18. Charleigh
EIGHTEEN
CHARLEIGH
I’ve never felt so overwhelmed in my life, and I’m not just talking about how my ten-thousand-dollar refrigerator decided to crap out on me in the middle of the night, ruining an incredibly expensive client’s order. I’m talking about Asher.
Every feeling I’ve ever had for him has been set on fire. My body is still humming from his touch, and when I take the subway to work, I can still feel his mouth between my legs. I sit cross legged the entire way, hoping no one could sense the heat still coming off my body.
The subway is nearly at my stop when I get a text from Julianna in our group chat.
Julianna: Bringing coffees and maybe a bit of vodka to sneak in them. I have a feeling we might need it.
Selene: You are a saint.
Me: You don’t have to do that, Jules. I know you’re busy with your own work.
Julianna: I know I don’t, but I am. When my best friends are in trouble, I’m there. And please… I’m my own boss, so I work whenever I feel like it. Count me in!
Selene: I love you both.
Me: Love you both, too. Hopping off the subway now. Be there in a few!
Once the doors slide open, I push my way through the morning crowd and run up the stairs and down the two blocks to my shop. When I push through the front door, Selene is already meeting me. Her hair flies behind her, and her arms wrap around me.
“Charleigh…” She sighs, resting her chin on my shoulder. “Thank God you’re here.”
“Come on,” I tell her. “I’ll take a look at the condition of the flowers. Hopefully time is on our side. At least enough to find somewhere to keep them all.”
When I reach the back room, I look through the glass doors and carefully study each arrangement and bouquet. Luckily, they don’t look terrible. I have some time, but not long.
Selene nervously bites down on her thumbnail. “I haven’t opened the doors because I was afraid of losing any cool air that might still be in there.”
I reassure her, placing my hand on her arm. “You did the right thing.”
“Okay.” She huffs, planting her hands on her hips. “What do we do, then?”
“Let’s start cleaning all this up, and I’ll see what I can come up with.”
My phone pings in my hand. Despite the internal panic, I’m relieved to see Asher’s name, so I swipe my screen and read his text.
Asher: Is this similar to the refrigerators in your shop?
Below his text is a screenshot of a Google search for flower refrigerators. The one in my shop is the first picture in the results.
Charleigh: Yeah. Why?
Asher: Give me ten.
I close my phone out, not bothering to respond or try to figure out what Asher means. I need to get these flowers organized so I can figure out what to do.
Julianna bursts through the door, tossing her cardigan on the front counter on her way to the back, a tray of coffees perched in one hand and a bottle of Vodka in the other. “I’m here with caffeine and alcohol, bitches. Let’s get this shit figured out.”
God, I love her.
Ten minutes must pass by, with the three of us frantically cleaning up loose flowers and vases, when my phone rings from the prep table with Asher’s name flashing on the screen.
I ignore Selene and Julianna’s puzzled expressions and answer.
“Hey,” I breathe out. I nervously toy with a flower stem on the prep table.
“Hey.” Asher pauses. “How’s everything going?”
I flick my gaze up to my best friends. They haven’t taken their eyes off me as they stuff flowers into vases as if they’re moving in slow motion. I wave my arm at them and shake my head.
“Fine, I guess,” I tell Asher on a sigh, not completely convinced. “The flowers aren’t wilted yet, but there isn’t much time. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with all of them… and every other flower that couldn’t fit.”
“Do you know the Trinity Hotel?” Asher asks.
“Um, Trinity Hotel? I think so. The hotel is here on the Upper West side, right? On this street or the street over?”
“It’s on your block, actually,” he explains casually. “A few buildings down.”
“Oh, it is?” I swing around just as Selene leaves the back room and makes her way to the front. Either she can hear Asher through the phone, or she already knows where he’s headed with this conversation. She pushes through the door and stands on the sidewalk. I watch her as she points to her right, then looks at me. She shrugs before coming back inside.
“I know the owner of the hotel. I sold him that building a few months ago,” he explains. “There’s a ballroom with a complete state of the art kitchen in the back. He was about to book the ballroom for some beauty event, but the company hadn’t finalized their offer on the rental fee yet. So, I put one in to outbid them. You can use their refrigerators if you need.”
“What?” I place my hand to my chest, unsure whether I’m hearing him right or not.
“Yeah,” he says, a few clicks coming through the phone. “You told me the refrigerator I sent you in the text was the same ones you have at your store, and I remembered seeing them at the Trinity Hotel when I showed it to my client.”
“Asher.” I want to cry. “You didn’t have to do that. It must have cost you a fortune.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he dismisses quickly. “If it helps you out until we find you a better shop with working coolers, then it was all worth it. When you go over there just mention my name to the front desk. They’ll be expecting you. ”
I press my hand to my forehead. “Asher…” I croak. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much this means to me.”
