Chapter 18
COURTNEY
“Hey, Boss Lady, there’s a little somethin’-somethin’ on your desk,” Jillian says as I come back in from lunch.
Her eyes are dancing behind her cat-eye frames, clearly amused.
“Looks like your ‘running’ is going a little more than okay. Get your fit on . . . uh, get your fit on . . .” She’s tweaking Missy Elliott’s Get Your Freak On but leaving the meaning crystal clear.
And now . . . oh, God . . . is that the running man? I think it’s her attempt at it, at least, but her circle skirt, one with baskets of kittens this time, is swinging wildly, not helping matters. Actually, on second thought, maybe it’s disguising her lack of dance skills and helping a lot.
“Jill!” I snap, but the laugh pops through too quickly for her to take me seriously.
“Go see!” she orders me, pushing me toward my office door.
I stare at my desk, stunned by what I find.
Flowers.
Not just roses, not a simple and classic dozen, but a plethora of roses, and tulips, and daisies, and Queen Anne’s lace, and . . .
“Looks like a forest elf jacked off all over your desk,” Jillian whispers behind her hand, though why she’s going quiet now, I don’t know, considering the crazy things she usually says at full volume.
“What’d you do? Actually, scratch that .
. . let’s get real, who’d you do? And don’t say it was running this time unless you want me to break out my sweet dance moves again. ”
Holy shit. He sent me flowers.
Am I flattered?
Am I mad?
Am I a bit giddy? Yes, yes, and mostly the last one.
Stepping forward, I check the card, and yep, they’re from Abi’s shop. Which means I’m going to get an earful about it. But this time, I’m too happy to care. A smile bigger than the largest bloom takes my face and heat flushes my cheeks.
There’s the clicking sound of a shutter, and I whirl to see Abi sitting pretty as you please on my couch with a big grin of her own.
“That right there, that’s what I wanted to see!
” she says, looking at her phone screen, presumably at the picture she just snapped of me.
“God, I could use this as a fuckin’ Valentine’s Day advertisement. ”
I’d been so distracted by the pretty flowers, I hadn’t even noticed her sitting over there like a creeper, and she scared the shit out of me. Jillian snaps her gum, patting me on the shoulder. “Oh, by the way, your sister’s in your office. She decided to stay after delivering your flowers.”
I throw an arched brow her way and she shrugs unapologetically. “She had a good plan, proposed it thoughtfully and reasonably, and it made perfect sense.” To Abi, Jillian says, “You’ll send that right away?”
Abi nods, and her phone makes a zooming sound as she shares the picture with Jillian, whose phone dings at her desk. I wonder who else Abi is sharing it with.
Shit. I want a copy too.
I walk over to my desk, casually smelling the flowers. “You did a great job. It’s a beautiful arrangement.”
She makes a noise like an incorrect game show answer. “Eh’nt. Nice try. Wanna play again?”
Nope, still aiming for nonchalant. Abi has her certain skillset, but I have mine too. “What? I get flowers. It’s no big deal.”
Abi rolls her eyes. “Puh-leeze. Last man to give you flowers was Frankie Reigns.”
“And?” I don’t even know who that is, but Abi seems sure so I’m flipping through my mental rolodex.
“And that was when you were babysitting him and he had a five-year-old’s crush on his babysitter!” Abi laughs.
Oh! The memory comes back to me, sweet and innocent. Frankie had been a neighbor’s son, and he’d given me moon eyes every time I came over, finally giving me a dandelion weed from his mother’s yard. It was adorably cute.
And sadly, Abi’s right. It was the last time a guy gave me flowers, so that makes it . . . at least ten years ago.
“Aww, Frankie was the cutest. I haven’t thought of that in ages. I think that dandelion is still pressed in one of my books at Mom and Dad’s.”
Abi snaps her fingers. “Focus, here. Now for those of us in here who are ignorant of certain facts, or pretending to be, you know who sends flowers? Men who got fucked or who fucked up.” She holds up one finger and then another, giving the two options.
“So, which is it? Did our mysterious Kaede fuck up so badly that he had to call me first thing this morning to order flowers? Or is your vajayjay so good that he was calling me for ‘thank you for letting me into your lady cave’ flowers? Which is it? Are we mad at him, because I’ve got a compost pile if we need to ditch his body, or is he the latest addict to the Courtney cream? ”
Abi rattles off her flower theory monologue so fast that I’m left breathless, my head spinning and my eyes bugging out. She’s absolutely insane, brassy, ballsy . . . in other words, totally Abigail. “Wha . . . but wha . . .”
