Chapter 1
ABI
Several weeks later . . .
“Girls just wanna have fu-un,” I sing along, not caring that I’m off-key as I tie a hand-dyed hot pink silk ribbon around a bundle of colorful garden roses while Cyndi Lauper belts her heart out over the SweetPea Boutique’s sound system.
My fingers move faster as I near completion, left, right, and left, creating a fanciful bow.
I’ve done this so many times my hands do the work mindlessly, leaving me to toss my head a bit as I loudly add, “they just wanna-a-a.”
Securing the carefully prepared loops temporarily with a pair of bobby pins before a dab of hot glue and a final knot, I spruce the flowers and then critically eye my creation. Seeing no flaw, a sense of jubilance fills me.
Perfect!
Creating beautiful flower arrangements never gets old for me, no matter how many times I do it.
It’s been my passion for as long as I can remember, starting with wadded up handfuls of dandelion weeds when I was a little girl.
But that changed quickly when I’d snagged some kitchen scissors and absolutely butchered the rose bushes out back.
“Look at what you’ve done! Destroyed!” our estate gardener yells at me as I cower, the bouquet falling to my side though I don’t let it go.
Mom runs in to check out the racket. Once her quick eyes figure out that no one is hurt, she asks, “Abigail, why did you cut the roses?”
Not hearing anger, I hold the bundle up again, showing it off. “They were so pretty, I wanted to bring them inside. I arranged them to show their best sides and hide the dark spots on the petals.” And with thorn-pricked and scratched hands, I hand the bouquet to her. “For you.”
“Oh, Abi!” Tears glisten in her eyes as she takes the flowers and holds them to her nose, inhaling deeply. “Thank you.”
The gardener clears his throat and Mom looks up at the reminder. “Right, of course. Abi, Edward works very hard to grow these roses and you just chopped them down. You did a beautiful job with the arrangement, and it’s very sweet of you, but you need to ask next time, okay?”
I nod, mouthing an apology to Edward.
Back in the shop, I smile. Mom’s tearful happiness had been the spark that ignited my love of arrangements, of making people feel appreciated with a beautiful design with a sole purpose of being pretty.
I also think back to Edward, who’d lovingly and patiently showed me how to grow and prune the gardens after that first run-in.
I apologized many times over for butchering his roses once I learned exactly what it took to grow them.
And I’d promised to always treat the flowers I acquire with the proper respect and honor they deserve while showcasing their beauty for people to enjoy.
That’s why I started SweetPea Boutique, as a way to do just that.
And I’m good. That’s not a humble brag because there’s no sense in being modest. I’m not a florist who throws together a dozen red roses in a plastic wrap and calls it a day.
No, we create art here. We do the best weddings, the top company affairs, and serve people who want quirky, unique, custom designs.
My little shop, which is lime green with big, bold pink bubble letters and a black- and white-striped awning, is filled with lush earthen smells, flowers you can’t get anywhere else in the state, and handmade vases and ribbons of every size and color.
A lot of people don’t get it. I could get by quite easily on my last name alone.
I could’ve gone into the family business and worked side-by-side with my dad and Courtney, wearing Prada power suits and sky-high Jimmy Choo heels to board meetings where we toss around ROI and billion-dollar profit margins like they’re no big deal.
But I’ve always been different, marched to the beat of my own drummer, or so I’ve been told. I wiggle my bare toes in my comfortable and sensibly waterproof Crocs, sure that’s probably the case.
But I am who I am, with no interest in changing anything.
Dad worried, of course. It’s who he is. He’d tried to talk me into following in his footsteps, and in a way, I had .
. . by starting my own business from the ground up.
Once he’d seen I had a business plan, including an accelerated payoff schedule for the loans I needed to take out, he’d understood and been proud of me.
The last few years have only solidified that. Especially when I paid those loans off.
SweetPea Boutique is mine now. All mine.
I can’t believe it, but it’s true. All because of floral arrangements like the one in my hand, but there’s no rest for the wicked, and I won’t sit around on my laurels. No, I always want to do better, be more.
Triumphant, I hold up the bouquet. “What do ya think?” I ask Janey, my right-hand woman.
She’s been with me since day one and is an amazing floral designer in her own right, but thankfully, she has no desire to do the business side of the business.
She’s happy to create and keep me from going insane with our workload.
