Page 106 of Make Me Sin (Bad Habit 2)
I hurry to the front, where I find Nico, Kat, Grace, Kenji, a stout, fortyish blonde named Jennifer, who’s the wedding coordinator, and Brody Scott, aka “Scotty,” the lead guitarist for Bad Habit and one of Nico’s groomsmen, standing in a semicircle around the display table with the tall arrangement.
Jennifer is snapping pictures of the arrangements on her iPhone. She looks impressed.
Grace is fingering the linens. She also looks impressed.
Kat is staring at the flowers with her hand over her mouth. She looks like she might cry. When she sees me, she says in a trembling voice, “Holy fucking shit, Chloe. I can’t even . . .” She bursts into tears.
Nico puts his arm around her, pulls her against his chest, and smiles at me. “She loves it, darlin’. So do I. You’ve outdone yourself.”
Flooded with relief, I beam. I’ve been stressing about this moment for a week. “Really?”
Brody is looking at the flowers like they’ve just arrived from outer space. I think he must hate them, but then he asks, “Where’d you get peonies in June?”
Everyone turns to stare at him, even Kat. Grace looks him up and down as if he’s just arrived from outer space.
“Israel. But their production will be finished in August, so we’ll get the peonies for the wedding from my grower in Amsterdam.”
“Man,” he says with awe, staring at the arrangement, “I don’t know what you’re paying for this Nico, but it’s worth every damn cent.”
Grace glances at me. We’re thinking the same thing, because she asks, “Are you a big flower fan?”
He turns to look at her. He’s what I think of as the “cute” member of Bad Habit. He’s got a boyishly handsome face and a killer smile, with flashing dimples partially hidden by scruff. He’s also got great hair, thick and brown, and an even greater sense of style. Today, for instance, he’s wearing a pale blue button-down shirt rolled up his forearms, a smart navy vest, a pair of trendy jeans that fit so perfectly they look tailored, and black leather shoes I recognize as Ferragamo, because my father owns a pair. He’s tall, but unlike Nico or A.J., who are both bulky, he’s on the slender side. I think he looks more like an Abercrombie & Fitch model than a rock musician. A.J. calls him the fashionista.
With a hint of heat in his voice, Brody says to Grace, “I like all beautiful things.”
Grace ignores his obvious come-on and turns away. I guess musicians aren’t her style . . . though I actually thought all men with working genitals were her style.
Meanwhile, Kenji is bored, which is what happens when he’s not the center of attention.
“Lovey, do you have anything to drink around here? I’m so dry I’m practically Mormon.”
“Now that you mention it, I do.”
I yell for Trina to bring out the bottles of champagne I’ve bought for this occasion, hoping it would be a success. Now that I know Kat and Nico like the flowers, I feel like celebrating.
So does Trina; grinning like a madwoman, she bursts from the back room with two bottles of Perrier-Jouët held aloft. “Woot! We nailed it! Par-tay!” My other designer Renee follows with a sleeve of plastic champagne glasses. They were obviously eavesdropping.
Kenji curls his lip. “Oh, lovey, you know Kenji doesn’t drink from petroleum-based glassware.”
“You will today, Divalicious,” I answer, “because I don’t have anything else.”
Kenji points to the table. “What do you call those?”
I look at the rented crystal champagne flutes beside each place setting on the table, and start to laugh. “I call those a giant oversight on my part. Trina, trash the plastic. We’re drinking in style.”
She snorts. “I bet I know who’s going to be washing these suckers, too,” she mutters good-naturedly.
Kenji looks appalled. “Well I’m certainly not!”
Which is a given.
Once the champagne is poured and we’ve raised our glasses in a toast, the coordinator pulls me aside to go over some details, while Kat and Nico neck around the side of the flower cooler. Kenji, Trina, and Renee squeal and launch into an impromptu zombie dance-off when Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” plays over the radio, and, most interestingly, Brody follows Grace as she drifts away from the sample floral arrangements and starts to peruse the display of glass and ceramic vases along the wall.
Musicians might not be her thing, but it certainly looks to me as if redheads are his thing. I try to remember if they’ve met before . . . maybe at the House of Blues party last year? Or on Memorial Day? I make a mental note to ask her about it later.
Jennifer and I finish our talk, and rejoin the rest of the group.
“So where’s A.J., Lo?” asks Kat. “I thought he’d be here.”
