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“If it’s still there in five years, we give it back, and you pay the interest. Remember, it’s there, and I’ll be mad as hell if I find out you haven’t used it if you need it,” she reminds me every time I bring it up, always giving me a disarming wink and a little squeeze of her arm around my shoulders.
She is warm as a grandma but also as shrewd as an uptown lawyer.
Businessisgood—way better than I’d hoped. Without the hassle of high rent in the city center, it was easier than I thought to pay my way after just a few months.
The shrill buzz of her coffee shop’s door alarm interrupts us, meaning she has a customer of her own. Without needing to explain, she leaves quickly. Knowing she’ll come back for the flowers later, I sip my latte and feel my heart swell a little as I watch her go.
What a woman!
I hope I’m as kind and active as she is when I’m her age. She could run circles around me, I’m sure. I really like Iris. She’s the closest thing to family I have and a genuine friend. It is nice to know I have someone to count on, and she knows she can count on me.
I get back to work, turning around and bending over to unpack this morning’s delivery.
The brass bell on the green glass-paned shop door clangs, and I call out, head down, ass still up in the air.
“False alarm, huh?” I ask, figuring it’s Iris that had a want-to-be customer who decided against it.
“Did you want some of this?” I add, still bunched over, sorting through the elongated box, noticing I have way too many of her favorites… again.
Oops.
But when I stand and turn, I nearly scream with shock.
The embarrassment of being seen bent over is one thing. When it registers who’s standing in front of my counter, I see spots in front of my eyes and feel woozy for a moment. I think I am going to faint.
I’m brought back to earth by the firm, deep, resonant voice of my first customer of the day.
“I’ll take some of that…,” he says firmly, answering my original question. I flush crimson when his eyes leave mine as he studies my chest and hips under my denim apron.
“I thought you were…,” I start, but the words get stuck in my throat.
He curls his lip into a grin, shamelessly looking me over like I’m something he’s about to buy—like a rancher about to run his huge hand up the inside leg of a cow to see for himself just how much it’s worth.
I should be flipping him the bird, reminding him of his manners, but the way he’s looking at me isn’t creepy. He’s not grinning because he thinks it’s funny to see a thick-set, younger girl bent over in front of him. No.
He looks like a man who knows what he wants. And despite the cursory glance at the purple Iris flowers I’m holding in my hand, my older friend’s namesake, I can see at once that he’s not here for just flowers.
“I… I thought you were someone else,” I smile sheepishly, finishing my original statement.
Feeling another part of me flush so intensely, I almost wonder if I’ve wet myself.
A man like this? He could bring a girl into estrus at twenty paces without even knowing it.
He’s twice my height and practically fills the entire store. Not a guy I’d want to make angry, but his deep eyes aren’t flashing with anger.
There’s a lot of green in the store, but there’s a glow in his clear eyes, and I can’t quite make out if they’re green, brown, or dark blue.
Looking into his eyes is hypnotizing, just like the rest of him.
I watch the figure of Iris out of the corner of my eye, making her way back over. The cloudy gray of her old eyes lifts as she sees him in the bank of mirrors behind the counter—mirrors her husband Phil installed when I started out, making it look like I have more flowers than there actually are.
Iris’ brow lifts, and she makes a tiny “O” shape with her mouth, spinning on her heel and doing what any good friend would do. She leaves me to my once-in-a-lifetime chance encounter with a God come to earth.
A real man.
She shoots me her trademark wink before she’s gone again. I know she’d be as dumbfounded as I am right now.
We’ve been playing the “someday my man will come along” routine for ages now, but I never thought one existed. Imagine a man like him even coming into the store.
