22. Elliott
TWENTY-TWO
Elliott
I lied. I didn’t wait for tonight to see her for our dinner date. I stop at the store during my Saturday morning jog. I slip in as a customer is leaving. The riot of colors and sweet scents welcomes me, and a sense of calmness takes residence in my chest. I’m starting to understand why she loves this store so much, why people pay a lot of money for flowers that will be disposed of in a week. There’s a sense of joy and peace in being surrounded by this much green, red, pink, and yellow. The forest sounds playing on hidden speakers adding to the atmosphere.
“You so pretty.” Daisy is the first to see me.
Jillian looks up from the papers she’s shuffling through, and a smile lights up her face when her gaze finds me half hidden by a bucket of sunflowers, each yellow flower bigger than my head.
Daisy makes a whistling sound.
“You know, you’re the only one she makes that sound for. No idea where she learned it from. It wasn’t me. I can’t whistle.”
I walk to the counter and smile. “Good thing Daisy doesn’t have hands. I have a feeling she’d be groping me like that little old lady when we first met.”
“Mrs. Smith? She asked about you the last time she was here. You seem to be making an impression with parrots and little old ladies alike.”
I rub my chin, and the day-old scruff scratches my palm—I’ll shave before I see her tonight. “What about young flower shop owners? Am I making an impression on them?”
“Them? How many flower shop owners are you trying to impress?”
I smile and brace myself on the counter. “Only one.”
Jillian puts her papers away and leans a hip on her side of the counter, crosses her arms, a teasing smile on her lips. “Your sisters stopped by yesterday after you dropped me off.”
“They did?” Surprising but not necessarily unexpected. Sabrina no doubt told Elsa all about the baking date, and then Elsa would have had to see Jillian for herself.
I tense. “My sisters can be pushy. I hope they didn’t interrogate you or tell you embarrassing stories about me. They love to do that.”
She laughs. “No, nothing like that. I got to meet your niece. Adorable little girl. She got along great with Jamie. Sabrina has an idea for cupcakes with edible flowers and asked me about it. I’ll be supplying her with organic edible flowers.”
Relief eases the tightness in my shoulders. My sisters behaved. For now, at least. I need to have a talk with them. “Flowers are edible? ”
“Not all of them. But some for sure.”
“What do they taste like?”
“It depends on the flower. Flowers like lavender, thyme, and basil taste similar to their leaves but tend to be spicier. Fruit flowers, like apple, elderberry, and citrus blossoms, range from sweet to citrusy.”
I can’t take my eyes away from her. “Huh, who knew?”
“I did.”
Her smile is like sunshine after days of rain. It fills all the dark corners of my heart. It has the power to heal old wounds, to grow new skin over scabs, to erase scars. My reaction to her scares me and yet I want to hop over the counter between us and kiss her so badly it hurts. Being near her is like a balm and a burn, and I need to dial it way down, to rein in the wild, hungry beast clamoring for attention inside me. I can’t scare her off.
“Awkward.” Several flaps of wings follow the parrot’s nasal voice.
Daisy’s timely interjection stops me from doing something stupid. “I swear that’s not a parrot but the reincarnation of some old, meddling aunt.”
Jillian tilts her head and looks at Daisy. “You know, I had a great-aunt who died years before I was born, and her name was Daisy.”
The bird cackles.