Petal Plucker

by Iris Morland

  “I saw you two, you know. I saw you driving off with her.”

  Jacob grimaced. “Shit. Why are you even sitting here with me? You should’ve had the waitress poison my burger.”

  “Oh, don’t think I didn’t consider it. Sadly, it’s apparently against the law to poison someone in Canada. Maybe when we’re back in Seattle.”

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Even if it’s nine years too late.”

  “Thank you.” I poked at my salad. “Honestly, you also taught me a valuable lesson, so I guess I should thank you for that, too.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Really? I find that hard to believe.”

  “I realized that people will always let you down in the end. That when you trust somebody without reservation, you’re going to get hurt. I was glad to get the lesson out of the way by the time I got to college.”

  “Because you’ve never let anyone down?” His voice was hard.

  “Of course I have. Everyone does, because we’re all human. I’ve fucked up so many times…” I stabbed at my salad, thinking of every time I’d disappointed my parents, my dad especially. “I’m not perfect.”

  “So you let yourself be imperfect, but when someone else messes up, that’s it? It’s over? That person is dead to you?”

  “I never said that. Now you’re just putting words in my mouth.”

  Jacob took a drink of his second whiskey. I watched in fascination as his throat worked, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed. Even when he was pissed at me, I wanted him. What kind of sickness was that, anyway?

  “You know what I think, Dandelion?”

  I stilled. No one but my parents called me by my full name because I hated that name. It reminded me of the fact that I was named after a weed people always tried to eradicate from their lawns.

  “I think that it’s easier for you to write people off, because then you can never get hurt. If they fuck up, well, that’s it. You can move on. But you know what’ll happen to you in the end?”

  My voice wobbled. “What?”

  “You’ll end up alone. Since, like you said, nobody is perfect.”

  “Maybe I like being alone.”

  Jacob’s smile was sad. “Nobody wants to be alone, sweetheart.”

  I hardly remembered returning to our room that evening. Neither of us finished our food, although I took mine to go, thinking that maybe I’d get hungry again. Only if this lead weight in my stomach ever decided to go away, though, based on the way it seemed to grow larger as I listened to Jacob move about the living area, or how he barely glanced my way as he went into the bathroom, it wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I’d long since realized that plant people were all, collectively, a little strange. At conventions like this one, it was as if their strangeness was amplified tenfold. Suddenly it was perfectly socially acceptable to thrust a sample of soil macrobiotics in someone’s face, or wax poetic on the best kinds of rakes or shovels.

  I had a small booth where I was selling a variety of flower bulbs that we grew in our greenhouse: tulip, dahlia, and peony bulbs. Although we didn’t have a huge selection, people recognized our store and knew that our bulbs were some of the best in the state. I wondered if I was going to sell out before the convention was even over, which would be great, but also a little awkward since there was still one more day after this one.

  I was glad of the distraction of people wearing shirts that said things like I’m so excited I wet my plants as they asked me all sorts of questions about our bulbs. It allowed me to forget about that strange conversation with Jacob last night, or how he’d left our room before I’d even gotten out of bed.

  I didn’t know what time I’d finally fallen asleep, but it had felt as though the second I’d finally fallen asleep, my alarm went off. I was bleary-eyed, sleep-deprived, and had a headache waiting to stretch across my forehead and temples.

  But I refused to let Jacob think what he’d said had upset me. I mean, it had pissed me off, but if he knew as much, he’d lord it over me. He’d say that he’d hit the nail on the head or some other stupid metaphor.

  Nobody wants to be alone, sweetheart. The first and only time Jacob had called me an endearment, and he’d done it sarcastically. If that wasn’t an encapsulation of the state of my love life, I didn’t know what was.

  Jacob also had a booth around here somewhere. He was selling seed packets from Flowers, as far as I knew. We hadn’t exactly discussed the specifics. It was, however, a good reminder that our businesses were in direct competition with each other. Apparently I suffered from amnesia every time Jacob looked at me, because that important detail kept slipping from my brain.

