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He meows at me again.
“You think so?” I scratch his head. “Maybe you’re right.” He starts to purr. “Maybe it is love after all.”
Chapter Twenty-One: Kay
If the florist knocks overone moreof Nyla’s precious bouquets, I’m going to throttle him. After all the stellar reviews from this vendor—which signed on with Midnights to workexclusivelywith us—and after seeing their work, I wasn’t worried. But the scrawny guy in glasses they sent over keeps mishandling the flowers, petals dropping all over the patio floor. I take a deep breath and try to convince myself that maybe he’s new.
I’m monitoring the vendors as they set up the lights in an aisle down the beach, leading to where the floral arch is supposed to be set up, but I’m running out of patience. The ceremony’s only five hours away.
I hear a sharpclangand turn to find the florist nearly dropping yetanotherbouquet.
“What do I have to do to get a florist who can actually handle something as delicate as flowers?” I snap, picking a fallen petal up off the table and holding it up between me and scrawny guy. “If I find one more discarded petal, I’m nullifying this contract and hiring another florist who can handle the work.”
“S-sorry,” scrawny guy says, setting the flowers down on the table and pushing his glasses up his sharp nose. “I’m not usually this nervous, but you keep looking at me like you’re going to murder me, and I’ve had one too many cold brews today, but I’ll get the flowers set up faster.”
I flick the flower petal at his chest. “That’s what I like to hear. And I’ll only murder you if you wreck my girl’s flowers, got it?”
He nods and scurries off to his van to grab more of the flowers I ordered.
I drag a hand down my face. This has been someridiculouslystressful business. And with the changes coming up, and me not being able to be around for any of them, I’ve had to do extra work to make sure everything’s ready for Gia to take over the patio project so it can get done in time for wedding season next year.
This is one of the first times I’ve craved a cigarette in weeks, but I settle for my other vice instead. I take a swig of the whiskey I have out here, the ice melting in the sun. It’s a watered-down mess, but I don’t care. I just need enough to get through the set up.
The lights people are finally almost done with the aisle, and I like how it looks. The caterers are setting up the tables along the edge of the patio. Everything needs to beperfectfor Kieran and Nyla. It’s my parting gift.
I need to have at least donesomethingright before I leave.
“Hey! Watch it!”
“Sorry, sorry!” a familiar fiery voice says from the doorway. I catch florist-guy shuffling away from averyirritated looking Talia. She’s back in her usual style before Brian came along—heeled black boots, tight black clothes, dark eyeliner that makes her intense eyes feel like a match to the cinders in my heart.
Imissedit.
I don’t realize I’m staring until she marches right up to me, stopping a couple paces away only to pop a hip and cross her arms. Setting down my glass of whiskey, I raise a brow.
“No, I won’t join your biker gang.”
I’m amused by my own joke. She doesn’t appear to be, at first.
Until the corner of her mouth tugs up ever so slightly. “Is the offer still open to be your date for the wedding?”
My brain short circuits. I wasn’t expecting Talia to come around, and the way she’s looking at me makes my heart race. The challenge has returned to her eyes, the one we used to both partake in before our personal issues got in the way.
When I don’t answer quick enough, she says, “Don’t pretend like you didn’t hear me, Kay.”
“I’m not,” I say, my voice coming out hoarse. I clear my throat, cursing myself for suddenly being so nervous around her. “I’mnot,” I repeat. “I just… didn’t expect this, is all.”
“So do you have a new date or something?”
“No,” I laugh. As if I could ever find a date I’d rather take than her. “Of course not.”
“Okay, so…?”
“I would be honored to be your date, Talia,” I tell her, and relish the way her eyes soften ever so slightly at my words.
“Good.” She nods, shifting from one foot to the other. “Right. Well. I should go get ready then.”
She turns to leave, but I call out, “Talia, did you really come all the way down here just to ask me that in person?”
