Page 31 of Say It Isn't So

Knox opened his door, since it was easier to get out on his side, and I slid across the seat, taking his strong hand to help me out. My breath caught in my throat and I looked up at him through hazy eyes. I must have done a lousy job at hiding my reaction to his touch because his eyes seemed transfixed on the pulse in my neck, watching as it sped up. I didn’t take my eyes off him as I got out and he closed the door behind me with his other hand. “Thank you,” I said.

He pressed his lips together as though fighting back a smile and cleared his throat before pulling his hand back, placing it in his pocket. “We should get going. The line is long.”

The queue wasn’t the worst place to be because it allowed you to chat with other attendees and see who else was invited. It also gave you a second to take a breather and really enjoy the street style. Neither of those things happened, though, because no sooner had we walked to the back of the line had the line started moving. And rapidly. That could mean only one thing—the organizers were ready and the presentation was starting soon.

Knox and I were at the back of the line, so it took a while to get inside and get seated. Typically, that meant we’d be stuck in the third or fourth row, seeing the back of people’s heads and watching the presentation through their phones raised in the air while they recorded the whole thing. However, luck must’ve been on our side because a good number of attendees were taking a look around and photographing everything in sight like tourists.

Knox grabbed my hand and pointed to front row seats on one side of the stage. “That’s the thing with new designers,” he said, “it’s rare they assign seats, so it doesn’t matter how important you are, if you don’t get a seat early, you wind up in the back.”

Letting him lead me to excellent seats, I teased him, “Is that how your blog gets front row seats—move fast?”

“Har. Har. We’re not all a worldwide magazine, you know. Some of us have to fight to be here.” He put his fists up, mimicking the motions from a boxing match.

With my eyes on him, I picked up the pamphlet from my chair, and raised an eyebrow.

He dropped his fists and reached for his own pamphlet. “Okay, I may be exaggerating, but that’s not the point.”

I nodded, my attention already on the press release printed on it as I sat down and placed it in my lap, my phone at the ready.

Meanwhile, Knox did the same, opting to snap a photo of the pamphlet. Then he stopped and read the collection name aloud—“Delightfully criminal. You know, I don’t hate it.”

“It’s definitely unique,” I noted.

He laughed. “It’s already a step up from last season. I don’t see anything about blooms or blossoming in the title.”

I gasped. “You mean you don’t love flowers so much you want to see them on every article of clothing?”

He shook his head, a serious expression on his face. “I just don’t see the appeal to floral prints, three-dimensional flowers and anything else that belongs in the dirt or a vase. It was great for one season, but the trend lasted way too long, in my opinion.”

I nodded in agreement. “I’m actually not much of a flower girl, in general, so I respect that. I don’t care much for them in the house or on the body. One time Maria tried to pull off a choker with a navy velvet flower. Let’s just say she looked ridiculous and I helped her get it off fast.”

He cocked a brow. “Wait, so you don’t like it when your date brings you flowers?”

I swayed my head back and forth and gave him a lopsided smile. “It’s just, couldn’t he come up with anything original?”

He burst out laughing and then caught himself as more attendees started settling down and the seats beside us filled. In a lower voice, he replied, “What do you want him to bring you? I’m guessing a box of chocolates is going to be too ordinary.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m not sure, but maybe something that won’t die or be consumed.”

“There goes my edible panties idea.”

I placed a hand over my mouth to silence my laugh. See, I appreciated that he knew me so well. He knew I wouldn’t get insulted or weirded out by openly talking about these things. I grinned. “Those would be more for him, don’t you think?”

He placed a finger in the air and continued playing around. “Back to the drawing board.” He chuckled and asked more serious this time, “So you’d want something memorable?”

“If we’d been dating a while and he knew me, then yes. Something memorable and personal.” Then I quickly added, “But not a photo keychain.” I groaned. “Anything but a photo keychain.”

He tilted his head. “What? I didn’t know this was the early two-thousands.”

I waved a hand in the air, remembering Perla’s ex-boyfriend, Chris, and the idiotic gift he’d given her for her twenty-first birthday. Yeah, the guy definitely had not been a winner. “It’s a long story, but basically Perla’s most recent ex got one for her and they’d been dating for way too long for him to even think that would be a good gift.”

“Yikes,” he responded. “Now I know why he’s an ex.”

I rolled my eyes. “That was only the icing on the cake. He was, well. . . let’s just say I’m glad she found Frankie and they got married.”

“Ah, so she’s married?” he asked. “I guess a lot has happened since—” He was cut off by the music that turned more dramatic and grew louder.

Once the lights dimmed, I knew it was showtime and looked forward. “The show is about to start,” I said, although I had no idea why I was narrating for him. Regardless, I was thankful for the interruption because it seemed the past kept rearing its ugly head and I wanted to move on.

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