  Around lunchtime, I couldn’t help but notice Jacob moving through the crowd of people, stopping at a few booths. He was catty-corner to me, getting a sample of some organic honey. This booth also featured an actual honeycomb taken from a hive that showed where they harvested the honey.

  Soon, Jacob was heading my way. “How’s it going?” He seemed almost…wary. Like he didn’t know how I’d react if he approached me.

  I might be mad at him, but I wasn’t going to jump him in the middle of a convention. I was classy: I’d prefer to do it when no one else was watching.

  “Well, I’ve sold a bunch of bulbs, I’ve talked about bulbs all morning, and I’ll probably be dreaming about them tonight. It’ll be like the ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies,’ except it’ll be tulip bulbs dancing.”

  “That sounds fucking terrifying.”

  I laughed. “It does. If you hear me screaming tonight, you’ll know why.”

  At the thought of screaming in the middle of the night, my brain went to way more pleasurable reasons why that would be happening. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Jacob was the type of man who wouldn’t stop until you screamed his name in bed.

  My heart started pounding, and I was glad I was sitting down, otherwise I would’ve gotten light-headed simply from thinking about Jacob with his head between my legs and eating my pussy with great enthusiasm.

  Jacob, however, was more interested in the bulbs I was selling. “Do you dig them up in the winter?” he asked. He picked up one of the netted bags that held a single bulb.

  “My dad always swore there was no reason to since we don’t usually get a hard freeze, but the last few years have been so weird that I dig ours up.” I went to stand next to him and pointed to the second bulb Jacob picked up, a Hawaii dahlia. “I love that kind. I planted a bunch of them a year ago and they were gorgeous in the summer.”

  “I like the Black Wizard.” He smiled, which directed at me, made me weak in the knees. “It’s my mom’s favorite, too.”

  “Why did your parents open a store so close to ours?” I said suddenly, mostly just curious. I’d never heard the reason, despite the fact that the Wests had moved into the neighborhood over twenty years ago.

  “I wish I could tell you it was because they were determined to put you guys out of business, but it was more that that’s where my parents had bought a house and my mom didn’t want to commute anywhere.”

  I stared at him. “Are you serious?”

  “Totally serious.” His smile grew. “My mom just hates driving in traffic.”

  I shook my head, chuckling. So much for my parents thinking the Wests had nefarious reasons for encroaching into our territory. Who knew it had simply been about convenience?

  “I wonder what would have happened if our parents had decided to work together instead of becoming rivals?” I mused aloud.

  Jacob’s expression turned serious, and I was about to ask him what he was thinking about when it disappeared. “Our lives would’ve been way less interesting,” he said finally.

  “Sometimes I used to imagine what it would’ve been like if my parents were doctors, or accountants. Where our house wasn’t filled with plants and I didn’t spend summers making bouquets for weddings.”

  “You want to know a secret?” Jacob leaned close
to me, and my breath stuttered.

  “Always.”

  “I made the majority of the corsages we sold when I was in high school. So all those corsages at prom? I made them.”

  The back of my neck prickled at the mention of prom, but after his apology last night, the hurt from the incident had faded already, like a bruise turning gray.

  “I’m sure the girls would’ve loved knowing that the most popular boy in school had made their corsages,” I said.

  “And I never would’ve heard the end of it.”

  “Did Tiffany know?” I blurted, because I hadn’t had the courage to ask last night. “That you told me you’d go to prom with me?”

  His eyes widened. “No, she didn’t. She thought I wasn’t going since we’d broken up.”

  It was a small consolation that she hadn’t been in on the idea to stand me up, but it also meant the blame landed squarely on Jacob’s shoulders.

  He turned away and eventually chose some bulbs. I had a feeling that was going to be the end of our conversation this afternoon. Good job, Dani.

  “I’ll get these,” he said as he handed me a half-dozen bulbs.

