Page 13 of Meeting Mr. Adorkable
“Er, no, I don’t think so, especially as I’m talking to you.”
Down the line, and thousands of miles away, his mother snorted.
“Did you get the care package I sent you, with all your favorites?”
“I did, but next time add in more Marmite, and tea bags, lots more tea bags. And Marmite.”
“Are you being disrespectful of US tea, young man?”
Lucian smiled. “Of course I am. I learned it from you.”
Across the ocean, his mother laughed. “I’m on it, honey. So how are you coping? When I said you should take advantage of your dual nationality to put everything behind you and find yourself, I meant L.A., or New York or Boston. Miami, even. Even Pennsylvania. At a stretch. Honey, I have so many contacts, I could get you—”
“Mum…” Lucian closed his eyes. He’d lost count of how many times he’d had this conversation. Yes, she had contacts. There didn’t seem to be anybody she didn’t know and could call on for a favor; even the job with Bibi had resulted from a contact of a contact, who knew somebody’s aunt or neighbor, or pet poodle or something. “Doing this — leaving for a while, getting away from it all — I had to do it myself, for myself.”
“But I only wanted to help. I wanted to make things easy for you, honey. You’re my youngest, my baby,” she said, her voice softening.
“I know. But I’m not a baby, Mum. Things here are going well.” With his free hand, he crossed his fingers.
They were going well, if he didn’t count having no friends other than his employer, or going nowhere much other than Randy’s, which he was just about keeping from being barred from, and watching Netflix on his own before going to bed early. Or royally pissing off Arlo McDonald by accusing him of being a creepy stalker when all he’d done was to be really nice to him, and who’d rescued him from the unwanted attentions of Eggy Kurt. He sagged into his chair. Yeah, things were going really well for him in Collier’s Creek.
“How’s everything at home?” he asked, keen to have the spotlight turned away from himself.
“All good. We’re fully booked until Easter, and the rest of next year is filling up fast. Who knew so many couples wanted to get married in a castle?”
“Danebury isn’t a castle, it’s a manor. You should know the difference by now.”
“Lucian, honey, every stately pile is a castle to this California girl,” she said, good humored laughter edging her words. “But a castle or a manor, people want to mark the most important day in their life somewhere special, and Danebury sure delivers, as the healthy bookings testify.” She hesitated, so slight it would have been unnoticed by most. But not by Lucian. He bit down on his lower lip, waiting for her to say whatever was on her mind.
“We settled with Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont-Hughes. The lawyers wrapped it all up. It was costly…” her voice trailed off. Lucian’s grip on the cell tightened; he was sure he heard her swallow. “But the main thing is, it avoided a whole heap of adverse publicity, which is so important in such a competitive market.”
Lucian’s mouth dried to a dust ball. Mrs. Beaumont-Hughes, the former Miss Petrelli. The Bridezilla from Hell, whose special day had been very special indeed, courtesy of an angry bee and a ruined antique dress made from paper-thin lace.
“I’m sorry, Mum. I know it was all my fault—”
“Honey, it’s finished with. We’ve put it all behind us. Mrs. Beaumont-Hughes is fully recovered and the dress has been repaired. Or as much as it can be.”
Lucian cleared his throat. “What’s the new florist like?” The one they’d had to get in quickly to replace him. He’d been told their name, but he didn’t remember and didn’t care.
“Adequate. Not a patch on you, of course, but then nobody could ever be. Maybe, when you come home, we should buy a little flower store for you. You’d still do all the Danebury work, of course, but we could look at hiring somebody to deal with the client interface, leaving you to concentrate on the creative, artistic side of things. How does that sound?” she asked, her voice bright and upbeat.
Somebody to deal with the client interface…. In other words, creating a buffer zone to stop him from causing any damage by opening his big mouth, telling a blushing bride-to-be that the red roses she so desperately wanted for her bouquet would clash horribly with her sallow complexion, or that the corsage for the hatchet faced future mother-in-law really needed to be a statement piece, because how else could they deflect attention from the large, hairy mole on the side of her nose?
Lucian groaned. He did it every time, all the time, putting his foot in it, insulting, upsetting, or angering everybody, just by opening his mouth. Nobody was immune, he was an equal opportunities offender.
“Lucian, honey? Are you okay? You sound in pain,” his mum asked, a hint of panic running through her words.
“No, just, erm, indigestion.”
“Tell me you’re eating properly…”
After assuring her he was, with his fingers re-crossed, they said their goodbyes.
He lay back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. Life at home was progressing without him. Fully booked for weddings and corporates, and a new florist, too. Despite what his mum said, they’d be very good, as the business masterminds that were his older brother and sister would never allow the merely adequate for Danebury Manor’s phenomenally lucrative society weddings and big ticket corporate events. He’d only been gone a few weeks, and he already felt as though he were fading from the place that had always been his home.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Arlo was convinced his face was about to crack and his bland, polite smile would crash to the ground. His eyes had glazed over long ago as Wilbur droned on about dental implants, whitening products, the pros and cons of fluoridation, and dire warnings not to travel beyond the state line for dental care and, under no condition, to ever, if you valued your life, sanity and all things oral health, to contract such care in Arkansas, Alabama, or Alaska.
