Chapter 4
Chapter Four
‘Tell me everything!’
Iris started talking as soon as Daisy answered the FaceTime call. It was late afternoon, and Daisy was about to close up for the day, but ever since Iris went on maternity leave just over a month ago, a call from her at this time of day was not unusual.
‘Everything about what?’
Iris blew a strand of coppery hair from her face. Daisy could just make out the top of baby Owen’s head where he rested on Iris’s chest.
‘I’m gone for a few weeks and I’m already out of the loop,’ Iris whisper-yelled into the phone.
‘What loop? I still have no idea what you’re talking about. Also tip the phone so I can peek at those little baby cheeks.’
Iris moved the phone and Owen’s sweet face filled the screen. Daisy let out a squeal. Her friend had made the cutest baby. At nearly four weeks old, he was all round rosy cheeks and soft, downy hair and he smelled like heaven.
‘I heard you have a new man,’ Iris said, her face returning to the screen, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.
‘A new man? Ha.’ Daisy continued watering her plants with one hand while she held the phone with the other. ‘There is no new man in sight.’
Iris pursed her lips, not at all convinced. ‘Well, I heard from Carol, who heard from Joe at the café, who heard from Jack at the inn, who had a wedding venue meeting today and he said that the groom was your ex and that you now had a new boyfriend.’
‘What the actual hell?’ Daisy jerked upright and poured water all over her shoe. ‘Damn it,’ she hissed.
‘Daisy. Language. There is a baby present.’
Daisy rolled her eyes. She knew perfectly well the kind of language that came out of Iris’s mouth. Iris would be lucky if Owen’s first word wasn’t four letters and not appropriate for church.
‘Sorry, but the gossip chain is out of its mind. How did you even hear any of this? I thought you were out of the loop?’
‘I’m still on the aerobics-ladies group chat, of course.’
‘Of course. Well, there’s no new man.’ How was it possible that it had been only a few hours since Elliot left her shop and half the town already thought she was in a full-blown relationship?
Iris looked skeptical. ‘Give me something, please. I’ve been trapped here with this baby sleeping on me all afternoon.
I have to pee. I need a snack. My shirt is covered in breast milk and Archer took Olive out for ice cream after school.
I have no one to talk to but a newborn. Please give me something to work with here. ’
Daisy sighed, about to deny it again, but her friend really did look pitiful. And exhausted. She knew these first few weeks with the baby had been hard on Iris. The least she could do was fill her in on the hot mess that was her own life.
‘David came in today with his new fiancée.’
‘That bastard,’ Iris gasped, her eyes lighting up with the gossip.
‘I tried to be cool about it, I really did, but they looked so damn good together.’
Iris winced. ‘How did you handle it? I mean, how did you feel seeing him?’
‘Like my heart was ripped from my body and thrown into a blender and turned into some kind of heartbreak smoothie.’
‘Wow. Graphic,’ Iris joked but her face was full of sympathy.
They’d known each other growing up, but they’d never really been friends in school, since Daisy had been a few years ahead of Iris.
It wasn’t until Daisy came home heartbroken and depressed that she and Iris got close.
Iris had helped her mom out a lot with the shop while Daisy was gone, and it was so good to have her here while Daisy got her footing back.
And now she considered Iris her closest friend.
If anyone knew how rough this last year had been for her, it was Iris.
‘This was the first time seeing him again, right?’ Iris asked.
‘Yep, since the day I packed up and left. So, it’s been nearly a year.
’ What a pitiful day that had been. She’d barely had three boxes worth of stuff at David’s place.
She’d wanted to think of it as their place, but had he ever thought of it that way?
As she moved her few belongings out, it was painfully clear he hadn’t. Just one more kick to the gut.
‘And then he just shows up here with his new girlfriend? That’s bullshit.’
‘Iris, the baby.’
Iris glanced down. ‘He didn’t hear me. And besides, it is bullshit. What was he doing here?’
‘He said Hailey liked the town and they wanted to look at wedding venues. He thought we could all be adults about it.’
‘Ew.’
‘Yeah. And they were all in love with each other right in my face, and it was disgusting. And then Elliot walked in…’
‘Wait, the nerdy architect guy?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And…’ Iris was practically vibrating. Daisy was actually concerned she might wake the baby.
‘And I may have said he was my boyfriend, and he may have gone along with it, and there may have been some light flirting. Oh, and we held hands.’
‘Held hands?!!’ Iris squealed and Owen shifted. Her eyes went wide. ‘You held hands?’ she whispered. ‘That’s so cute.’
‘It’s not cute. It’s insane.’ Daisy put down the watering can and retreated to her stool behind the counter.
Since her excitement this morning, the shop had been dead.
It was pretty normal to not get too much foot traffic.
It was doing events that kept her afloat.
Events like weddings. Her calendar was usually filled with weddings for the spring and summer. But not this year.
The Daisy Chain Flower Shop was known for its floral wedding designs. It was what they did best.