  I was waiting on Jacob’s credit card to process—the Wi-Fi at this place was horrendous—when the mascot for the convention, Sonny Sunflower, came lumbering past us. The costume consisted of a giant sunflower head with yellow petals that stuck out so far that pretty much every adult he walked past was smacked with a petal. A giant smiley face was in the center of the sunflower head, which was rather unsettling when leveled at you. Whoever had come up with this costume had not been thinking about basic logistics whatsoever.

  Sonny waved at me and came up to my booth, only for his petal-head to hit Jacob in the face.

  “Careful!” said Jacob, putting a safe distance between him and the mascot.

  I started laughing so hard I felt like I was going to choke. “Sonny, you’re gonna hurt somebody with those petals of yours.”

  Sonny put his hands up and shrugged at my declaration. Clearly, Sonny didn’t care about being a public safety hazard.

  “Who decided you were a good idea?” Jacob snorted. He touched one of the petals, which could bend every which way due to having a wire running through them. “You should put these in a ponytail or something. Then they wouldn’t hit people.”

  Sonny waggled a finger, or at least, he tried to waggle a finger while wearing what basically amounted to oversized oven mitts.

  “Jacob, don’t molest the mascot,” I chided.

  Jacob kept messing with the petals. Before I knew it, he’d bent all the petals so they pointed upwards. Now Sonny looked like a sunflower that’d gotten stuck in a wind storm.

  “Jacob—”

  His grin was unrepentant. “I’m just trying to help him out.”

  “You’re going to get us in trouble.”

  “What? Are they going to throw us in convention jail?”

  Customers began returning from lunch, and I shooed Sonny away from my booth. I didn’t have time for a giant sunflower mascot to knock over all of my bulbs because they couldn’t see where they were going.

  Sonny began to move through the crowd, children grabbing at his legs like barnacles. He stopped to take photos, but every time he bent down to hug a small child, a lone petal that had returned to its original position whacked the kid in the face. One started crying, causing a bit of a scene.

  “It’s like a train wreck,” said Jacob, marveling. “I can’t look away.”

  “Don’t you have a booth to run?”

  “I’m on break.”

  “Okay, well, don’t you have someone else to bother?”

  He didn’t even look at me. “Nope. Just you.”

  One minute, I was talking to a customer about peony planting, and then I was watching what basically amounted to a slow-motion montage of a disaster. Or a train wreck, like Jacob had said.

  Poor Sonny had been mobbed by children. One boy clung to Sonny’s leg, and when Sonny tried to get the kid off of him, another girl pulled on Sonny’s arm. Sonny lost his balance, his oversized sunflower head going straight toward the honeycomb case.

  “Oh shit,” said Jacob a second before Sonny hit the honeycomb.

  The case exploded from the impact, the honeycomb splattering everyone in a six-foot radius. Honey hit the side of my booth and even landed on my hand. Jacob had managed to dodge most of it, although he still had a decent amount on his left pant leg.

  I heard groaning, and children cried. Somebody was pushing through the crowd to help Sonny up, who was still rolling around in the honeycomb and getting stickier and stickier.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, inspecting Jacob for further damage. I noticed that some honey had gotten into his hair. “You got a little here.”

  He grimaced, swiping at the honey, only to smear it across his forehead.

  I giggled. “You’re making it worse.”

  “You have some here.” He touched my cheek, his thumb a gentle caress. After he’d wiped the honey off, he brought his thumb to his mouth and sucked it off. I suddenly couldn’t breathe.

  I had visions of him drizzling honey down the length of my torso before licking it off of me. As if he could read my mind, his eyes darkened.

  But then somebody bumped into Jacob, effectively shattering the moment. We were back in the present, where a giant sunflower mascot was covered in honey, people were running about and yelling, and somebody announced over the intercom that there was an incident in our area and that patrons should avoid that area until it was cleaned up.

  I stepped back toward my booth. “Who knew conventions could be this exciting?”

  “I’m as surprised as you are,” said Jacob, his gaze never leaving mine.

