Page 12 of Tattoo My Heart
With a light push of his boot on Kyle’s head, James walks away and gets back into his own seat across from me. Our other friends who are present rush to help Kyle up, then one of them makes him an ice pack while he snickers away over the cooler.
“What’s the deal with the app?” I ask after looking around to make sure no one is paying attention.
James shrugs, like he didn’t just about pummel Kyle into the ground.
“Evie signed up for it.”
“She didwhat?” I’m pretty sure my eyeballs just popped out of my head and rolled out there somewhere in my perfectly mowed grass.
“She doesn’t want to go to this party by herself,” James explains with a knowing smirk. “Her mom told her that you were bringing some amazing chick to the house. Evie took it personally, and she refuses to show up by herself. What’s really going on between you two anyway?”
“There’s nothing going on,” I rush to say. “Not like you mean it.”
“Ah, okay,” he nods. “Then why so worried about Evie signing up for theHolidatesapp?”
I stare at James, unable to say much. Seeing Evie the other day stirred all sorts of emotions inside of me. If we weren’t related, I’d want to give a relationship with her a chance. A true relationship. She is everything I want in a woman…
“Brother,” James reads my thoughts correctly. “I’m going to tell you again. Pay attention.”
He waits until I nod to confirm that I am indeed listening to him.
“You are not related by blood. Your father didn’t adopt her as his own. In fact,” he continues with his line of thought, “other than him being extremely nice to Evie because he was in love with her mother, I don’t remember them having any sort of special relationship. Am I wrong?”
I tilt my head to the side as I ponder what he just told me.
“You’re not wrong,” I finally agree with him.
“You obviously like her,” he adds. “And not in a brotherly fashion.”
I roll my eyes and smirk right before taking another sip of my beer. It is getting a little warm now.
“Life is too short to drag your feet, Cal,” he finally says when I take my time responding. “Way too short,” he adds. “I risked it all for Carrie, and I would do it all again in a heartbeat. She and that baby mean everything to me.”
The more he speaks, the more my mind is made up. So when he’s done, there is zero hesitation in my voice.
“What’s the app again?”
FIVE
My phone dingswith a message just as I put the final touches on a wedding flower arrangement. The order is almost complete, and I take a moment to admire all the center pieces I created so far. They are stunning, truly encompassing the bride’s vision for them.
My passion for flowers goes way back to when I was little. My mom’s mother cultivated, for lack of a better word, my love for it. She owned a flower shop in our small town. I worked here every summer from the time I was twelve up until her death when I was twenty-one.
In a surprising move to some, but not to me and my mother, Grandma left the shop to me. It was quite a bit of a learning curve as the business side of it had never been my forte, however, with a little bit of help from the accountant my stepfather referred me to, I got the hang of it.
The shop has been thriving for the last three years, maintaining the high standards my grandmother had set during her ownership, and the patrons appreciated that fact.
“Let’s break for lunch, Nancy,” I tell my one employee who I inherited from Grandma. She’d worked here for thirty years, and she cried when I told her that I’d love it if she stayed.
“Okay, honey,” she now tells me. “I need to run to the post office, then stop at the bank. I’m meeting my son for lunch right after. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
“Take your time.”
I follow her to the door where I flip the sign over to show we’re closed for the next hour, then lock the door behind Nancy. I feel better with the door locked when it’s just me in the shop.
Another ding from my phone reminds me that I have messages to check. I pull my phone out as I walk toward the back where we have a food refrigerator that’s sitting next to the huge refrigeration boxes we use for the flowers.
I pull out my sandwich and a bottle of water, then finally drop in the comfy chair at Grandma’s antiqued desk.
