Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Delaney
“Why do I have to take them?” I stare at the flowers in Poppy’s hands.
“They’re from Wren for Aunt Darla’s birthday, and Bennett forgot them.” She holds them out between us again.
I nudge them back toward her. “And you live right next door to him.”
She pushes them closer to me again. “Right, but I’m going out after work.”
I push them back her way. “Okay, but you live on the property. You can just drive them over and leave.” I give her a once-over. “And you’re going out in jean shorts and a T-shirt with The Perfect Petal logo on it?”
“Is that judgment I hear in your tone?” She tries to hand me the flowers again. “And you’re getting in your car to leave anyway. What’s the big deal?”
“Yes, it’s judgment because I know you, and you’d still go home and change even if you were going somewhere you couldn’t be late to. Besides, I take the outer drive, which goes nowhere near the residential homes by the lake.” I nudge them back at her.
Poppy pushes them closer to me once again. “It’s, like, two extra minutes to drop them off. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t really important.”
She gives me that pleading look that used to get me to do things I didn’t want to when we were younger. “You know what you’re asking me to do.”
“Come on, you guys have been getting along great. Laughing, joking, driving to the site every morning…” There’s a question in her tone.
“He is technically my boss.”
She clears her throat. “And me.”
“Yes, and you.”
Although Poppy doesn’t get my heart racing every time she stands two feet from me.
She opens the drawer behind the counter and hands me my purse, then takes out hers. “But I’ve never shoved my tongue down your throat.”
“Is there something you want to ask me, Poppy?” I arch an eyebrow.
She shrugs. “That depends, am I your BFF again?”
“Again? I never replaced you.” I position my purse crossways over my chest before helping her turn off the lights in the back.
“Jeez, B, turn your lights off. How quickly did he leave tonight?” Poppy points toward the light streaming in from the back hallway.
I’m closer to the door, so I tell her, “I got it.”
His familiar sandalwood scent hits me before I’m through the doorway.
I wish I didn’t want him. It would make all this so much easier.
Get in. Get out.
I walk across the room to turn off his desk light, but the picture on the filing cabinet on the back wall snags my attention.
It’s a picture of him and Kristie in a hospital room.
Her belly is swollen, so it was taken before Wren was born.
Probably hours before Kristie died. How is he able to look at this every day? Even if it’s been seven years.
“It’s not what you think,” Poppy says from behind me.
I quickly straighten. “I was just… he left his desk light on.”
“Delaney.”
I put my hand in the air. “I’m fine. It’s fine. He clearly loved her. Let’s go get those flowers so you can get where you need to be.”
Poppy steps in front me, blocking the doorway, and I draw back. She crosses her arms as if she’ll wait me out all day. So, I broach the subject first.
“I can’t judge. I married someone else too.”
“You know, I always found it interesting…” She steps around me, going back into his office. “For a man who says he can’t move on because he loved his wife so much, he sure doesn’t like to look at her.”
“He has pictures of her, of them.” I motion around the room.
She nods. “Sure, but none of them face him. Like the wedding photo, tucked into the right-hand corner of the bookcase on a shelf with his nerdy plant pictures.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“And this one is behind his desk. Since when does someone turn around to look at a picture in their office?” She picks up the photo I was looking at. “This is for whoever is sitting there.” She points at the chair that faces his desk.
“I thought you had to go?” I don’t want her giving me reasons to want Bennett, reasons to think he’s over his deceased wife and looking to move on.
“BFFs trump my plans.”
“I have a feeling your only plan is for me to drop off the flowers.” I’ve heard the Owens, Noughtons, and Ellises all meddle in their family’s lives, pushing them to find themselves.
This flower thing could be Poppy trying to get me into Bennett’s presence with the hopes that we find our way back to one another.
“Noooo,” she says, but her smile says otherwise.
“Don’t meddle, it’s unbecoming of you.”
She rounds his desk and hooks her arm with mine, leading me out of the room and turning off the lights. “Meddling? Unbecoming? I gotta knock that California out of you, and I definitely need to get you to The Hidden Cave. You’re probably all over the Canary Wall one and two.”
“Oh god, I hope not. What would they say?”
“You’ll find out… so you get it, right?”
She doesn’t let me go until we’re out the front doors by our cars. “What?”
“I like to think I know Bennett pretty well, him being my cousin and business partner, and let me tell you—I think he likes to play the lonely widower because it stops people from asking any questions.” Her eyebrows lift, and she kisses my cheek.
“I owe you for taking the flowers.” She stops midway to her car.
“Of course, if things go right, you might owe me.”
“Oh my god, Poppy, I’m a married woman.”
She steps up on her Jeep’s doorframe but peeks over the roof at me. “Not really. You told me the papers are signed and just waiting to be processed.”
“Go!”
She laughs and climbs into her Jeep, driving off.
I allow myself an extra minute to give myself a little pep talk.
You can do this, Delaney. Just drop them off and go, but whatever you do, do not linger.