  Chapter Fourteen

  After the convention was over for the day, I returned to my room and waited for Jacob. I planned to ask him if he wanted to go to dinner with me again. My heart fluttered, thinking about what could happen after dinner, if I just had the balls to grab the metaphorical bull by the horns.

  But time kept passing, and Jacob didn’t show. Twisted up inside while so hungry, I was basically hangry at this point. I went downstairs to get some food from the hotel restaurant. I had just sat down at the bar since the restaurant was full and saw Jacob at a booth with some other people. I watched him tip his head back and laugh at something the guy next to him said.

  Suddenly, my appetite disappeared. “Keep the change,” I said to the bartender, bile rising in my throat. I hurried upstairs before Jacob could spot me.

  I didn’t understand him one bit. I wasn’t stupid: he’d been flirting with me throughout this trip. He’d kissed me twice already.

  First comes kissing, then comes oral, then comes fucking. Then maybe a few “I love you’s” thrown in to spice things up.

  Paranoid, I wondered if I’d done something to make him change his mind. Oh God, had I left a wad of hair in the bathtub drain? Had I forgotten to flush the toilet? What other disgusting things could I have done to make him decide I wasn’t worth his time?

  I went over every possibility, but there was only one that made sense: Jacob West was a giant douche-canoe. That was the only explanation.

  It was almost 11:00 PM when Jacob came back to the room. I froze on my bed, listening to him move around in the living area. I waited for him to push the adjoining door open and say something to me. Acknowledge my existence at all. But when he didn’t, I decided that I was tired of waiting for him to get his head out of his ass.

  Pushing the covers off, I went into the living area without knocking. Which ended up being a bad idea that was actually an amazing idea, because he was in the middle of undressing. He’d taken off his jeans and shirt, leaving him in nothing but his boxers.

  “Dani? What the—?”

  “Stop talking.” I wanted to enjoy this moment. It was a shame Jacob was such a douche, because he was fucking gorgeous: lean and muscular, his skin golden in the dim light. I took in his bulging arms, the angle of
his elbows; I wished I could see him wearing a button-up again just for him to push the sleeves past his forearms that were way too sexy for something as benign as forearms.

  His chest was heaving as I gazed at him. I moved down, down, past the patch of blond hair below his belly button, which I had the sudden urge to lick. Then to the bulge pressing against his boxers. A very noticeable, very large bulge. My stomach fluttered.

  “Dani?” he repeated. His voice had gone a little hoarse.

  “What the hell is your fucking deal?” I demanded. I forced myself to look only at his face. His dumb, beautiful, chiseled, haunt-you-in-your-dreams face.

  “Do you want to be more specific?” His tone was wry. “Maybe when I’m wearing pants?”

  “You don’t get to wear pants right now.” Okay, that made no sense, but I was too pissed, too aroused, too confused to care.

  “I’d love to talk specifics. How about the fact that you flirt with me and kiss me and invite me to dinner last night, but then tonight not only do you ignore my texts, but I see you downstairs with your new friends.

  “Now, I’m not saying we have to hang out every second of every day. I’m not that desperate. But you could at least not be a giant asshole with this hot-cold thing you have going on. So, yeah, I’m pissed at you. I’m pissed because you can’t make up your fucking mind.”

  I stepped closer to him. His chest rose and fell in rapid breaths, and I wanted to laugh darkly when his gaze darted to my cleavage. Let him look—and get nothing else from me.

  “You see, I’m capable of logic and reason. But you aren’t, apparently. You keep doing this act like you have amnesia, Jacob. Because I’m thinking you regret ever kissing me.” My voice rose on the last sentence.

  Now he looked angry; red darted across his cheekbones. “I don’t regret anything.”

  “Really? Because you’re acting like you do.”

  “Oh, Dandelion, sweetheart.” He moved until our bodies were almost aligned. “I’d love to know what you believe I’m thinking right now.” He tilted his head to the side, silent. “I’m waiting.”