“Ah-ha!” Abi declares, clapping in victory.
“I knew it! Reverse psychology is always your downfall, right? Has been ever since we were kids. I give you a little bit of worry about your climbing under Kaede, tell you not to do it under any circumstances, and what do you do? You go right out there and do it. God, at least make it hard for me to get your dominoes to fall.” She rolls her eyes, but she’s grinning happily.
“I do not just do things because you tell me not to.”
I didn’t. Okay, I did. But not only underneath him. I also climbed on top of him, got on my knees, and he got behind me in the shower again this morning. But not because of Abi or her scheming, but because of Kaede.
I could be addicted to just his cock alone. In a world of approximately four billion dicks, his is the best of the best of the best. With honors, like magna cum laude cock.
Abi points to the flowers. “Evidence to the contrary, exhibit A.” Then drawing a circle around my face, she summarizes. “Exhibit B. Case closed.”
God, if she weren’t a floral designer, she’d be a fucking attorney.
She’s better than the guys on Law & Order.
“Fine. Maybe you’re right. Maybe, just pure speculation here, we did end up in bed together.
And maybe I liked it. A lot. But you said I should get something out of this, so what if maybe I did? ”
Instead of cheering, Abi pops to her feet, doing a ridiculous little happy dance that’s part robot, part twerk, and part spastic fit.
It’s amazingly worse than Jillian’s dance, which I wouldn’t have thought possible.
In fact, she ends up accidentally thumping against the door more than once before she comes over and pulls me out of my chair, turning her happy dance into an awkward, hilarious two-step that has me laughing at my sister’s insanity.
My door opens and Jillian pokes her head in. “Who’s winning the WWE Battle Royale? My money’s on Abi!” Seeing us both grinning, she pops her head out. “Never mind!”
I pull back from Abi and smooth my skirt, trying to remain at least a little professional.
“Thank you, Jillian!” I call before flipping off Abi and throwing a fallen tulip at her, still snickering.
“You have got to come to Zumba with me if that’s your version of dancing.
Stacylynne would have you shaking right in minutes.
” I do a little shoulder shimmy-hip bump, doing Stacylynne proud.
Abi sticks her tongue out at me. “I go to the gym all the time. I do yoga and leave the ass clapping to you. But you’re welcome to hit some down dog with me?”
I sigh but agree. As long as I can keep thoughts of Kaede out of my head and what yoga-like positions he can put me in, I should be okay. “Fine. You happy?”
“I’ll be happy when you spill all the tea,” Abi says breathlessly, plopping down on the sofa again. “And I mean all the tea.”
I press the Do Not Disturb button on my phone, knowing Jillian will immediately see it light up at her station and hold all interruptions unless the building’s on fire.
That done, I sit down next to Abi on the couch.
I search my mind for where to start. Honestly, I want to tell her.
I think it’ll feel good to share the story with someone.
And for all her craziness, I trust Abi implicitly.
“Well, we’ve done some speed dating sessions, so many ‘get to know you’ questions that I feel like he’s scooped out my brain, examined it, and then given it back to me once he was done memorizing it.”
Abi makes a disgusted face. “Ew. But you’re a brain type, so I can see where that would do it for you.”
I blink, my brows knitted. “What do you mean?”
Despite her words, she explains slowly as if I’m a toddler.
“You’re fucking smart, and you need a smart guy who can keep up with you.
A pretty package with no substance wouldn’t work for you because you’d be utterly bored.
Kaede’s both . . . pretty and substantial.
” Her brows bounce meaningfully. “Now, get back to it.” She wiggles on the couch, excited for more.
“Okay, so we’ve got our first dinner with Jeffrey Sanders this Saturday.”
Abi hisses out a quiet, “Shit.”
“I know, so we’re in full-blown prep mode,” I say, as if that explains all of our time together. Abi wiggles her fingers . . . gimme more, more, more.
“I met his mom.” That’s a biggie. I know it is for anyone. I think for Kaede, it’s an even bigger deal. His mom is his person the same way Dad is mine.
“He’s introduced you to his mama? Whoo-wee, we’ll be dress shopping in a hot minute at this rate. Hope to hell you’re easier to find a dress for than Violet. A little notice would be nice this time, ’kay?”
“It wasn’t like that. We’d gone running and his mom’s water heater broke,” I explain, going into the details. “Donna’s nice, really. I mean, she was doing the hard sell, but it was sweet.”
“And?” Abi prompts, still wanting more.
“We went on a date last night. The whole shebang. I got dressed up and he picked me up. He didn’t tell me where we were going—”
“You hate surprises,” she interrupts.