Page 23 of Not Mine To Love

The florist laughed, grabbing her sides. “You’re a funny one. Let me go ahead and put the ‘out for lunch’ sign on the door. I’m sure this will take an hour or two.”

Julius and I looked at each other in horror.

The florist didn’t notice as she happily hummed a tune and disappeared into the front of the store.

“Two hours?!” I hissed. “Are you kidding me? Looking at flowers? Who spends two hours looking at flowers?”

He shrugged. “I’m just as surprised as you are.” He narrowed his eyes. “Hey, you’ve been married before, you should know all this.”

I shook my head. “I eloped.”

“Smart girl.”

I was really tempted to demand his car keys and tell him that I would be back in an hour, but it had taken thirty minutes just to get here.

“Maybe there’s a Starbucks in the area…”

“Don’t you even think about it.”

“Okay, are we ready?” the florist said, reappearing.

Julius looked at me then tossed an arm around my shoulder and squeezed me tight. “Ready. So excited. You have no idea.”

The huge fake smile on his face made me want to laugh, but I bit my lip, not wanting to be rude.

“Ready,” I managed to say.

“Great!” the shopkeeper turned away and started talking.

I took the opportunity to kneed Julius with my elbow.

“Hey,” he said, letting go of me.

“I might hate you a little right now,” I hissed in a whisper.

He responded by giving me a genuine smile. “This is going to be so much fun. You’ll see.” He slid in arm around my shoulder again, but this time I didn’t pull away.

* * *

An hour later, my nose felt clogged and my stomach was growling. I stopped listening about thirty minutes ago.

I was leaning against a wall, pretending to be looking at flower arrangement options on my phone. I was actually playing Candy Crush.

“So I think we’re all done here,” I heard Julius say.

Finally, thank God. I looked up from my phone.

“Find anything interesting?” he asked me, his tone serious but his eyes anything but. He was such a joker.

“Nope. I think Ms. Morales knows her stuff. I’m sure the arrangements will look spectacular.”

Ms. Morales beamed and so did I. Julius shook his head and mouthed, “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

I held back a laugh and told them that I would wait in the car while he wrapped things up.

Happily, I made my way to the car and waited for Julius. I texted Dana and Piper while I was busy doing nothing.

Finally, Julius came out of the shop. He opened his mouth to tell me something when his phone rang.