I was pretty sure I heard her mutter “Mommy’s such a buzz kill” as she walked out of my room and closed the door behind her.
I WAS ONE OF the rare few who absolutely loved their job. Whereas most people worked for the soul purpose of paying their bills and keeping a roof over their heads, I worked because I genuinely loved coming into my little shop every morning. But seeing as I was raised by a family full of green thumbs, it wasn’t really all that surprising.
My grandfather had opened Flora before my father had even been a gleam in his eye. He passed the shop down to my dad when it was time to retire, and my dad had eventually passed it down to me. Granted, he wasn’t really ready to retire. It was more like my mom forced him into it by refusing to cook or clean for him until he eventually caved, which he wisely did. It only took three days before Dad declared himself “starving to death” and handed the keys over to me.
I was enveloped by the bright colors and fragrant smells of some of the most beautiful, exotic flowers. How could anyone’s mood be sour when they were surrounded by such beauty on a daily basis?
I had just enough employees to handle the register and things like that, so I could spend the majority of my days designing stunning centerpieces and elegant wedding bouquets. Sure, designing wedding arrangements on the regular might have left a bit of a sore spot, seeing as my own personal love life was a complete joke, but what could you do? I put myself out there once, and it blew up in my face. Shit happens, right?
On-line dating was a no.
Blind dates were a bust.
And my fear of being left swiped, kept me away from Tinder. Needless to say, my options were limited to running into a decent-looking, polite, well-educated, employed man by happenstance alone. Something that seemed to be an impossibility in New York.
I refused to let myself get too down about it. I had a fantastic family, good friends, and a job I loved. All things in the world of Delilah Northcutt were good.
“Del, the bride for the Collins/Locklaine wedding called. She can’t make the three o’clock appointment to get a look at a sample bouquet, so she’s sending the groom,” my manager Toni called as I pushed through the door of Flora, precariously balancing my herbal tea in one hand and trying my best not to step on Slim Shady as he twisted himself around my feet.
I suppressed my eye roll as I answered, “Got it.” Dealing with grooms was probably my least favorite part of my job. They only came in two categories, the uninterested and the overly-involved. Both were pains in the ass to deal with. My eyes were on the dog that had managed to all but tie my ankles together with his leash. “Shady, no.” I scolded pointlessly. “Shady, stop. Sit.”
He did not stop nor sit. I was stuck in place until Toni took pity on me and came to release me from my poorly-behaved puppy’s clutches.
“So I take it obedience classes were a bust?” she asked, the corner of her mouth hooking up in a grin, causing the ring in her bottom lip to glint as the light hit it. That was one of the things I loved about Toni, on the outside she was all tattoos and piercings and short, spikey purple hair — well, at least purple this week. Her go-to expression was something I liked to refer to as, bitch, did I say you could talk to me? But on the inside, she was a total softy. She was like family to me, and she was the hardest worker I’d ever employed.
“Are you kidding?” I took a sip of my tea and moved to stow my bag behind the counter once freed from the leash. “He was kicked out for pooping in the instructor’s hand bag.”
Toni bit down on her bottom lip, trying to keep from laughing. “Did Devon feed him cheese again?”
I sighed and took a sip of my tea, hoping it would help center me. “No. He just didn’t like her. Not that I could blame him. She accused him of sexually harassing a dachshund that was in the class.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “So, doggy sexual harassment. That’s a thing now?”
“Beats the hell out of me. Besides, it was her own fault for leaving her bag on the floor in the first place. It was an obedience class for God’s sake. It’s not like we were there because our pets were well-behaved.”
“Ah,” she cooed, lifting Slim Shady up to eye level. “She just didn’t get you like we do, huh? No she didn’t.” In return for her affection, Shady licked her face.
“If you need me, I’ll be in the back working on the orders that have come in. Holler if anything comes up.”
“You got it, boss,” she called after I’d scooped my dog up and headed toward the rear of the shop. I put him in the little doggy bed I’d set up in the corner, tossed him his favorite plush toy to chew on, and popped my earbuds in, cranking the music up as I got to work.