From her workstation, a stainless-steel prep table where she has orchids and pink ginger lilies trimmed and ready to arrange, she turns a critical eye to the bouquet. I watch her face, looking for any telltale signs that something’s wrong.
Janey’s short, bleached white-blonde hair is pushed back behind a rhinestone headband, leaving her brown eyes exposed. They scan left and right, then around, up, and down, leaving no bud unexamined. She lifts one shoulder, tilting her head as she frowns. “Meh. It’s fine.”
I blink, my eyes jumping to the bouquet. “What? It’s gorgeous!” An instant later, I ask, “What’s wrong with it?”
Her smile blooms quickly, bright and white. “Gotcha! It’s gorgeous. Claire will love it.”
She might’ve been kidding, but now, I’m looking the bouquet over again with second thoughts. “Maybe I’ll add a few Swarovski crystals?”
Janey laughs, but when I don’t laugh along, she sighs. “I was just fucking with you, Abs. Here, how’s this instead?”
She opens her eyes wide, her hands covering her open mouth as she gasps sharply.
“Oh. My. God. It’s gor-ge-ous. Like nothing I’ve ever seen.
You are an artiste!” She adds a polite golf clap and then her drawn-on brows lift sardonically, her overdramatized reaction turning to snark. “Is that what you were looking for?”
I shove at her shoulder with a smile. “Bitch.” There’s zero heat to the word, and she merely laughs in response.
“Seriously, it’s great. It’s exactly what Claire asked for, only better because it’s got that Abi touch.” She mimes sprinkling glitter around the flowers.
Ooh, that’s an idea . . . maybe I could spritz floral glitter over the bouquet? I eye it, considering.
“Whatever you’re thinking, stop. The only thing you’re doing with it is putting it in the fridge to wait for the wedding planner to get here.
” She points a warning finger my way. I’m the boss, but she’s bossy, and I would never risk pissing her off because she’s a force in the way a tornado is a little wind.
Aggressive, fierce, and destructive if challenged.
So I put the bouquet in the cooler as instructed. “Happy?”
“Exceedingly.” She beams at having gotten her way. Again.
“As long as Claire’s happy, that’s all that matters.”
Claire Johnson, my biggest client to date, is a wealthy Instagram influencer-slash-self-motivation coach.
She’s what my dad would call new money, like us, really.
Someone who’s worked their way up from the ground floor, capitalizing on a niche she carved out for herself.
Alternatively, she’s marrying old money.
Her fiancé, Cole Kennedy—not those Kennedys, but close enough—comes from generations of millionaires and has a trust fund the size of a small country’s annual gross domestic product.
I’d know because Cole went to school with Ross, and between that elite small circle of a network and my working relationship with their top-notch wedding planner, Beth, I managed to get this contract.
And I will not blow this opportunity.
Because it’s not just a wedding. Besides the big day, this is an entire Event, with a huge three-foot-tall, blinking neon, capital E, starting with tonight’s dinner.
It’s being held here in the city as a way of introducing the bride and groom’s families before we all travel for the ceremony and festivities.
Yeah, travel. Because of course, the wedding is a destination one, taking place on Aruba’s famed coast at the famous five-star Casa Del Mario resort, with an RSVP list filled to the brim with the rich, famous, and political elite.
Alongside an orchestra, a custom choreographed fireworks display, and other live entertainment, People magazine will also be present to film what is being called THE wedding of the decade.
It’s a lot of pressure, amplified by needing to ship everything to the resort and make arrangements on site daily for the various lead-up events to the big ceremony and reception.
In other words, I can’t fuck up tonight’s dinner. This is my last at-home opportunity to show Claire what I can do and that I have her event well in hand.
I shouldn’t worry this much. I’m excellent at what I do, I have lists of my lists to be prepared for any eventuality, and Claire has been nothing but accepting of my ideas, but anxiety rushes through me despite all those reassurances.
The shop phone rings, and I hear Samantha, my front desk assistant, answer. “SweetPea Boutique, how may I help make today beautiful?” I can hear the smile in her voice, but then, more dryly, she follows up with, “Oh. Of course. We’ll be ready.”
“Abi!” she yells a second later. Hopefully, she hung up first or whoever was on the phone is probably deaf now.
I hiss, “What?”
Samantha runs to the back, eyes wild and bouncing around the space. “Shit! Clean up, clean up! Quick!” She sounds a bit manic as she shoves cut leaves into a trash can and dumps my tumbler of water onto a nearby plant.