26. Serenity
Chapter twenty-six
Serenity
A week later and I still can't help the giddy smile that seems to have permanently moved onto my face. Phantom memories of Declan touching me replays on my mind every few minutes and that causes electricity to attack my core, causing it to clench around nothing.
I want more. I want it all. I want more orgasms, more experiences with him, more submission. But I want to wait until the giddy happiness the first experience he gave me to fade before I ask for more.
The leaves in DC have changed and the breeze is getting cold enough to need a scarf. Magda wanted fresh, fall-themed bouquets for the house, so I offered to walk to the local flower shop for her. She was working on a lemon meringue pie, and Declan was on a conference call with their accountant, so I offered to go.
I'm smiling like a lunatic at everyone I pass and get quite a few confused looks back. It's DC. Everyone's too busy and self-important to smile. That, or they're tourists. There's no in between. Unless you consider a virgin, who got taken out of a bad situation and introduced to the pleasures of orgasms.
I practically skip into the flower shop and smile wider at the pretty 'ding' the bell above the shop made. In another life, could I have worked at a flower shop? I bet the down time would have killed me. It's a nice thought, though, to be surrounded by so much beauty.
"Be right with you!" A pretty voice calls out from the back of the shop. I walk around slowly, admiring all of the fall-themed bouquets and potted plants.
Then, a familiar redhead comes from the back room, wiping her hands on a towel and asks how she can help me. I frown at her a little, recognizing her, but not sure from where...
The Envelope. Of course. It's the only place I go besides our running route.
"Do I know you?" she asks first, tilting her head at me.
"Do you work at The Envelope at night?" I ask.
"Yeah! I'm Nina. I've seen you there."
"Serenity," I say, holding my hand out and blushing a little. "I work The Green Side."
She nods in understanding. "And I work The Red. That's where I've seen you before."
I'm not sure why I'm blushing. She's the one that works topless.
"You know the tips are better on the Red Side, right?"
I blush harder. I know she means well but I can't imagine walking around topless for everyone to see. So, I tell her that.
"Meh, you get used to it. Do you need some flowers?"
I look down at the pretty pink roses. They're small and look like an old school variety. "Is it too late in the season to plant roses in the ground?"
Declan gave me his credit card weeks ago and keeps reminding me he wants me to make the house feel like a home, but I don't really know what that means. I'm not sleeping on a thread-bare musty mattress anymore. That's more than enough 'home' for me. But his front garden beds are fairly bare, and maybe some nice pink rose bushes would show him that I'm putting in the effort to do what he tells me.
"Actually, no. Now's the perfect time. When the flowers and leaves fall off the plant will focus its energy on establishing thicker roots to survive the harsh Winter."
I smile, nodding. That makes a lot of sense. "I'll take four, and these three bouquets, please."
***
"Miss Jones?" I jump, startled and ready to run inside the house if I need to when a deep male voice calls my name.
I drop my trowel and turn to see Detective Johnson.
I place my gloved hand over my chest and exhale shakily.
"I'm sorry to startle you," he says, looking genuinely remorseful.
I was on my knees, back to the sidewalk, planting our new rose bushes. Nina had given me tips on how to make sure they survive the move from their pots to the ground and I'm so grateful to her. She promised to find me the next time she worked The Envelope and get to know each other. It'd be nice to have another friend. I'm not sure how awkward it's going to be, though, making a new friend while they're topless?
I smile at the young detective. "It's alright. Is everything okay?"
He nods quickly. "I just wanted to let you know that your parents have been charged with possession, public intoxication, and are looking at between two and seven years."
I swallow down the ball of anxiety that threatens to choke me. Instead, I nod and thank the young detective. I sit on the grass and simply stare at the rose bush in front of me and the overturned pot. I know I'm not responsible for their actions, or their addictions, no matter what my mom used to tell me. I am responsible for them getting locked up, though. I won't try to pretend like I know what's good for them, but I do hope that a few years without access to drugs might help them get a second chance at life. When I was still living there, they had a constant supply of money and so a constant supply of drugs. I shouldn't have enabled their addiction, but I realize now how very much I was in fight-or-flight mode, just trying to survive a day at a time. Maybe I didn't make the right choice back then, but I really couldn't see how to escape it.
They'll go to jail, but what has my heart skipping through my chest is the thought that in two years they'll be out. Then what? Will they come after me again? Get their friends to? Would they find me at The Envelope again? Or find me here?
A wave of protectiveness overcomes me. They can't come here. I can't let them taint the one good thing that's happened to me in this life. No. They won't come here.
We say our goodbyes and I go back to my plants.
Just then the front door opens and Declan steps out, closing it behind him and peering down at me from the front porch.
"What do you think?" I ask, smiling and waving my hands over the new rose bushes.
The proud smile he gives me makes the crow’s feet near his eyes deepen, and I revel in the feeling of pride. I'm forced to look away. When my normally grumpy, brooding Declan looks at me with that devastatingly gorgeous smile, it makes me want to bow at his feet and give him everything. His praise, his compliments, his touch are devastating to someone as damaged as I am and I'm afraid of what it's doing to my heart.
Then his eyes cut to behind me and I turn again.
A small army of men are unloading a box truck I didn't notice double parked on the side of the road, carrying already assembled bookshelves.
"What is this?" I ask Declan.
He's effortlessly cool when he replies, "I figured we'd turn the Blue Room into a library for you, since you've bought so many books. You need a place to keep them."
I blush. My romance books have been the one thing I've splurged on money-wise, now that I can afford to buy them, instead of just borrowing them from the library one at a time. I've been keeping them in neat stacks on the floor of my bedroom, thinking he wouldn't notice or mind.
His thoughtful desire to make me feel at home hits me in the chest. They were just hollow words. Even if I hadn't planned on doing much more than planting some roses, he was doing it for me. I never would have imposed so much as to take over an entire room in his house. And he knew that. So, he went ahead and did it for me.
I stare at the roses, my chest impossibly full, and my heart overwhelmed with an emotion I've never felt before and am afraid to name.