Page 60 of Stoker's Serenity

“You don’t have to hold a recipe hostage to get me coming back. I love the time I get to spend with you,” I told him frankly.

“See, that’s just one of the things I love about you,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “You’re honest. As real as they get.”

“People usually just bitch at me that I’m blunt or that I’m rude.”

“Honesty has a way of making some folks real uncomfortable,” he replied.

“So how come it doesn’t bother you?” I asked.

“Suppose it’s because I ain’t got nothin’ to hide to begin with. Also, the fact I have no fucks to give what anyone but my people have to think about me.”

I dropped my eyes to my plate, my fork still and all but forgotten in my hand as I turned his words over and over like a shiny penny in my mind.

“You care what I think,” I cautiously whispered, half-expecting him to laugh at me for being so bold as to suggest such a crazy thing.

He smiled at me, that charming smile of his, and cut a bite of pancake.

“Guess that makes you one of my people,” he said.

“I really like the sound of that,” I said with a smile, and his grew bigger.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You may have just made my day.” He winked along with those words and it warmed me down to my toes.

We finished breakfast and showered together, dressing casually for the day, to ride. The weather looked a little suspect to me. Overcast and muggy, threatening rain, with thunderstorms possible later in the day.

I had no idea where we were going. Stoker wouldn’t tell me, but I didn’t care. It was enough that we were together and I delighted in the rushing pavement and the hot wind as we skimmed over the sizzling pavement.

He pulled into a lot not more than an hour away, full of greenhouses, a nursery that had me perking up behind him. It was a place I had never been yet always had wanted to go: Sunfire Orchids.

“You’re sure?” I asked him when he cut the engine.

“Absolutely.”

“Are you really sure?” I asked with mounting excitement. “We could be here for hours.”

“If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t have brought you, Orchid,” he said, laughing.

I squealed and threw my arms around him, squeezing him with enthusiasm. He laughed and patted my knee and I got off the back of his motorcycle. He got up and leaned it onto its parking stand, holding out his hand to me. I took it, and we went into the first greenhouse, which was acclimatized and held the checkout stand and some friendly employees who welcomed us in.

He let me spend hours poring over everything they had to offer, and I was so excited. I had to look at everything twice and some things a third time before I made any selections, and, me being me, I had to then decide what I really wanted above all else with the meager amount of money I had in my pocket to spare for such luxuries such as indulging in my hobby. I didn’t have much, and as much as I would have loved to buy another new-to-me variety of orchid to raise, I just couldn’t afford that at all. So, I settled on a ten-dollar small tub of orchid fertilizer.

“Gonna hit the john before we leave,” Stoker told me, pressing his lips to my temple. “Wait for me out at the bike?”

“Sure,” I said with a slight laugh. I couldn’t believe he even had to ask. I mean, we had just spent close to three hours looking at everything and he had to be bored to death, but he hadn’t complained once, tried to rush me, or made the slightest indication that he was over it already and ready to do something else.

I was grateful, and so I took my prize and sat against the saddle of his bike and read the container, waiting for him to come out. I also had taken some pamphlets on the orchid varieties they offered, both here, physically at the nursery, and through online ordering. I was just beginning to wonder what was taking Stoker so long when I looked up to see him coming out the door, a four-inch pot with a Dendrobium Enobi, or Purple ‘Splash’ orchid in his hands. It was a beautiful flower, the white burst from its center splashing out against the purple edges.

“Oh, my god! What did you do?” I asked, open-mouthed.

“Bought my woman some flowers. I hear chicks dig it when they get flowers,” he said, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“How are we going to get it back to your place?” I asked. “The wind…”

“It’s small enough it’ll fit in one of the saddlebags,” he said.

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