bartender and pointed at my glass. I’d have to Uber home tonight because I needed a fucking drink or two or three.
Natasha winced, her face twisting with guilt. “On and off. She married Jack, and then it quietened, but now it’s loud again; it has been since Jack knocked up Molly.”
“And she’s to blame, I presume, since she couldn’t keep her man?” I bit out coldly.
The server brought me a fresh glass and looked at Natasha, who shook her head. Her hands were trembling, and I didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for her. She’d been old enough when she pulled that stunt to know right from wrong. Finding out the woman who had been my wife and partner for so many years had had this kind of ugly inside of her was unsettling and made me wonder about my instincts when it came to people.
“It’s worse than that. She’s to blame because she couldn’t have children.” Natasha raised her glass in a mock toast.
Every time I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did.
“She can’t catch a break. It’s like every time she tries to get up, someone kicks her back down.”
“That’s....” I trailed off, gripping my glass tightly. I didn’t even know what to say.
Natasha nodded, staring down at her wine. “People in this town just...they don’t forget. They kept treating her like she didn’t belong here, like she’s less than them, and we made sure of that.”
“Jesus, Natasha,” I muttered. “Why are you even telling me all this?”
“Because Sable is a good person, Heath.” Natasha put a firm hand on my arm as if trying to convince me with her body and words. “She’s always been a good person. She built a life here. She runs the Wildflower now, and she does all this charity work—feeding people, helping out wherever she can. I’m happy she’s dating you. I’m happy you’re dating her. But I also know that Alexa is not going to accept this with any grace. I wanted you to know the truth so you didn’t buy into the trailer trash and slut stories.”
I stared at her, my chest tightening. Sable hadn’t said much about her past, but now all those little things she’d hinted at—the guarded look in her eyes, the way she deflected compliments, the way she braced herself whenever someone brought up her past—clicked into place.
“She’s been through enough,” Natasha remarked softly, letting go of my arm.
I set my glass down. “I won’t hurt her,” I said quietly, more to myself than to Natasha.
“I know. You’re not the type who hurts people.” There were tears in her voice, and if I looked at her, I knew I’d see them. “You’ll treat her like she deserves.”
She finished her wine and was about to reach for her purse when I put a hand over it. “I got this.”
“Thanks for talking to me, Heath.”
Natasha left me alone with the bouquet and my thoughts. I stayed long after she left, staring at the flowers, which now felt almost like a challenge.
I didn’t know if I was glad she told me what she did or not. I had to be careful with Sable; that was clear. I had to make sure she understood that when I said I wasn’t looking for serious, I meant it. I didn’t want to hurt Sable inadvertently. Damaged people got bruised despite your best intentions, and, in all honestly, I didn’t know if I could handle all of Sable’s baggage, which was considerable.
But damn if I didn’t want to try. I was feeling an unusual pull to another person. It had never happened before. It might never happen again. So, while this feeling filled my chest, I wasn’t going to suppress it. I decided, as I finished my bourbon, that I was going to enjoy the hell out of it.