Until now.
Until Daisy and her curse arrived back home and started messing things up.
The first three weddings she was in charge of had ended in disaster.
Word had spread and she hadn’t booked a single one since—and the few weddings her mother had booked before Daisy got back to town had called and canceled. No one wanted to risk it.
She’d gone from bouquets and centerpieces to casket sprays and funeral wreaths. It was depressing in more ways than one.
‘And it doesn’t matter anyway because it was just a panic reaction and it’s all done with now. So you can pass it back through the phone tree that I do not in fact have a new man.’
Iris was quiet for a minute thinking and stroking Owen’s fuzzy little head.
‘But what if you did?’
‘What do you mean? I’m in no state to be dating anyone right now. I think I demonstrated that quite clearly by freaking the hell out when I saw David.’
‘But what if it wasn’t real?’
‘Iris, I’m really going to need you to piece this together for me because I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Except she kinda did. This sounded a little too close to the fantasy she’d had earlier today about keeping Elliot as her fake boyfriend for a while longer.
Iris winced. ‘Ah, this kid just kicked me in the bladder. Inside or outside of my body, he just loves to step on my organs.’
Daisy laughed.
‘Anyway, what I mean is, maybe having a fake boyfriend could be good for business.’
‘Good for business, how?’ Daisy had mostly figured it would be good for her loneliness.
‘Everyone is so worried about your failed relationships. Why not give them a good one to talk about?’
Daisy frowned. ‘And then what? Elliot and I stay together forever? Eventually we have to break up, and I’m right back where I started.’
‘Maybe. Or maybe you can book a bunch of weddings this spring and by next year no one will even care or remember because some new, weird town drama will be happening.’
Iris smiled like she was very pleased with herself.
‘That’s insane.’
‘Is it, though?’
‘Yes.’
‘But really?’
‘It absolutely is. I’m not asking Elliot to be my fake boyfriend. How much of a loser can I possibly be?’
Iris rolled her eyes. ‘You’re not a loser, Daisy. No one thinks that.’
‘Oh, right, I’m sorry, I forgot. They think I’m cursed. Much better.’
Iris winced at that. ‘Not everyone thinks that.’
Daisy just stared her down.
‘Okay, quite a few people think that, but you know how this town is. In a few months, they’ll all decide there’s a dead body buried at The Christmas Tree Farm.’
‘That already happened.’
Iris’s brow furrowed as though she was trying to remember. ‘Hmm. Yeah, I guess you’re right. But it doesn’t matter.’ She waved her hand and Owen’s wispy blond hairs waved in the wind. ‘Something new will happen and everyone will forget about you and your…’
‘My what?’
‘Your unfortunate taste in men.’
Daisy groaned.
‘And the fact that it’s now apparently rubbing off on other people.’
‘It’s not!’
‘Look, you know I love you and I do not believe in curses, however, it is kinda weird that the wedding we did with all the white roses ended with the couple splitting two weeks later after that video of the groom with the maid of honor surfaced.’
‘Oh, please! That is a classic trope. Happens all the time!’
‘Okay, what about the couple that split up three months after the wedding we did with vibrant pink wildflowers because the groom decided he had a calling to be a monk?’
‘That one was a little weirder…’
‘And we did that gorgeous wedding with blue hydrangeas everywhere and then a few months in, the groom gets sucked into the manosphere and decides he wants his wife barefoot and in the kitchen the rest of her life.’
‘I refuse to be blamed for the manosphere!’
Iris shrugged. ‘Fair.’
‘I think all these examples just prove that men suck.’
‘Except this little man,’ Iris said, running a hand over Owen’s curled body.
‘Of course.’
‘Although at two a.m. he does kinda suck.’
Daisy laughed. She missed having her friend in the shop. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been relying on Iris’s help around here until she had Owen.
‘And Archer’s okay, too,’ Daisy added and Iris smiled.
‘Yeah, he’s all right. And Elliot…’
‘I don’t think we have enough information to assess that yet.’
‘He played along with your little lie. That’s a green flag.’
‘A man who lies?’
‘A man who goes along with your crazy. I find it to be very important for a lasting relationship.’
Daisy laughed again and Owen started to stir.
‘Well, I should go,’ Iris said, her attention shifting back to her son. ‘He usually wakes up incredibly angry and incredibly hungry.’
‘Same.’
Iris shook her head with a laugh. ‘Love you, Daisy.’
‘Love you, too.’
‘And think about what I said. It could be the perfect distraction to throw the town off this crazy curse business. You’ll be booking weddings again in no time! And you could get a little action.’ More suggestive eyebrow waggling.
‘If it’s fake there wouldn’t be any action.’
‘There could be, though. Fake relationship, real sex. That’s a thing, Daisy.’
Daisy rolled her eyes but found herself replaying Iris’s words over for the rest of the day. Combined with the memory of Elliot’s hand in hers and his lopsided grin, the idea was starting to gain appeal.