Chapter Eleven #2
“Much more groveling and you’ll be opening up a flower shop instead of a bakery.”
Jo laughed as she took in the half dozen vases of flowers. They’d arrived every hour on the hour. How he’d gotten the florist to deliver on Sunday was beyond her.
Oh wait. He’s loaded. He could buy the damn flower shop if he wanted to, just to prove a point.
And she might just let him, if only to see how far he’d go to convince her of something she’d already decided, and that was to believe him. Compensation for mental anguish.
Brooke’s ringtone had woken her from a deep sleep after the best orgasm she’d ever had.
His seductive voice and filthy words had painted a fantasy so real that she’d come as hard as he promised and gone to sleep eager for more and determined to get it.
To finally block her grandma’s voice and the fear of repeating her mother’s mistakes.
To surrender her body to him for the four weeks they’d be together.
But seeing how social media had blown up overnight with pictures of Avery at Pulse with a girl had put a kink in that plan for a hot minute.
And despite the voice of reason telling her he was free to fuck whoever he wanted when she was off the clock, she’d blocked his texts and let his calls go to voicemail, then deleted them without listening.
More than angry, though, she’d been hurt. The asshole had done exactly what she asked him not to. Granted, the photo was taken before she extracted his promise not to fuck around with other women until their arrangement ended.
But she wasn’t hurt because she had feelings for him or because he’d kissed her stupid up against his truck, then gone out to satisfy his needs with someone else. What hurt was that every possible imagined scenario of how last night might have played out ended the same.
The girl rejected him, so he’d settled for what he could get from Jo. Phone sex.
He’d already screwed the girl in the bathroom or on the dance floor—it happened—and he’d left her shortly after the picture was taken. Jo was merely an after-dinner mint, a palate cleanser, a glass of wine before bed to take the edge off so he could fall asleep. Phone sex.
Or he could have fucked the girl in the parking lot minutes after the picture was taken, a quick and dirty up against his fancy-ass car.
As soon as he was done and behind the wheel, he received her texts.
Probably only called her to ask why she called him an asshole, probably afraid she was mad and thinking of backing out of their deal.
But then her simpering request for more bases had whet his insatiable appetite, and boom—phone sex.
In every scenario, Jo was second choice. That was the part that hurt.
Humiliation had come flooding in after that, one text at a time.
Georgia: Thanks for ruining my wedding. What did you do to drive him off? Chase said it’s because you won’t put out.
Lydia: I should have known you couldn’t hold onto a man like that. You come from trash. You’ll always be trash.
Walt: Thanks for making my life hell.
Chase: It was only a matter of time. Maybe now you’ll come home.
Worse were the ones that were meant to make her feel better. They brought on the guilt.
Charlotte: Are you okay?
Melody: Say the word, and I’ll kick his ass.
Charlotte: Or we could bring wine and man bash.
About the time Brooke arrived with ice cream and wine, both ridiculous for the early morning but well-meant, Jo had looked at the picture again.
The time stamp hadn’t lined up with his drive home from the club and calling her.
There wasn’t enough time for him to have sex.
She’d Google-mapped it to be certain and proved it impossible.
Then again, how could she know for certain he was really at home when he called? Maybe he was sitting in his car with the girl the whole time or at her place. Maybe they were laughing at her. Or oh god, maybe he’d been fucking the woman in the photo instead of his fist.
She’d wanted to vomit, then just as quickly she’d dismissed all the maybes.
She’d heard the fridge open and shut, heard him pop the top on a bottle, the whir of his zipper, the rustle of sheets as he climbed into bed.
Even now, arousal slickened her pussy as she remembered the rush of his breath and the guttural roar of his orgasm.
If the woman had been there, she’d have heard that, too.
In the end, she couldn’t explain to Brooke, much less to herself, why she’d decided to believe in him. Maybe she just wanted to because, hell, if she didn’t, she wouldn’t get any more delicious orgasms. Bigger orgasms. Fucking rock-her-world orgasms. That was what Brooke called them.
That and she still needed the money. She had to keep her eye on the prize.
Leaning against the counter, Jo sifted through the notes she’d confiscated from each floral bribe. The first one came with the red roses. “I know it sounds cliché, but it’s not what it looks like. Please unblock me so I can explain.”
Brooke had scoffed, taking a hard stand against what she perceived as cheating even when Jo reminded her they were fake dating. Jo had decided to let him stew a while.
