Chapter Nine Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Chapter Nine
Every Rose Has Its Thorn
“What’s with the church?” I ask when she walks in the next morning. This time, she’s brought a croissant with our coffees.
It’s not a chocolate one, but still. I’ll give her half credit.
“What do you mean?” she asks, setting everything down.
I gesture toward the front of the shop. “This place is made of glass. I can see where you go when you leave here. I thought
it was a weird one-off at first, but then you did it again yesterday.”
“Can’t a girl church it up sometimes?”
“I guess. I just didn’t know you were religious. You were never like that before.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Ducharme,” she says, patting Gouda on the head where she’s lying on the counter. Gouda
promptly swats at her.
“Likewise,” I say, slightly annoyed that she’s dodging my question, but glad the tension from yesterday seems to have dissipated.
“Is it good?” Nikki leans forward on her elbows, a mischievous glint in her eye as she watches me take a sip of my coffee. It’s perfect, as usual, even if I won’t ever admit it to her.
“No,” I say, taking another sip.
“You were never a good liar,” she says.
Regan walks over from where she was opening a shipment of flowers, carrying dozens of roses to be stripped. We’ve had to increase
our ordering thanks to Nikki.
“Oooh, is that from the new coffee shop?” Regan asks, looking wistfully at our cups. “I heard they have the best stuff. Even Johnny was raving about it, and he only drinks like Ethiopian blueberry or whatever damn snooty single-batch
crap he can get his hands on.”
“I love it.” Nikki shrugs. “But Ducharme over here—”
“Are you ordering flowers today? Because I don’t have any new pages from you, so, if not, I don’t think we have anything to
talk about.”
“Come on, you guys obviously have stuff to talk about,” Regan says, but then catches my glare. “Or not. What do I know? I . . .
should go put away the rest of the flowers. Feel free to grab me a coffee next time, though. Two sugars, no cream.”
I rub my temples before caving in and taking another sip of my coffee. “You don’t have to bring her coffee tomorrow. Or me.
Or come at all, actually.”
“Did you get a new coffee maker?”
“No, why?”
“Then consider it a public service. I’m saving the town from your grumpy ass.”
I snort. “The town has survived me just fine without you.”
“Want to tell me about it?” she asks casually, before moving over to pretend to be interested in my portfolio again.
“About what?”
“About your life here or anything else on your mind. Your best friend seems to think we have lots to talk about.”
I consider keeping up our usual non-book-related routine: take her order—if there is one—and then chase her out immediately.
Unfortunately, she’s been positively Pavlovian about showing up each day with treats, and now my lizard brain seems to associate
her with all the little jolts of dopamine and serotonin they bring.
I could fight it more, sure, but . . . I’m not above selling out my high moral ground for some of the expensive coffee and
baked goods from down the block. Plus, In Bloom kind of owes her.
Regan even implemented online ordering again—a feature she took off the website when things were slow, even though it helped
us find new clients outside of the town. The idea of having it back is exciting. Exciting enough for me to humor Nikki a little,
just until it feels even again.
What do I really have to lose? Besides myself, my sanity, my heart, my home . . . my brain helpfully supplies.
Yes. That. Never mind. I don’t owe her anything.
I turn to Nikki, fully intending to tell her she should head out . . . but she’s looking at me with her big, wide, sincerely
earnest green eyes from under her frankly ridiculous Mets hat—I don’t think she’s ever watched baseball in her life—and it’s
game over.
I sigh and pick up my rose stripper, getting to work dethorning the newest additions.
“Ignoring me already?” Nikki asks, her teasing tone not quite covering up her disappointment.
“No, I’m working.” I hold up the flower. “See?”
A grin breaks out across her face. “You’re not kicking me out?”
“No, not until you order,” I say, fighting off a grin of my own.
“What if I don’t order until”—she glances at the hours on the door—“four fifty-nine?”
One minute before closing. Of course.
I huff out a breath that sounds a little too close to a laugh. “Then you’re in for a long, boring day.”
“I don’t think so,” she says, watching me run the stripper down the length of the plant. It makes quick work of all the extra
leaves and thorns that come on the cheaper flowers we order.
“Suit yourself.” I shrug.
“What’s that from?” Nikki asks, gesturing to the fresh pink scar running up the length of one of my fingers.
“I superglued my fingers together the night you announced your book.” I smile at her, like that’s an extremely normal thing
to say.
“Why?”
