Page 1 of He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

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DAX

Saturday Afternoon…

‘What did Kevin say?’ Brynn, my cousin and wedding planner extraordinaire, asks.

I turn to her as she sets her bag onto one of the pristine, white bamboo folding chairs lined up like soldiers on parade – all perfectly spaced and mostly empty, as we’re still thirty minutes from the ceremony.

‘First things first…’ I say. ‘Kevin is a real assjack. What d’you see in that guy?’

Why she would have ever dated him in high school is beyond me. He’s a far cry from her husband, Jake. Kevin is a narcissistic forty-something, white, balding man with a beer gut. Jake is a funny thirty-something black guy with a six-pack. They’re worlds apart.

But Kevin, unfortunately, owns the building I want to lease. The building that once held my late father’s florist shop.

I remember spending entire days in that shop helping my dad put together floral arrangements and going out on deliveries. I’d love to have my shop in a place filled with so many memories of him.

‘So, he didn’t age well. We can’t all be Adonis with a talent for flowers,’ she says with a roll of her eyes.

‘That’s right,’ Jake says. ‘Not everyone can age as well as us.’ He steps up beside me, pulling at the lapel of his jacket with the confidence he never lacks.

Once again, Brynn rolls her eyes dramatically. A move she often uses when Jake and I are together. He’s one of my best friends and I’m the one who set the two of them up. Somehow, he swept her cold heart off its feet, and they’re now living in wedded bliss and have added a new character to their lives by way of their two-year-old daughter Zoey. The pair of them run a wedding planning business together. Brynn is the brains, and Jake is the brawn.

Besides blood and weddings, Brynn and I don’t have much in common. When I let my floral ambitions loose into the family email gossip chain, she called me immediately, offering to help me break into the business. It’s been two years since I started spending my every day with flowers, and I don’t regret it.

‘What happened?’ she asks.

‘He wants to sell instead of lease. Thinks he can make more of a profit.’

‘So, offer more,’ she says, as though I’ve got a money tree growing in my apartment.

‘I’d have to sell a kidney to come up with the money I’d need, Brynn. He seems to think the place is made of gold.’

‘How much is he asking?’

‘He’s undecided, but he’s thinking one sixty-five, nine, nine, nine.’ I repeat his words. Which included way more nines than the building is worth.

‘For a run-down business that hasn’t been updated since I was born? Greedy bastard. That’s just wrong.’

‘Yep,’ I say, turning back to the wall of roses I’m finishing up. ‘I can’t afford that with the shape it’s in. I have sixty-five thousand dollars to my name, and Mom has graciously put in fifty grand. That’s still many nines away from what I’d need to buy.’

‘Finance it!’ she suggests.

‘The problem is that the building isn’t worth that much. I couldn’t get a loan in the shape it’s in. There’s no way I could make repairs and upgrades paying what he wants.’

‘Dax,honey.’

Great. I’ve activated her mom voice.

She grabs the flower from my hand. ‘They’ve leased the place since your dad had it. Nearly two decades. I doubt this opportunity will come back up when you can afford it, and the building isn’t going to fix itself. If it’s that important to you, you’ve got to make it happen now.’

I grab back the pink blossom. ‘I’m doing everything I can.’

A heavy sigh leaves her lips. ‘What if we talk to him?’ She motions between her and Jake.

‘Be my guest.’

The grin growing on her face tells me she’s got other plans.

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