Better Hate than Never (The Wilmot Sisters, #2)(37)
And a little pigtailed menace with freckles on her nose and wiggly legs, kicking my shins, sharp, stormy eyes boring into me.
I blink, wrenching myself from the memory, though it’s hardly a relief. My present is just as haunted by Kate as my past.
I think of the work I have ahead of me to fix things between us, enough so that I don’t feel sick every time I replay what she said.
You hate me.
I wonder if there will ever be a world where we could walk in here as something gentler, something forgiven, split a bottle of wine, pick at each other’s plates, our forks knocking in a battle for the perfect bite.
That’ll be a cold day in hell, the voice of reason mutters in my head.
Finding my phone in my pocket, I pull up Curtis’s email from this morning, confirming the flowers and pastries were delivered, and type a response, asking him to clear my schedule after five but not to make any reservations.
Where I’m going after work, I won’t need reservations.
More like head-to-toe body armor.
? THIRTEEN ?
Kate
I’m sure I look ridiculous, clutching a bouquet the size of my torso as early December wind tries to rip it out of my arms, but I don’t care. Like hell was I leaving those flowers at the store.
While I couldn’t give a shit less what brand my clothes are, while I’ll never want diamonds or cashmere or any sort of personal luxuries—anything that costs the kind of money that makes me ill when I think of the poverty and inequality that ravages so much of the world—I have a weakness for flowers. I should care that once each stem is cut, a flower’s life dwindles exponentially, that such an extravagant, costly arrangement could have been assembled from my mother’s greenhouse for a few dollars, its blossoms grown dirt cheap from seeds nurtured by the simplest of things—sunlight and soil, water and waiting.
But I love flowers too much. So I clutch my precious bouquet and breathe it in. The card wedged inside it, with my name penned in dark ink, pokes against my chest, reminding me, since having determined via text it was not my parents, of my many unanswered questions:
Who sent it? And why?
Who knows my full name?
Who knows I eat vegetarian and love pumpkin doughnuts?
Who knows where I work right now?
Reminded of work, my mind makes one of its nimble leaps and reroutes, drawn to memories of the day, how happy they made me. After Jack and his parents left, a fresh batch of customers came in. I took care of them, helped them pick out a card for Grandma, stationery for a friend, a small art print for their grown child who just moved into their first place. During restock, I laughed with Bea, teased with Toni, traded a knowing look with Sula as my sister and Toni bickered like old biddies.
I hadn’t planned to stay all day, but time passed so easily. Hours flew as I snapped photos of the store in between customers, capturing its loveliness as the sun made its journey from butter-yellow morning light to honey gold at high noon, then to rich russet as it dipped below the horizon.
Before I knew it, we were closing the door, flipping the sign from Open to Closed. And when I clicked through my camera’s screen display, Toni, Bea, and Sula gathered around me, their oohs and aahs a soothing chorus to my ears, I felt it—a rare, precious ember, small and glowing, right in the center of my chest.
Belonging.
Warmed by that little nugget of happiness, I clutch my flowers, impervious to the determined wind, contentedly alone, about to start my walk home. It took a bit of maneuvering to get myself here—standing outside the pub next door to the Edgy Envelope, having just waved goodbye to Toni, who hopped on the back of Hamza’s Vespa while Sula whizzed by on her bike, her bell chirping a merry ding goodbye—but I managed it.
Jamie stopped by a half hour ago with pho in hand for Bea and me, a cab waiting to take us home. I declined, lying by saying I was going to get a bite at the pub next door and would catch my own cab home. Because Jamie and Bea need it—time alone at the apartment, time to be happy in a way that I don’t understand because I’ve never known it but that I’m happy for them to have, nonetheless.
I told the same lie to Toni and Sula, a little disconcerted by how readily I’ve deceived people since I came home, knowing it’s something I’ll have to sit with at some point and face. The reasons I tell my little white lies, the choices I make to stay separate, the roots I refuse to let sink deep.
But not tonight. Tonight, my belly full of the quiche and doughnuts I snacked on all day, my face buried in the luscious perfume of flowers, I’m letting myself bask in a sliver of joy.
That is, until I see someone leaning against the streetlamp a block away, hands in his pockets.
He tips his head back, scrapes a hand through his hair, exposing the line of his throat, a thick Adam’s apple kissed by the sunset’s glow.
I stare as a bolt of awareness races down my spine. There’s something so familiar about him. The way he scrubs at his scalp, then lets his hand fall. The way he lifts his wrist, examines his watch, and slides his thumb across its surface.
That’s what I recognize first. His hands.
Hands that pushed me on a swing when I was a scrawny girl who wanted to fly so high I could kick the clouds. Hands that dragged Puck, the family cat, out from under his front porch’s crawl space where he’d hidden for shelter from a sudden, violent storm. Hands that scooped me out of a closet last night.