“I had cut myself earlier in the day stripping stems like this,” I answer. “Didn’t want to go to the hospital, so I tried
to glue it closed. Ended up supergluing myself in the process. The scar would have been smaller, but I ripped off some skin
trying to get the glue off before my friend came and helped.”
Nikki narrows her eyes. “Why didn’t you want to go to the hospital?”
“Too expensive. Plus, I didn’t want to get recognized. You have to write your legal name on the forms there.”
“Too expensive? Aren’t you getting residuals still?” she asks, looking confused. “They run a Nikki and Andy Show marathon almost weekly these days.”
“I do, but they’re basically nothing.”
“No, they aren’t. My last check was for—”
“We had different agents,” I remind her. “I didn’t get the same deal as you. Plus, you had all those escalators hit the bigger
your name got. I didn’t.”
She opens her mouth to say something, but I hold up my hand.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t know. You might have forgotten, but you definitely knew at the time. We talked about it a bunch
during negotiations.”
She looks at the ceiling, brows furrowed like she’s thinking very hard. Maybe she really doesn’t remember. It would be funny if it wasn’t so damn sad.
“Did you ever get your money back from that asshole agent you used to have?” she asks, seemingly giving up on that line of
questioning.
“No.” I groan. “I have a piece of paper that says he owes me money. I guess he doesn’t make much in prison, because I haven’t
seen a cent.”
“What about the Coogan account?”
I shrug. “Still got most of that. It’s what I’ve been living off of when things are slow here. Elton stole most of the rest.”
“If I ever see your old agent again, I’m going to kill him,” Nikki says.
Well, at least she remembers that.
“You’ll have to break into a jail cell to do it,” I huff. “The tax fraud angle really did him in. He won’t be out anytime
soon.”
“Good,” she says, looking like she means it. “What a circus it was when the news first broke. Man, the paps were living on
our sidewalk trying to get a statement from you. Remember?”
“How could I forget,” I say, cutting the stems a little harder. That period of my life was absolute chaos. Things were falling
apart with Nikki, I had just found out what Elton did, I couldn’t book a single job, but everywhere I went the news or tabloids
were chasing me down anyway.
I wasn’t the only one he was stealing from. I was just the only one low enough on the fame scale that people thought they
could get me to talk on camera.
Nikki rubs the back of her neck. “I called your parents, you know, back when the trial started.”
“I know,” I say. “My mom texted me every time you called.” Nikki rears back, and I raise an eyebrow. “What? You didn’t think
they would tell me?”
“I guess I just assumed not.”
“No, they’re not like that. They always told me. Well, at least until I asked them not to anymore. You know, my mom was the
one who encouraged me to actually show up at the diner and look at the book.”
Nikki opens her mouth and then shuts it a couple of times before suddenly getting intensely interested in the set of display
bouquets on the shelf beside her. “Got it,” she finally mumbles.
“You’re upset I never called you back?”
She glances at me out of the corner of her eye. “I didn’t say that.”
“I needed space,” I say, feeling inexplicably guilty.
“For five years?”
I look away, not sure how to respond. The truth is, yes, I did need it for five years, and I need it still. Or at least I
thought I did before she used my appetite against me.
“Come on, what do you do over there at the church?” I ask, gesturing across the street in a desperate bid to change the subject.
“I keep seeing you go in.”
She smirks as she leans over the counter, like she knows what I’m doing. “What do you think I’m up to over there, Ducharme?”
“Torrid love affair with the local pastor?”
“She’s great, but no.”
“Confessing?”
“That often? You think I have that much to atone for?”
“You don’t?” I snap, because yes, yes, I do.
“I walked right into that one.” Nikki sighs. “Look, I’m not saying I didn’t screw everything up or that I don’t owe you a
massive apology. I’m just saying I’m not the only one who did. There’s a lot more to our story than you thought. You have
to agree by now. I’ve shown you two chapters already that prove it!”
“Oh, that’s rich,” I say, stripping the final flower from this set and dumping it into the bucket with the others. “What about
the movie?”
“Which one?” she asks.
“Do me a favor and stick your fingers out.”
“Why?” she asks, doing it anyway.
I snap the rose stripper in her direction. “So I can cut one off every time you say something infuriating!” I’m kidding, of course, but her hand stays completely still, her fingers stretched in front of me like an offering.
“If it’ll make you feel better.”
She’s joking, obviously. Right?
I shake my head and grab the next rose. “You know I wouldn’t really hurt you.”