Chapter 6 #2
She headed down the stairs to the shop’s back door.
There was a large potting area in the back near the greenhouse.
The monstera looked rough. She pruned the dead leaves and then got started on the roots.
She delicately cut away the areas of rot.
As she finished, her legs began to feel more like jelly and her head went fuzzy.
No more sharp objects tonight.
She settled what was left of the poor plant into a fresh pot of sterile soil.
There was a perfect spot upstairs for this fella while he recovered.
She kept plants needing extra attention in the bay window in her small kitchen.
Felicity just needed to get it up there.
She set the pot on the steps to the apartment while she locked the shop, and then headed back up.
As she reached the first landing, the plant slipped from her fingers. When she twisted to catch it, another spasm snapped across her neck. She cried out. The pot shattered against the metal stairway, scattering all the soil and sending the pruned plant sprawling.
“No. No. No.” She tried to gather up the soil while avoiding cutting her hand on the shards of the pot.
The stairs seemed even steeper now. While it hadn’t been the wisest decision to perform plant surgery on muscle relaxants and painkillers, trying to go back downstairs and start all over again would be worse.
Slightly overwhelmed at the way this entire situation felt like a metaphor for how things with the plant shop were going, she sat on the stairs beside the poor, sad, dying plant and cried.
This was real crying too. None of that adorable misty-eyed shit.
This was blubbering, full-Jell-O-body-shaking weeping.
She leaned against the railing, trying to find the energy to stand and climb the last flight.
Felicity would return to her couch nest and leave the poor murdered frond friend to its fate.
She was crying so hard that she didn’t hear the footsteps until Nic’s head appeared near her balcony for the second time today.
“My god, Felicity. What happened?”
Her first attempt at speaking was unsuccessful.
She sniffled and tried again. “Do you remember that scene in How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days when Kate Hudson finds the love fern dead in Matthew McConaughey’s apartment and she says You let it die in this voice of horrified accusation?
” She pointed a finger in a vague attempt to act out the classic scene.
“Uh—I’ll take your word for it.”
Her hand dropped to the detritus at her feet.
“That’s what echoes in my head every time one of my plants dies.
” She hiccupped a mouthful of tears and held up the pitiful remains of the monstera, but the plant’s roots got caught in the wrought-iron webbing beneath her and ripped in half.
The sound out of Felicity’s mouth was more like a wail than she’d like to admit.
She stared in horror at the decapitated botanical whose life was cut short by Felicity’s peculiar sensitivity to the unsteadying effects of opioids and Flexeril.
She pointed a shaking finger at herself.
“Y-you let it die.” Her voice wobbled. “I let it—I let it…” She looked up at him.
Even if she wasn’t on a boatload of medications, Felicity still wouldn’t have been able to interpret the emotions jumbled in Nic’s expression. It was hard to concentrate on anything when she looked at Nic, beyond how much she wanted to sit on his perfect fucking face.
Nic’s eyes darkened. “While an enticing proposition, I think in your current state you would tip over. Especially given how hard I would make you come.”
Oh god. She’d spoken her depraved thoughts aloud.
Felicity clapped her hand over her mouth and choked on an inhale of perfectly pH-balanced soil.
She had forgotten she was still holding the half-dismembered monstera.
As she spat out the bitter dirt, the plant dropped.
She reached for it again, but a strong hand caught her wrist.
“Leave it, Felicity.”
Felicity followed his gaze. His thumb scraped over the pulse point on her wrist and moved gently down her forearm.
A tingling heat smoldered in her core. She sucked in a breath and looked up at him.
His green eyes were as piercing in the moonlight as they had been in the garden this morning.
He was still holding her. Still dragging his thumb over her skin.
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip before she remembered how much she hated the lip-biting cliché in fantasy romance novels.
Nic’s focus fell to her mouth. Her skin was on fire.
She needed a fan like a debutante in an old movie.
Being around this stupid man did things to her.
Swoony, sweaty things. How did he make her feel this way?
“Can I help you upstairs, Felicity?”
“B-but the plant? I need to get it back in a p-pot.”
He dropped her arm and brought his finger to her chin. The tender pressure coaxed her to look at him and away from the shredded plant carcass. “The plant lived an honorable life, but you have to let it go.” His nod was grave and serious. “Do you understand, Felicity?”
She swallowed and nodded. What was she supposed to be understanding?
The way his cheekbones caught the glowing lights?
The way his mouth was full and perfect and looked so different when it wasn’t being smug.
The way his green eyes caught the moonlight.
The way he made her think about princes and fairy tales even though she didn’t believe in either anymore.
There was actual music in his eyes. She could imagine those eyes looking up at her while his mouth was between her thig—
“Felicity?” He shook his head and put a finger over her lips. “I think tomorrow you might wish you didn’t say some of those things.”
Her small eek vibrated against his calloused fingers. The night was boiling. She could barely breathe.
His face lowered an inch closer to hers. “I have a question.”
“Yeah?” Her breath hitched on the word. Her lips relaxed as she leaned toward him. God, did his eyes actually get greener? Drugs. It was the drugs.
The finger that had been on her mouth tugged her bottom lip down as it slid from her chin to her neck and around to that soft, sensitive spot beneath her earlobe, then moved lower. “What are you wearing?”