Page 26 of The Secret
“Foreplay assumes that there’ll be some form ofplay,” I said, hoping desperately that I sounded bored and not at all like I was picturing thatplayin my head. “What we do is more like verbal combat.”
Constantine laughed but didn’t disagree.
We walked up the concrete steps to the heavy steel door that opened into what basically was an enormous flower warehouse, and the smell, when the door was opened, was unreal. My nose started to tingle, as it often did when I first walked in, and even though I was more or less used to it after all these years, it took me a second to get my bearings.
“It’s like olfactory LSD,” Con grumbled, and it was so close to what I’d been thinking, I couldn’t help but smile a little.
“Heya, Micah!” Pat Hudson came out of the small office near the door and greeted me with a handshake and a wink. “Making four o’clock in the morning look good, as always.”
Pat was maybe a couple of years younger than me, but HG Supply was a family company, and as a distant cousin of the owner, he’d been working here for as long as I’d been in business. I’d long ago learned to ignore his easy flirtation, and he’d never pushed it.
“Donnie’s got your order ready out back. Everything’s all set.” He looked over my shoulder to where Con was standing, and his friendly smile fell away.
“Great. Thanks, Pat.” I turned to Constantine. “Wanna get started going through the inventory list with Donnie and loading it up? I have a question for Pat about a special order.”
Constantine nodded, keeping his head down, and took the keys I handed him, but it was too much to hope that Pat would let it go.
I really had been foolish not to foresee this problem. There weren’t many—orany—alternative floral supply houses in the area, and Ross Landscaping had probably been around as long as HG Supply had. Of course they knew each other. And knowing Constantine, of course they hadn’t parted ways amicably.
“Constantine Ross. Well thisisa surprise.” Pat made it clear the surprise wasn’t pleasant. “Looking the same as ever.”
Pat looked Con up and down, from his bedhead to his bare legs. It was an oddly sexual look, and I felt the unreasonable urge to stand in front of Constantine and block him from Pat’s view.
“Yeah? You haven’t changed a bit either,” Con said. His words were casual, but there was a tension in his body that hadn’t been there before. He gave Pat the same bold appraisal, surveying Pat’s carefully-gelled, thinning black hair, his baggy jeans, and the thick fingers drumming against his chest, and looked decidedly unimpressed by the sight.
Pat’s eyes flashed with anger. “Same cocky bastard as ever, too, eh?”
It was the exact word I’d used to describe Con myself. It shouldn’t have pissed me off when Pat used it, but it did.
Con didn’t reply. He turned to me and jingled my keys. “I’ll get started.”
“Actually,” I heard myself say, “Come here just a second.”
Con frowned, but let me propel him a few steps back toward the door. I could feel Pat watching us and I didn’t care.
“What’s the story with you and Pat?” I demanded in a whisper.
“Huh?” Con’s surprised eyes met mine. “Nothing. I told you in the van, he doesn’t like the way I talked to him about the orders—”
“No. The way he looked at you wasnotbusiness, Constantine.”
Con folded his arms over his chest and stood with one hip cocked out. “I think you mean the way he looked atyou,boss,” he whispered back. “There’s never been anything between me and Pat but him being gross and me being completely disinterested.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth, trying to decide if I believed him.
“Are you kidding?” Con straightened until he was almost my height. His eyes were bright with anger, and I realized that while I’d maybe seen him pissed off before, I’d never seen him truly angry. “Fuck you, okay? Fuckyou. The asshole flirts withyou, that’s fine. But he flirts with me, and clearly it means I was deep-dicking him? Why? Because I have sex with a bunch of people, I clearly must have sex witheveryone?”
I opened my mouth and shut it again.
“Micah?” Con continued in the same low voice. “One thing to know about me is thatI do not lie. I joke, I laugh, I tease, I will piss you the fuck off—on purpose—and not even feel bad, and I donotalways volunteer information. But I am not a liar. Whatever else I’ve done, I don’t do that. So either believe me or don’t, but if you don’t, then you can keep the fucking contract at Crabapple, because—”
“I believe you.” I set my hands on my hips. “I just needed to know the facts. So I could deal with Pat appropriately. Business-wise.”
Now, see,thatwas what a lie looked like.
The irony was strong.
I hadn’t been thinking about my business at all when I’d called Con over here. I’d been thinking of Pat’s avid little eyes on Constantine, of Pat calling himcockylike they had this whole long history I knew nothing about, and feeling… protective. Or something.
