Page 2 of Paper Roses

“You never said if you wanted coffee?” I say.

He rolls his eyes. “I’d better not. You might self-combust if I spend longer than another minute in your flat.”

I repress a smile. “You have at least five minutes until that happens and I’d rather avoid any combusting, because it’s my cleaner’s day off.”

He huffs and leaves the room. I follow him down the stairs to my front door. My flat is conveniently located above my wedding-planning business, Confetti Hitched. But on mornings like this, I regret the shared entrance. I groan when I see there’s someone loitering in reception.

“Good morning, Rafferty,” I say with resignation.

My top wedding planner stares at me, glee written all over his expressive features. Glee, and the potent promise of excessive piss-taking. “Good morning, Jed,” he says, his Irish accent softening the words. “And what a particularly beautiful morning it is. Birds are singing, bees are buzzing, and it looks like loveis in the air.” I roll my eyes, but it doesn’t stop the fool. “Please introduce me to yourcharmingcompanion.”

My disgruntled ex-bed partner grunts and slings his jacket over his shoulder. “Don’t bother. I doubt he even knows my name.”

“Good heavens, that isawful,” Rafferty proclaims, putting his hand to his chest dramatically. “Surely that can’t be true. Jed, you must know his name. Restore my faith in humanity, please.”

“I wasn’t aware your faith in humanity had been tested lately.”

He shrugs. “Yeah well, Stan told me I was an idiot this morning. It might be true, but it hardly wins him any awards in the silver-tongued charmers’ category.”

“Oh, poor you. Thatisterrible. And truthful. Very,verytruthful.”

He cocks his head. “I worry sometimes that your caring nature is too much for this world.”

“I feel the same way about your sarcasm.”

“Yeah, you definitely don’t need to worry about him being too caring,” my bedmate interjects.

“Thank you so much,” I say gravely. I suddenly remember his name. “Craig,” I say in triumph.

He eyes me disapprovingly and then marches out the door, a cross witness to the fact that when men say they don’t want you to spend the night, they actually bloody well mean it.

A silence falls that is positively vibrating with Rafferty’s desire to laugh. “So?” he finally says.

I turn to him. “Do you remember what you and Stan were doing when I caught you in the stationery cupboard on Tuesday night?”

He winks. “I told you he was keeping me company while I was counting the pens.”

“I sincerely hope you weren’t looking for pens in the area where your attention was focused.”

He chuckles merrily. “Such is the story of my life. Always doubted and rarely appreciated in the way my personality truly deserves.”

“Anyway, I will never mention the counting-pen incident again. Just as I trust you will say no more about this.” I gesture towards the door where Craig has thankfully disappeared.

“I have to confess those optimistic thoughts will probably be disappointed. I tell Stan everything.” He pauses. “And Joe and Ingrid. I’m afraid my open nature is a curse.”

“This is why I mentioned your stocktaking activities from Tuesday. Because if I hear one word about this, you’ll be counting pens all day.” I pause before adding with relish, “As well as tidying the wedding brochures and alphabetising the vendors’ business-card drawer.”

He blanches. “My lips are sealed,” he says, making an unnecessary zipper noise as he rubs his mouth to emphasise his point.

“Unfortunately for the world, that just isn’t true.”

I walk through the planners’ office. It’s a big room with a tall ceiling and navy-coloured wallpaper that’s made bright by the large Georgian barred windows and the colourful boards behind each planner’s desk that are full of pinned samples. Chairs are pushed under the desks neatly, and the only sound is the low hum of the air conditioning, but soon it will be a hive of activity with phones going and happy couples coming in and out.

It’s my world, and I love it. It wasn’t always so, though. I was a copper when I met Mick. He was the original owner of Confetti Hitched, and the world of weddings and love were so far from my experiences they might as well have been on Mars. He’d persuaded me to leave the force and join him in the business, saying he wanted to spend more time with me ratherthan the snatched hours we were managing around my shifts. I’d been feeling jaded working as a copper, and spending more time with Mick had been hugely appealing. So I’d agreed to become business partners with him, not expecting to like it that much. It had come as a surprise to find I did.

I love being involved in weddings and the minutiae of details that don’t seem important to anyone else but that are crucial to the people concerned. I love the satisfaction I get when a couple’s day is as special as they’d hoped when they’d first walked into our offices.

“Morning, Jed.”

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