I pulled in a deep breath, letting the floral fragrances wash over me and smiled.
Today was going to be a good day.
I WAS EXHAUSTED, AND the headache that had been plaguing me since my neighbor woke me up blasting that god-awful Eminem song didn’t seem to want to go away. I’d been in my apartment for a week, and already, I wanted to kill the woman who I shared a wall with. I hadn’t known it was possible to despise someone you hadn’t actually seen, but after only seven days, 3B had managed to pull it off.
I couldn’t stand the woman!
Being woken up at sunrise by a song I couldn’t stand when it was actually popular did nothing but throw gasoline on the bonfire of the bad mood I’d been sporting for the past few months. My assistant had taken to running for the bathroom whenever she saw me coming and buzzing me on the intercom when she had a question, instead of risking my wrath and actually coming to me in person. I’d lost count of how many people’s heads I’d bitten off at the office.
I stepped of the elevator and onto my floor. The key jingled in my hand as I lifted it and unlocked the front door. Heading to the new kitchen, I did my best to ignore the still unpacked boxes that cluttered my space and pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge, sucking down half of it in a few gulps. The eight mile run I’d just put my body through had done nothing to get my mind off the pathetic direction my life seemed to be heading in.
I was a thirty-four-year-old man living out of boxes because it seemed the only thing I had of any importance was my job, and it kept me too busy to do something as simple as unpack. My divorce from the She-Bitch I’d been married to had finally gone through, after months of her screwing around and dragging it out as long as possible, so I’d been able to move out of the goddamned hotel I’d been living in for the past year and actually find my own place, only to move in next door to a screaming harpy with horrible taste in music. And the saddest fact yet, I hadn’t been able to get a certain woman in a red dress out of my head since the morning I’d woken up to find she’d bailed on me in the middle of the night.
So, to sum it up, I was a workaholic in his mid-thirties, already divorced, who spent the better part of three months mooning over a one-night-stand to the point that I hadn’t been laid since that fateful night because no woman I’d met since lived up to a woman whose name I didn’t even know. It was laughable, really, just how quickly everything was spiraling around the drain.
My phone rang, shaking me from my miserable thoughts. Reaching into the pocket of my track pants, I pulled it out and groaned at the screen. “What?”
“Well hello to you too, brother.”
Rowan’s chipper demeanor coming through the phone almost made me cringe. Ever since getting engaged to Navie, he’d been insufferably cheerful. Now, don’t get me wrong, I was beyond happy for my twin brother. He deserved a woman who would love him more than life, but when your own marriage ends in divorce because you discovered your wife was a manipulative shrew, it makes that smile slip every so often.
“What’s got you in a mood?” Rowan asked.
“Pain-in-the-ass neighbor,” I grunted. “Haven’t gotten a decent night’s sleep since I moved in here. She even woke me at the crack of dawn this morning. Who the hell wakes up so early on a Saturday?”
He chuckled through the line, making me r
oll my eyes. “I’m not one to say I told you so—”
“Bullshit, you aren’t!” I barked with a laugh. “You live do say ‘I told you so.’”
He was silent for a few seconds, then, “You’re right. I do. And I told you so, Rich. If you’d have just moved into my and Navie’s building like I suggested, you wouldn’t be dealing with this shit.”
It wasn’t that Rowan’s place wasn’t nice. It really was. But after years of having no relationship whatsoever because my ex-wife, Bree had played us both, we were still working on building things back up. There was still a voice in the back of my head that niggled at me, warning not to wear out my welcome when it came to Rowan. I found myself occasionally walking on egg shells just so I wouldn’t risk losing him for another chunk of my life. Discord between siblings was hard enough, it was something you felt on a daily basis, but your twin? Well, let’s just say that was a personal Hell I never wanted to experience again.
“There’s nothing wrong with my building… except for the woman next door trying to make me deaf at ungodly hours of the morning.”
“Is it really that bad?”
“She blares ‘Lose Yourself’ every morning like a goddamned anthem or something. I swear to Christ, Row, if I had ever liked that song, she’d have ruined it for me.”