The frayed edges surrounding the place in my heart for Asher slowly start to mend. I don’t know what this means for us. For years, I held so much anger toward him for the way he left. And when he came back into my life the anger was all too real. But now, I’m realizing that while the anger was still alive, so was the love I had for him.
“You mean a lot to me, Charleigh.” He reassures all my thoughts with that single sentence.
Then… silence. There’s silence between us, and I know if he were here, I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from kissing him.
“Listen.” He exhales heavily. “I have a board meeting here in a little while, and another meeting with a client after, but once I’m all finished up I’ll come down to shop to help move the flowers over or anything else you might need.”
I drop my shoulders. “Thank you, Asher.”
“You’re welcome, Little Flower.”
When I hang up, I place my phone on the table and get back to work, until I notice Julianna and Selene aren’t moving. I look up to find four gorgeous, wide eyes staring at me.
“Don’t.” I point a stiff finger at them before wagging it around the room. “We’re not talking about this right now. We have work to do.”
But when I look down and shove another flower in the vase, I can’t help but smile.
An hour later, the girls and I have finished arranging the last bouquet and gathered a few of them to take over to the Trinity Hotel for our first run. A few minutes after ending my call with Asher, I walked the three buildings down the hotel and told the front desk clerk who I was. She showed me all the refrigerators in the kitchen before taking me to the staff entrance at the back, which would make it easier to use. The refrigerators were more than enough for the sweet sixteen order and all the flowers I hadn’t been able to fit, regardless. I decided to close the shop for the day, considering I knew this would probably eat up most of my day.
I’ve just completed my second run over to the hotel when my phone rings in my pocket. I’m hoping it’s Asher, but my chest deflates when I see Cyrus Temper’s name instead.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Hi, Charleigh Keeler? This is Amanda at Cyrus Temper’s office. I’m connecting you with Mr. Temper now.”
I pull the phone away from my ear, confused with her introduction. “Oh, um, okay.”
Barely a second passes before I hear Cyrus on the other end. “Ms. Keeler,” he practically sings. “How are you?”
The tone in his voice is odd. In the times I’ve spoken with him, Cyrus is a fairly stiff man. In a way, he reminds me of my father. He is always in business mode, but today, he has a bit of personality. “I’m doing okay. Better now than earlier, actually. How are you?”
“You never emailed me back with your thoughts on the listings I sent you. Unfortunately, a few of them are off the market now.”
I blink rapidly. Apparently, we’re skipping the artificial pleasantries.
“I’m sorry I never got back to you.” I press my hand to my forehead. “I’ve been incredibly busy.”
He huffs, then clicks his tongue. “Well, that’s precisely why we were looking for a bigger shop for you, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes.” I swallow. “But I?—"
“It looks like I have a few other listings I can send your way,” he interrupts. “The market is tightening, so we’ll want to jump on these as soon as possible.”
I open my mouth to tell Cyrus I’m reconsidering working with Asher. In our first meeting, I briefly told him I was working with another agent, and when he pressed me on who, I caved and told him it was Asher. He hasn’t brought him up since, but I didn’t miss the way his jaw clenched at the mention of his name.
My confession sits at the edge of my tongue until Julianna bursts through the door with the biggest fucking grin I’ve ever seen on her.
She whizzes past me, scoops up two more bouquets, looks directly at me, and winks. “Asher Egan must love more than just you riding his trouser snake for him to book this hotel for you. Wow.”
Panic climbs up my neck, and my jaw drops. My hand flies to cover the bottom of my phone, but I know I’m already too late. There’s no way Cyrus didn’t hear Julianna’s big mouth just now.
“Oh, my God,” I mouth to her.
She shrugs and silently giggles. “Oops.”
I gape at her while she leaves me standing in the middle of my shop, dumbfounded. I hadn’t even told her about me sleeping with Asher. I refused to tell Julianna and Selene earlier, sticking to what I meant when I said we had work to do. They dropped the subject, but they must have gathered something happened between us for Asher to go to these lengths to help me out. At least Julianna has figured it out. Selene’s been hard at work, carrying armfuls of flowers over to the hotel, barely taking the time to look up from her feet, talking only long enough to tell us she was able to convince her sister London to come to Julianna’s birthday party.
My cheeks are flaming, and the obvious silence on the other end becomes loud. “Mr. Temper? Are you still there? I’m so sorry.”
“I’ll email over those listings now, Ms. Keeler,” he clips. “Let me know when you find one that interests you. Have a great day.”
My mouth falls open again when Cyrus abruptly ends our call.
I stand frozen in my shop until the heat leaves my face and chest. I want to be angry with my best friend for embarrassing me, but she may have done me a favor. There’s no way I can work with Cyrus now. Not when I’ll be wondering if he’s thinking about me with Asher.
Despite my desire to hopefully never see Cyrus Temper again to save us both the embarrassment, I hope Julianna is right. I hope this means Asher does care for me in ways that mean more than just sleeping with him, because if not, I’m not sure my heart will survive getting burned again.
This time, mine will be going up in flames.