The note with the daisies read, “Yes, she offered, but I said no. If the picture was taken a second later, you’d see that.”
More stewing.
“Look at the time stamp, then check the time I called you. There’s no way anything could have happened.” She smiled. It had taken her fifteen minutes to figure that out. It had taken him three hours.
With the tulips, he’d changed tactics. “Why would I want her when all I can think about was that kiss and the way your ‘two lips’ felt against mine?”
The pink peonies, her favorite, had made her blush. Fuckboy was naughty. “I’m on my knees, begging forgiveness. Might as well make use of me while I’m down here.”
“What do you think he’ll say next?” Brooke asked as the timer went off. She looked at her phone. “It’s almost two.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Jo laid the notes on the table and pulled the cookies from the oven. She glanced at the last delivery, a foundling olive tree. “Since a branch isn’t enough.”
She really should let him off the hook. Brooke, too. “You should go home. You were here all morning yesterday helping me and now this mess. Aaron’s gonna hate me if you stay much longer.”
“Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t miss this.” She sighed. “Besides, he took Andrew golfing. I’m not sure if he’s doing it to give me some space or if he just wants some time apart and he’s using Andrew as cover.”
Ugh. I’ve been a shitty friend, so wrapped up in my own drama. “I’m sure he’s just trying to keep the peace.”
“That or he’s trying to keep me from killing his brother. I’ve been a bit unhinged lately.”
Jo paused mid-spatula. “What did you do?”
“Oh, a bit of this and a bit of that. Nothing that can hurt him…much.”
“Brooke?”
“I put a fiber supplement in his beer.” She giggled. “That backfired, literally. He kept the only bathroom we have tied up.”
“Brooke!”
“What? It’s not like I sprinkled arsenic in his cereal. He’s fine.”
A light knock at the door had Brooke sprinting to answer it.
“Tell her to come in,” Jo yelled as she scooped a few cookies onto a plate and poured a cup of coffee.
The woman who’d made all the deliveries so far followed Brooke into the apartment. Probably in her late twenties, she wore her honey-brown hair in a ponytail, jeans, and a jacket with a lavender T-shirt underneath that read, Connections by Violet.
She held out a bright yellow smiley face mug with a tall, thick, phallic-shaped cactus growing out of it. “I really have to apologize for this one.”
Tilting her head to one side, Brooke giggled. “It looks like a prickly dick.”
“It’s an organ pipe cactus.” Her smile was as bright and cheery as the one on the happy little mug as she set it on the kitchen counter and stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets. “I’m Violet, by the way, but call me Letty.”
“I’m Jo, as you may have already figured out, and that’s Brooke.” Jo bobbed her head toward the kitchen table. “Care to join us for coffee? I just made cookies.”
“No cookies for me, thank you, but I’d love some coffee.” She shivered. “I have to keep the van cold while I wait.”
Jo poured two more cups, handed one to Letty, and set a plate of cookies on the table.
Brooke grabbed a cookie off the baking sheet and folded her willowy frame into a kitchen chair. “So you’ve been sitting out there all morning, waiting for the hours to pass?”
Nodding, Letty joined Brooke and wrapped her hands around the warm cup.
“I tried to explain to Mr. Preston that the reason I deliver on Sundays is because my shop is new. I haven’t built up enough business to keep much stock on hand.
I have to keep it tight, and I went through my last order for a wedding yesterday, which is why you just got a cactus.
” She gestured to the roses and peonies.
“He’s run through the floral arrangements I had left, and I told him there wasn’t time between deliveries to put anything together even if I had the stock to do it.
He didn’t care. He was adamant that I stick to the schedule.
So, I loaded up what I had, not knowing how long this would go on.
He seemed to think it might take a while. ”
Careful not to prick herself, Jo plucked the card from the base of the cactus. “They’re all beautiful, even this big guy.”
Brooke swallowed a bite of cookie. “So how does this work? His messages indicate he knows what Jo’s getting.”
“Oh, I send him a picture of the arrangement, and he texts me back a message to put with it.”
Jo took a seat between Brooke and Letty, not sure how she felt about her private one-sided banter with Avery passing through a stranger.
“Pretty handwriting,” Brooke said, jutting her chin at the little white cards containing Avery’s messages.
Letty shook her head over the rim of her coffee. “It’s a portable printer.”