3. Jovie #2
In three steps, he’s in front of me, gripping my wrist harder than necessary. He might leave a bruise. I try tugging my arm free and he tightens his hold.
I whimper. “You’re hurting me, Luca.”
He blinks, confused, a curtain lifting in his eyes as he comes back to normal. “Oh my god, Jovie. I’m… I’m so fucking sorry.” He stumbles away to put space between us and I’m finally able to take a breath.
The door rings again and it’s Marlowe, my best friend.
She always comes to have lunch with me around this time since she owns the cat café next door.
Marlowe stops at the entrance, the same bag in hand that Luca brought me.
She analyzes the room. Her attention darts from me, to Luca, to the chair in pieces broken on the floor near the wall.
Marlowe is a protective type and a complete badass. She has short black hair with the side shaved and wears bold makeup with heavy eyeliner. It pairs well with her mostly dark outfits and black boots.
“Is there a problem here?” She cocks her head at Luca. “I think you need to leave before you piss me off.”
Luca lifts his hands in surrender. “I’m going. You’re right. I’m going. Jovie, please, just think about what I said.” The further he walks away from me, the more I can breathe.
Marlowe doesn’t get out of his way. With disgust in her eyes, she drags her gaze from head to toe when Luca stops next to her.
“I didn’t mean for it to get this far.”
“They never do,” Marlowe sneers at him.
Luca takes one last look at me before pushing the door open and gets into his car that’s parked outside the flower shop.
Marlowe spins around, flips the sign to close and runs to me.
She throws her arms around my shoulders, bringing me in for a tight hug.
“Are you okay? What did that fucker do? Did he threaten you? Did he hurt you?” She cups my face, checking me for any bruises or injuries.
“Talk to me. You can’t ever be too sure with a man like that. ”
“I’m okay. I promise, I’m fine. Things got a little heated, but he left. It was just a guy I was briefly dating.”
“You dated him? Him?” She curls her lips in disgust. “You can do so much better than him.”
I rub my wrist and Marlowe doesn’t miss the redness already showing on my skin.
Frowning, she turns my arm over. “He did hurt you.”
“He grabbed me. He lost it for a minute. He got so angry but then he was fine. He wanted me back.”
“This is the guy who cheated on you?” She snorts. “Men like him, they always cheat.”
“Yeah, I should have listened to my instincts. I ignored them, like I always do.”
Marlowe guides me to sit down. She doesn’t say another word while she unwraps our lunch. I can tell by her movements, by how her jaw is tense, she’s furious and is working through her thoughts before she says anything else.
I snort when she tosses the sandwich Luca got me in the trash only to set the same exact one in front of me.
“What? Mine isn’t tainted with betrayal or stupidity.”
I can’t help it. I toss my head back and laugh, the anxiety much lighter since she got here.
I take a bite and groan. I was definitely hungrier than I thought.
I really need to stop skipping breakfast. Since I live above the shop, I always come right down to start working on orders.
Marlowe is always telling me to hire someone, and I get that.
I do need help. I can’t do it all on my own.
The problem is that I don’t know who to trust with my business.
It’s important to me. It holds so many memories. I can’t just hire anybody.
She drags a chair from the back room and plops down next to me.
“You’re too hard on yourself.” Marlowe bites into her sandwich and somehow doesn’t mess up her black lipstick.
“It’s okay to take chances on people even if there is a voice in the back of your head telling you not to because we aren’t always right, are we?
We’re human. We’re broken. We are flawed.
We aren’t perfect. Plenty of people miss out on being with the love of their lives because their inside voice is wrong.
Sure, this time you were wrong to ignore yourself this, but next time?
You might not be. Give yourself some slack.
The world is hard, and love is a lot harder, no matter the relationship.
Friendship, lovers, marriage. The baseline is the same. ”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her what I’m doing. To tell her about Santino, Luca’s fathers. My revenge plot. I know she’d be all about it. She’d be supportive.
I chew my food, debating for a few seconds before deciding to keep Santino to myself.
“So, what’s this order?” She points to the bouquet I’m making for Santino.
More black roses. I think I want it to be a theme.
“Is it for a funeral? Damn, it’s so… goth. I love it. Why haven’t you made me one?” She pouts.
“Aw, I’m sorry,” I giggle. “I’ll make you one. How about you take that one? I’ll start over.”
She shakes her head. “No way. I’ll take scraps or something.” Marlowe waves my offer away.
Her phone dings and when she checks it, she groans out loud. “I got to go. One of my employees just texted me saying the espresso machine is making gurgling noises. No matter how many times I show him how to use it, he messes it up.”
“Are you going to fire him?”
She rears back, surprised I’d even ask that question. “No. What? No. I’m not firing someone because they don’t know how to do something. It’s up to me to train him properly for the job. I clearly haven’t done that. I won’t give up on him as long as he doesn’t.”
“You’re so fucking great, you know that?” I take another bite of my sandwich, covering my mouth with my hand as I chew.
She shrugs, wrapping her sandwich to put it in the bag. “I’m just giving someone a chance. Nothing wrong with that, right?” She winks. “Text me when you close. You can come over and we can have a movie night.”
I nod. “I might be a little late. I need to prep for tomorrow too. I’ll let you know.”
“Perfect.” She blows me a kiss. “See you later.”
“Bye! Love you!”
“Love you too!”
She turns the sign to open, unlocks the door, and is gone, leaving me alone with my revenge roses.
The door rings again and I make a note to take that damn thing down because it’s getting on my nerves.
“I’m here to pick up a delivery?” The courier I used before walks in with his bike at his side.
“Mmm, yes. One minute. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” I wipe my face with a napkin and take a few swallows of my soda. “I only need to plop in some red carnations. Give me five minutes?”
“Sure, no problem.”
I scurry to the fridge, taking out a few red carnations, the same as last time, then for the hell of it, I add a black lily in the middle of the bouquet, keeping the theme dark and mysterious.
I hurry placing the stems in the vase. This bouquet isn’t as pretty as the other I made, but like I told Marlowe, I’m behind on orders today because I’ve been adding more work to my schedule that no one knows about.
Sending flowers to a man much older than me? What could go wrong?
I add the card with my phone number in the same spot as last time. “Here you go.” I place it in his crate he has bolted to the front of his handlebars. “This is anonymous, right? I need it to be.”
He nods. “Same price as the last one. I’m upping it, though. Since you’re making it take it to a Salvati.”
Oookay. Whatever that means.
“How much more?”
“Double.”
“Double?” I scoff, handing him over the money. I’ve always sucked at negotiations. “Fine.”
“Great. It should get there today.” He pauses, eyeing me over them. “And why are you sending him flowers?”
I smile as sweetly as I can. “Because men deserve flowers too, right?”
He thinks about that before tucking the money in his pocket. “Yeah, you might be right. I haven’t ever gotten flowers so I wouldn’t know. Now, I want flowers. See ya next time.”
When the bell rings again, I’m left alone with my thoughts and guilt.
This can’t end well, and yet; I still want to see how far I can take this plan.
If Luca ever found out about me sending his father flowers, it might send him to his grave.
I’ll send a beautiful bouquet as my condolences.