Page 33 of Passion in Bloom

Chapter 11

Heather

Please, please letthis be a normal day.

No more looks. No more people asking about me.

And hopefully, no more sightings of David. He hadn’t come by since that day he knocked on my door. I hadn’t seen him in town, either.

I refused to get my hopes up high that he was gone. Nothing could ever go that well in my life. To simply wish him gone, and poof he was no longer an issue. Not seeing him was worse. The ambiguous threat hanging over me made me anxious all the time.

If I didn’t have to worry about Roarke butting into my life, that would help too. I was defensive against him, but after kissing him and giving him head, I felt like a hypocrite to push him away. Clearly, I wanted him for something. Obviously, I didn’t want to resist him that consistently.

At work, though, I had the numbers and boring, old paperwork to keep things constant. I couldn’t rely on my job at the bank to always be a distraction, but for now, it was serving that purpose.

Fergus came along with me to pick up the charity donations that people had left at the various locations on Main Street. I already did the actual toy item pickups yesterday. Those days, it was hard not to feel like an elf or Santa, lugging a huge tote bin of toys. At first, when Janelle gave me this project, I thought that I could delay the actual toy collection, figuring that not many people would drop off physical things to go toward the county-wide effort.

I was wrong.

I got so sick of the businesses on Main Street calling and nagging about “needing” toys picked up that I changed my habit of going twice a week instead of once. It irritated me that a shop-owner would act like it was such a terrible inconvenience to have toys sitting in the provided bin for more than a few days. Like the sight of something as harmless as donated toys could be in the way. It wasn’t like the bins were overflowing and spilling into their storefronts. It wasn’t as though the items were a nuisance for their operations. Yet, it was far simpler to just go along with it all. To just suck it up and make two trips to avoid any petty complaints from people who seemingly just wanted to complain about any and everything they could complain about.

Nance had taken up the routine coming along with me so I wouldn’t be alone, but she had a dentist appointment today. Fergus perked up at the idea that he could come with me despite how much he seemed to grumble about the toy drive last year.

“It’s easy to feel like a secret elf from the North Pole,” he joked as we walked down Main Street.

I scoped the scene, checking for David. “Mmm-hmm,” I replied.

“I mean, not a secret. Because we’re obviously just walking down the sidewalk and all, but...” He shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.” Sadly, I just couldn’t get myself into the Christmas spirit yet. The magic of the holiday season was always hard for me to get into. When I was younger, my parents soured it all. They never decorated, never got me gifts, and they always used me as an excuse to solicit for cash at the corners of the highway exit in the next town over. Just to use that income to buy more cigarettes or lotto tickets.

When I moved to Chicago and met David so quickly, I came to learn that he thought all holidays were a waste of time.

I hadn’t been here long enough to form my own, unbiased thoughts about holidays yet. It seemed that my life would always be put on pause, stalled until I felt stable to really live.

“Any plans for T Day?” he asked, smiling and chipper. He drew a deep breath in, as if the chill in the air made him feel brighter.

I tried it, engulfing a huge, deep breath. It only tickled and then burned my throat, all that chilled air needing to be warmed up first. Coughing, I tried to find my voice again. “Uh, no. Not that I know of.”

“Well, it’ll be coming sooner than you think.”

I nodded, trying my best not to think of my last Thanksgiving. Where David kept me locked at home, without food and waiting for me to apologize “properly” for saying I didn’t want to go with him to his parents’ house for the traditional dinner that felt like torture. They were all so stuffy and hard to please, and with a migraine I couldn’t kick, I only wanted to rest and sleep and not suffer the ordeal.

“You can come to my place,” he offered. “I’ll be having a remote dinner, keeping friends on a call while I make a little turkey dinner for myself.”

I smiled, imagining him seated at the head of his small table with multiple tablets propped up as a virtual dinner. He was the techy guy out of us at the bank, but it made him more adorable, not dorkier.

“Thanks, but I’ll have to see what that week looks like.” He was right. Thanksgiving would be here soon, at the end of the month. All I could anticipate that far ahead was that I’d still be anxious about the David situation.

We walked into the post office next, checking if anything was in the toy bin. “Empty,” Fergus reported.

I nodded. I figured it would be. Their bin was seldom full, and it made sense. People came here with things to mail, one clear task in mind. He walked with me as I approached the donation box on the counter, using the key Janelle gave me from the county office to unlock the narrow container and check for checks and cash.

“Hey, I heard your man got in a fight last night,” a man said from the few in the line.

Fergus turned, raising his brows. “My man?” He shook his head. “I’m not seeing anyone.”

“No,” the man replied. “Hers.”