The asshole had the nerve to laugh. “Well, at least it isn’t Britney Spears or some boy band.”
My jaw actually ticked as I admitted, “Oh, it’s that too. She’s got a very… eclectic taste in music, and she plays it all the fucking time,” I drawled out. “If you’re planning on getting me a housewarming present, might I suggest earplugs? I’d be forever in your debt.”
“Speaking of debt…”
I took another swig from my water bottle. “Well that sounds ominous.”
“Navie was supposed to go to the florist today to check out her bouquet or some shit…” Ah, hell. “…but she has a rush jewelry order she has to get to Pepper at Fire & Ice by this afternoon, so she asked me to do it.”
“Not seeing where this is my problem.”
“Well,” he dragged out. “She passed the job to me, and I’m passing it to you, Best Man,” he spoke with far too much excitement.
“No. Nuh uh! You don’t get to play the best man card on this,” I objected. “You’re the groom, man. What the hell do I know about flowers? I’ll screw something up and Navie’ll cut off my balls.”
“Better you than me,” he mumbled through the line.
“Nope. Not doing it.”
Rowan sighed. “Look, I’m on a tight deadline with my editor or I’d go myself. But I really need your help on this. Just go, pick up the flowers and bring them back so Navie can take a look at the bouquet. Easy as that. Please, Rich.”
Shit. There was no way I was going to be able to say no when I heard the sincerity in his voice. I let out a long, loud sigh, making sure he could hear just how put-out I was feeling before finally relenting. “Fine. But you owe me, man. I didn’t even give a shit about the flowers at my own wedding.”
“You’re a lifesaver, brother.” I could hear the relief in his voice.
“Yeah, I’m a freaking saint. I take payment in beer.”
“You got it,” he laughed.
“A case, not a six-pack, you cheap-ass. I know you.”
I disconnected the call and looked around my apartment. Well, at least running this errand for Row meant I had another legitimate excuse for getting out of unpacking.
I PUSHED THROUGH THE glass door of Flora, a flower shop just a few blocks from my apartment building, a few minutes before three. I scanned the well-kept shop, enjoying the surprisingly fresh, outdoorsy scent in the air. It wasn’t overwhelming and florally in the least. My eyes landed on a petite girl behind the counter, her short hair died a vibrant purple color and a piercing through her bottom lip. The look she was giving me was anything but friendly as she asked, “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to pick up a bouquet for Navie Collins,” I answered, wondering if I’d done something personally do offend the Goth girl at the register, or if she was just mad at life itself — if so, I could commiserate.
“You Locklaine?”
I nodded. “That’s me.”
She pointed toward the back of the shop and I noticed a door tucked away behind a trellis covered in climbing Ivy. “Delilah’s through there. Just head on in, she’s waiting for you.”
“Thanks.” Spinning around and heading in the direction she pointed, I turned the knob and pushed the door open, stopping just across the threshold at what I saw. There wasn’t an ounce of self-consciousness coming from the woman as she swiveled her hips and shook her head, the ear buds in her ears making her oblivious to the fact that she was no longer alone as she belted out the lyrics to the song playing.
I felt the tension of my bad mood lesson just a bit as I stepped fully into the room, allowing the door to close behind me and watched her move with unabashed passion as she danced while arranging a large display in the center of the table. I had to work hard not to laugh when she suddenly belted out “Uh, uh, uh, uh! Kiss this!”
She was actually kind of cute… in a quirky, nerdy kind of way. Her black hair was pulled up in a loose bun at the very top of her head. When I caught her in profile I could see she had thick bangs that hung down past her eyebrows and a pair of black framed glasses perched on her nose, and the way she squinted and kept pushing them up every time they fell said she wasn’t the type of person to wear glasses to appear stylish, she actually needed them to see. A pang of familiarity shot through me, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where I knew her from.
