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He grinned at me. “Good. Glad to hear that.”
I stood there smiling at him, him smiling back at me, and now my heart was feeling a little constricted. I had to make myself look away. I nodded to the door he’d come through. “If you were busy... I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You’re not interrupting,” Lina said quickly. She half shoved Keats towards me. “I’ll go finish that order you were working on.”
He tried to argue but she was already gone.
“Is she trying to get rid of you?” I joked. It was definitely suss, but the blush on his cheeks told me it was something else. Something else that made the butterflies in my belly swoop.
“Ahhh,” he said, swallowing hard and wiping his hands on his apron again. “No, she’s just... she’s just... She was saying you have a specific request today?”
Right. Straight to work.
But the flirting was so much fun, I just couldn’t help myself. I fingered a pretty flower in the stand next to me. “Yes. I’m doing a staging for a real estate suite with a very tailored client list, and I thought of you.”
His eyes met mine. “Oh?”
“Yes, you were very helpful with my last request.”
“Oh.”
That was definitely a flicker of disappointment. I saw it before he schooled it away.
The thrill made me smile. “And it was a good excuse to see you again.”
His eyes widened this time. “Oh, uh . . .”
I’d forgotten how fun the flirting game could be. I bit my bottom lip, like the little hussy I apparently was. “Yes, you really helped me out last time and you gave me your card. I was goingto call and say thank you, but then the work thing came up and it was a good excuse to see you instead.”
He fought a smile as he nodded, studying the flower I was still touching. “Right. And your... ex. He got the meaning of the flowers?”
“Oh, yes. He also got a bill for my time and from the clinic. Thank you for suggesting that, by the way.”
He laughed, then his eyes met mine again as he nodded. “So your villain era is going well.”
I snorted. “Well, it was short-lived. I’m in my middle-aged-lesbian, home-renovation era now.”
He laughed, surprised. “Oh, that’s... quite the leap.”
“Well, my best friend seems to think it will pass,” I said with a sigh. “That my desire to stay in and avoid men at all costs is just a passing phase, but honestly, I’m not sure. My days of clubbing and hangovers can stay behind me for all I care. He, on the other hand, is still in his whore era.” I blinked at him. “Him, my best friend, not me. My god, the things that boy tells me makes me blush, and I’m no prude.”
Keats chuckled. “Right. Well, as long as he’s happy.”
“Oh, he is, believe me. Especially if it involves a top of centaur proportions, if you know what I mean.” I sighed. “Well, this conversation went in a direction I was trying to avoid. Do you have any flowers that can wipe the last few minutes from someone’s memory? That you could inhale deeply perhaps? Then we can act like this whole conversation didn’t happen.”
He laughed again, and he was now standing closer...Was he this close before?
“Wow, you’re a lot closer than I remember, and your eyes are bluer than I remember. Did you use the memory-wiping flower on me?”
God, shut up, Linden. Just stop talking.
He pressed his lips together to stop from smiling, his cheeks a pretty pink. “Uh, no. There’s no such flower, I believe.”
“That’s probably a good thing,” I murmured. “Not that you’d let me have them, like you didn’t let me have the murder flowers.”
“Probably just as well,” he said. “I don’t think you’re built for prison.”
I snorted. “Pretty sure they’d love me in prison.”
