Chapter Six
Lyndsey
I’ve never claimed to be smart. I didn’t go to college.
I wasn’t top of any classes in high school.
But I never thought I was stupid. So I can’t understand why I thought being back in Seattle would make everything easier.
I reasoned with myself that the old adage “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” was really true.
Deluded myself into thinking that, once I was home, I would be able to push Aiden and his stupidly toned body right out of my head.
Obviously, I was wrong. Instead I’m reminded of him even more.
Every hockey fan I walk past on the street still wearing Spears gear, even though their season is over, reminds me of how elegant he is on the ice.
Every time I close my eyes I’m hounded by memories of his tattooed skin and stormy eyes looking down at me filled with the lingering effects of sleep.
Now today is my first day back at Bloom and Blossom since we got back and I’m dreading it.
When Ellis was put on bed rest towards the second half of her pregnancy last year Aiden stepped up for me.
Well, I guess he stepped up for Liam but he helped me all the same.
He would be in the quiet little flower shop every day after practice just to see if I had everything under control.
No matter how much I told him I didn’t need a babysitter he would still bring me a coffee and sit with me while I closed up for the night.
We would laugh and he would listen, really listen, as I told him about my day.
Frankly he was one of the first people in my life outside of Ellis who I started to feel like myself around.
My guard was still up, I kept him at bay with flirting jabs and a well-placed flick of my hair to hide my blush, but it was all for nothing.
Eventually he got bored, he still showed up until baby Charlotte was born but something had changed.
About a few months before Ellis went into labour there was a shift in our dynamic.
I couldn’t explain it, he still bought me coffee and he still listened to me talk but there was a different aura around us.
It was no longer charged with sexual tension, it was just tense.
Like he wanted to be there but felt like he shouldn’t be.
At first, I thought maybe Liam had told his captain to back off but Ellis and Liam seemed to be rooting for something to happen between us so that didn’t feel right.
I kept my questions to myself though, maybe I shouldn’t have, maybe I should have confronted him and asked why it felt like being in my presence pained him.
But I was scared, scared that I was pushing away one of the only people who seemed to care about me, even if it was only for a while.
So I resigned myself to friendship, we were going to be in each other’s lives for a long time because of Ellis and Liam and I was not going to let my clearly unrequited crush make things uncomfortable for everyone else.
So I kept it to myself, I sat in that uncomfortable feeling for months.
I watched him when he wasn’t looking, knowing it would be all I was allowed. Until I woke up in his arms.
Now it’s harder, I can still feel his warm breath on my neck.
I can’t hide from the memories of him holding me tight against him and now I have to go to work.
Another place plagued by images of him and I won’t be able to avoid it for long.
Ellis is going to have questions, she may have kept her cool during brunch but I doubt she was hungover enough to not notice the mounting tension between Aiden and me.
Taking a heaving breath – I must face the music – I push open the doors of Bloom and Blossom.
Memories of Aiden aside, it is one of my favourite places in all of Seattle.
With its walls of flowers coordinated by colour, somehow always warm but never stifling, this shop is a happy place.
Many people hate their jobs but I feel privileged to have mine.
Ellis doesn’t like letting go of control and the fact she is willing to give it up for me is a blessing.
Today is one of the first times I have walked in here grimacing as the little bell announces my entrance; at the sound, Ellis rounds from the back room, face split into a wide grin.
Her eyes still seem heavy but between the amount she drank this weekend and the sleepless nights of a baby that isn’t a surprise.
“Lynds! God, it’s good to be back, right?
” She beams. I wish it would put me at ease but it doesn’t, I’m waiting for the probing questions that I know are coming.
A part of me wants her to ask. That way I could get rid of some of the weight on my shoulders.
Though I know that isn’t fair, I want to keep everything with Aiden under wraps, and yet not telling Ellis feels wrong.
“Yeah, sure it’s great. Let me just hang my stuff up and I’ll get started on the online orders?” I want to be in the back, hoping that if she is in front of house and I’m in the back I can escape for a while.
“You’re amazing, you know how much I hate them. I go cross-eyed if I look at that screen too long.” I know that of course, she complains about it at least once a week since I started here. She likes real paperwork, warm pages straight off the printer, something tangible.
Once my jacket and bag are on a hook, I slide into the spinning computer chair that reminds me of the nook in my childhood home.
That’s where my dad’s computer was – my brother Peter and I were allowed time on it each day, him more than me because he was older, I know it was because he was the golden child who did no wrong.
My mom didn’t want me searching too much and filling my head with “the word of Satan”.
I was to be a God-loving child and only use my internet access to learn more about the Lord.
That’s not what I used it for, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
Every time I sit in the little office in the back room of Bloom and Blossom for a moment, I’m right back there aged ten wanting to know everything about the world outside of my bubble. What an amazing world it is too.
Each time Ellis comes back for something when we aren’t busy the hair on my neck stands on edge.
I’m a skittish cat, all but hiding under the desk when she walks into the room, but it never comes.
I lay awake last night mentally preparing how to shut down her barrage of questions and she is yet to ask me any.
I would think she was trying to lull me into a false sense of security but that isn’t like her.
At least not with me, she is honest, never beating around the bush, which is why I thought I would walk into an interrogation this morning.
Paranoia is a difficult thing, I have driven myself crazy all for nothing.
Ellis is her usual self, tired but determined, and I don’t know how to handle it.
My phone keeps buzzing on the desk in front of me but I ignore Aiden’s texts the way I have every moment since we walked out of the meeting with Cassie about our impending divorce.
He wanted to meet up to talk about what happens next but I ignored it.
I don’t want to talk, I want to leave it in Vegas even though I know I’ll never be that lucky. My sins follow me, a looming shadow.
“Okay, I told Liam I would leave it but I can’t, what’s going on?” Well, shit. Ellis finally breaks the silence and I guess he told her to wait for me to be ready. She would be waiting a long time for that though.
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m all good. Allll goodddd.” So smooth, Lyndsey, way to go. That was nothing like what I practised. No, I was supposed to be sure and steady not a babbling moron.
“I call bull. Lyndsey, you have sat here growling at the computer for the past three hours and you want me to think nothing’s wrong?
I wasn’t born yesterday. Is it something to do with your ex?
” She’s right. I’m not slick but I didn’t plan for this, for her to draw it out for hours before asking me questions, the Ellis I know should have blurted them out as soon as she saw me.
“Speaking of born, how is my beautiful god-daughter?” It’s a cheap shot, I know it is, and by the way she raises her brows at me Ellis knows it too.
“I know you’re deflecting but it’s going to work because you have to see the picture I took of her smiling, her teeth are cutting so she is covered in drool but it’s so damn cute I don’t care.” That should give me at least another hour.
Ellis pulls her phone from the front pocket of her pink apron and starts scrolling through it.
I can tell the moment she finds the picture she wants to show me because her eyes sparkle before she even turns it around.
When she does mine must sparkle too. Charlotte is nine months old and I love her deeply.
I haven’t been around many babies, my parents stopped after they had me.
A lot of super-religious families aren’t keen on birth control, but they were realistic in knowing they couldn’t afford any more kids after Peter and me.
They always said they had the perfect kids: the older-brother-younger-sister dynamic, with a pet cat to finish the family.
They wanted to have that picture-perfect ending and, when they achieved it, they were as happy as they could be.
That meant that I never had any younger siblings to play with, just a brother who hated my guts from the minute our parents brought me home.
Ellis never had that problem, her older son Jack adores his sister.
She is the apple of his eye and it is clear to everyone that, when she grows up, he is going to be so overprotective that it will drive her crazy.