She wore a high-waisted skirt that flared out right above her knees and a cropped top that left just an inch of her smooth skin exposed. From what I could see she had sexy curves that any man would appreciate, and as I continued to watch her, I felt a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. Nothing about this woman was my type, she was all girl-next-door and I tended to lean more toward the vixen types, but I could still appreciate her appeal, at least for a few seconds longer.
Something in the corner of the room caught my eye and I turned my head, pulling my attention away from the woman before me. It took me a second to figure out what the hell I was looking at, but when the fluffy ball in the corner blinked its beady black eyes at me and emitted a high-pitched woof, I could only assume it was a dog and not an overly large, white rat like I’d first suspected.
“Shady, hush,” the woman spoke, not taking her eyes off the flowers arrangement in front or her.
The dog/rat barked again, then added the least frightening growl I’d ever heard for good measure. “Shady,” the woman scolded, “be quiet. God, you don’t listen for shit.”
“I don’t think your dog likes me,” I spoke up, making her jump and give a startled yelp. The second she spun around, I was hit with a wave of recognition again, but damn if I could figure out why she seemed so familiar.
“Holy hell,” she breathed, placing one palm on her chest as she propped the other on the table beside her to hold her up. “You scared the shit out of me,” she said, her brown eyes went wide behind her glasses.
“Sorry.” I gave her a flirtatious smirk. “I was enjoying the show. The Struts, right?” I guessed at the song blaring out of her ear buds. “Good taste in music. I approve.”
“What are you doing here?”
I quirked my brow at the odd question, suddenly confused. “You’re Delilah, right?”
“Uh…” she looked around the room, for what, I had no idea. “Yeah. How’d you find me?”
My eyes narrowed as I studied her face. “I’m sorry, do we know each other?”
“Excuse me?”
Why did she sound so pissed? I held my hands up in surrender. “It’s not a line, I swear. You just look familiar to me, but I can’t figure out where I know you from. It’s driving me crazy. We’ve met, right?” Her cheeks flushed a bright pink. With the wide eyes, thick bangs, and creamy pale s
kin, the blush just made her even cuter.
“You don’t know me?”
I gave her the grin that normally had women doing whatever I wanted them to and took a step closer to her. I was a shameless flirt, so sue me. “Was that a question or an answer?” I teased in a low voice.
She stepped back and nearly tripped over her own feet, which was something, considering she was in flats. Grabbing a long-stemmed flower from the table, she held on to it like it was some sort of shield. The top of the flower drooped as she fidgeted and spun the stem in her hand.
“Uh…” She cleared her throat. “It was an answer. No. You don’t know me.”
I cocked my head to the side. That couldn’t be right. I could have sworn I’d seen her before. “You sure about that?”
“Yep! Positive!” she replied overenthusiastically, twirling the poor, abused flower round and round as she pasted an overly bright smile on her face, making her look slightly psychotic. Something was off with this woman. “So what can I help you with?”
Shaking my head in an attempt to clear it, I remembered what brought me to Flora in the first place. “Oh, yeah, sorry. I’m here to pick up a sample bouquet for Navie Collins.”
The flower in her hand stopped spinning and the top of it fell over her fingers, the petals scattering to the floor. “Wait… you’re Locklaine?”
I grinned and held out my hand. “Richard Locklaine, but my friends call me Rich. And you’re Delilah…?” I trailed off, giving her the chance to add her last name. But she didn’t. And my hand stayed extended and empty as she stared at me, aghast, like I’d just informed her I planned on voting for Trump or something.
She seemed frozen for several seconds before she finally blinked and stalked away, walking over to a glass faced refrigerator on the back wall and jerking it open. “Here you go!” she all but shouted as she yanked something from inside and stomped back to me. “Here’s the bouquet.” She tossed it underhanded and I had to scramble to catch it. “Enjoy the flowers. Hope Ms. Collins likes them. Have a nice day!” Once she finished her rapid-fire sentences, she sucked in a deep breath, spun on her heels, and disappeared through another door that led to somewhere else in the shop. I stood there for several seconds, the cold flowers in my hand, and I tried to figure out what the hell just happened.
Opposites Attract (The Locklaine Boys Book 2) Page 2
