Page 33 of The Secret
Turned out, when I stopped provoking him and he stopped scowling at me, we actually got along. He’d taught me shit—about taxes and marketing and stock selection—and I kept my mouth shut and absorbed it like a sponge. He’d stopped treating me like a bomb he expected to explode at any moment and set me tasks to complete on my own. He wanted me to come to him for input. He’d shown me not justhowhe crafted the arrangements he was known for, butwhyhe made them the way he did. I instinctively understood concepts like space and color, layering and dimension, on a larger scale when designing landscapes, but I’d never really considered how those things should be applied on a smaller scale, or how important those details might be to a larger project.
And, I thought, as I heaved myself out of bed in the darkness and set my feet on the floor, in all that time, he hadn’t made a single inappropriate gesture or said a single flirtatious word. He’d kept my secret—even down to ignoring me completely at the farmer’s market every weekend—and I’d kept my promise.
No flirtation.
No kissing.
Most definitely nothing else.
I pushed myself to my feet and grabbed a semi-clean pair of shorts from the chair in the corner, navigating by the weak beam from the streetlight that filtered in between my window and my air conditioner. The poor little machine was chugging away, but it was probably as old as me and could hardly keep up with the heatwave. One of these days, I was gonna buy a new one. Something tricked out or at least, you know,functional.
Because I was kind of a baller these days, what with my four-figure savings account balance and all.
That was the one silver lining to all this work—I’d been earning more money than ever, and I had no time to spend it, so the balance of my new car fund was growing exponentially. Soon, I’d have enough to consider buying a replacement, and then I’d be able to quit working with Micah.
Weirdly, the thought made me feel more disappointed than relieved. Maybe because, sexual frustration aside, working at Blooms was my favorite job of the three. I was tired of doing busywork with Mitch at the station. And I was way,waybeyond tired of doing the jobs I did for my mother—work alobotomized baboonwas capable of doing. I wanted work that used my brain. That let mecreatesomething, rather than maintain it. I wanted Mama to—
I cracked my neck from side to side and took a deep breath.
See? This was the shit I’d been telling Micah about. Once I started thinking negative thoughts, suddenly I was all-negative, all the time. And then, before you knew it, I was an overgrown toddler having a tantrum, taking my rage out on some asshole with a Camaro. And we all knew howthatended up.
I shoved my feet into my sneakers and went down the hall to the bathroom to brush my teeth and push my thick, wavy hair into some semblance of order. I barely recognized the guy in the mirror. I looked exhaustedand impatient and worn.
Oh, pretty Con. How I miss you.
I made my way silently down the hall, avoiding the squeaky boards in the hallway between Theo’s room and my mother’s. There was a certain irony in the way I was using the evasive skills I’d learned as a fourteen-year-old sneaking out to drink warm beer with my friends at Pickett’s Campground, to now sneak out towork.
Alas, I was pretty sure Mama would be even less tolerant of the work than she’d been of the beer, so I was forced to sneak.
I paused near the entryway to the living room and looked at her closed door for half a second. I really hated keeping things from her, especially something like this. I knew how much I owed her, I knew how much she depended on me, and I knew how hurt she’d be if she ever found out I was working for Micah, even knowing I’d done it partly tohelpRoss Landscaping.
But then, I also felt shitty whenever she said something cutting and derogatory aboutthat Micah Bloom, who was stealing all our business… but was simultaneously showing me what it felt like to have someone not automatically assume I was gonna fuck things up.
I sometimes felt like I was being torn in two when I thought about it too long, so I tried not to think about it at all.
Positivity, you know?
I’d unlocked the deadbolt and swung the front door open when my mother’s disembodied voice came from the darkened dining room to my right and scared the shit out of me.
“Constantine Luciano, where are you going?”
Fuck.
“Mama?” I whispered. “What are you doing up?”
I shut the door, stepped into the dining room, and flipped on the light.
My mother was curled up in her usual seat at the head of the table, and despite the warmth of the night, she had my father’s old bathrobe bundled around her. With her hair tied back in its customary braid and her hands wrapped around a coffee cup, she looked much younger than her fifty-whatever years. Even a little bit lost.
My heart lurched. “What’s wrong? Is Theo okay? Aunt Teresa?”
“They’re fine, honey. Everyone’s fine.” Mama forced a tiny smile, but it faded almost instantly, and she rubbed at her forehead like she had a headache. “You know I’ve always been an early riser.”
I sank into the seat at the far end of the table—the seat that belonged to my aunt Teresa on big family occasions these days, but would always be my dad’s seat, in my mind—and frowned. “Three-fifteen might be taking it to an extreme.”
“Not when there’s a heatwave going on. Gotta be productive before the sun’s up.” She tapped her coffee cup with a fingernail. “Oh, have you seen Julian?”
“Jules?” I looked around. “Today?”
