Page 64 of Weekends with You

“Have you told Henry you’re skipping?”

“Do I need to?” I asked. “Based on the way things ended a few weeks ago, I’m not sure it matters whether I’m around for the weekend. Now that we’re over and he’s just another flatmate, he’ll find out with everyone else when I send a text to the group.”

“But you’ll still be around when you aren’t working, right? Like, you might run into each other in the flat, yeah?”

“Yeah, I suppose so. I’ll be gone all day that Saturday for the opening and I’m working most of Sunday, and I think I’m going to have dinner with my parents on Friday, so I suppose Saturday night is our only real risk. And if I play my cards right, I can make sure I’m home and in bed before you lot, and that way we won’t run into each other at all.”

“You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?”

“Just want to save face where I can. No need for us to see each other quite yet, so might as well avoid it altogether.”

“Right, then. Well, I’m excited for you,” she said. “I’ll miss you while we’re out and about tearing up the city, but I’m really proud of you for how hard you work. The Renaissance is very lucky.”

“You’re gonna make me cry,” I said, wiping fake tears from my eyes.

“Oh, go scratch,” she laughed. “I mean it.”

“I know, and I love you for that. Thank you.”

“Now go send that group text so I don’t have to be the one who breaks the news when you don’t show up. And do let me know when you see Oliver, will you?”

“Whatever you say,” I said, leaving her to study.

Hours after everyone else responded to the group text with pleasantries and congratulations and we’ll-miss-yous, Henry sent a text just to me.

Quite bummed you’re bailing—was hoping we could find time to have a chat while I was home.

I almost laughed out loud. What was there to chat about?

Not bailing, just seizing a work opportunity. I’m sure you can understand,I texted back.

Right, then. Well, best of luck. And congratulations on the opportunity, Lucy. I’m sure you’re going to smash it. Hopefully we can find time for that chat soon.

I tossed my phone onto my bed, unwilling to continue the conversation. I had no interest in a chat. If he was just planning to reject me again, in our home country this time instead of a foreign one, I was even less interested in hearing it. And if by some stroke of madness he was trying to convince me he’d changed his mind, well, I had no interest in hearing that, either. I was moving on, and I was sure he was doing the same.

“Lucy, it’s miraculous.” Eve stared at the window display with her fingertips pressed to her lips. “How did you make a common flower so... so avant-garde? So New Age?”

The way she talked about flowers made me laugh, but I held it in so as not to offend. “Just a bit of creativity, that’s all. I’m glad it suits your vision. Really, I had an easy canvas. The restaurant is beautiful.”

“Only because you’ve made it so.” A male voice floated over my shoulder, and I recognized it before I even turned around.

“Oliver,” I said, laying eyes on him for the first time since our kiss.

“Lucy,” he said. He leaned in and pressed his lips gently to my cheek, and it was not lost on me that the last time those lips touched my body, they had been pressed against my own. “After we got separated in the crowd after midnight and I hadn’t gotten your number, I was worried I’d never see you again. I’m quite pleased you accepted the job.” Raja had been right after all.

“How’d you know? To request me, I mean,” I said, lowering my voice, even though Eve had stepped out of earshot, tending to other business in the last hours before the opening. “I could have been a rubbish florist, and this would have been a massive mistake.”

“Nothing about you could be rubbish,” he said at full volume. “And besides, the way your face lit up when you talked about floristry would have made it impossible for you to be rubbish.”

“And it had nothing to do with the fact that I mentioned I was worried the Lotus might be going under?”

“What’s wrong with giving a little business to local vendors?”

“Everything, if it comes from a place of pity,” I said, to which he chuckled.

“I can assure you, I haven’t felt an ounce of pity. You’re too strong a woman for me to pity.”

“You hardly know me.”

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