“Would you like to have dinner with me, Rose?” he blurted out.
“What?” I asked, looking at him with a puzzled expression as he stood up as well.
“Have you had dinner?” he asked instead of giving an answer.
“No. I think the last thing I ate was a small sandwich. I snacked on a few things, but not a full meal. But…” I looked down at myself and cringed. “I’m not really dressed for going out, and my hands…” Holding my arms out in front of me, I opened and closed my hands, looking at my red fingers. I hid them behind my back and tucked them into my back pockets, hoping they would warm up. “Would it be okay if we ordered in? If you don’t mind. If you have other plans, you don’t have to stay in with me.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to have dinner with me if I had other plans.”
“That’s true.” My mind was getting a little fuzzy.
Keeping an eye on me, he rolled down his sleeves, I really appreciated the view in silence. Then he grabbed his suit jacket from the back of the chair and put it on.
I just stood there in front of the flower arrangement, not sure what I should do next. It was dark outside so there was no way I could put it out and secure it before morning.
“Rose.” Jack interrupted my thoughts and I glanced at him. “Come on, let’s go home.”
“No, I should probably do…first I should…”
“Rose.” I looked at him again, meeting his eyes. “You’re going to crash soon. You’ve done enough. Let’s go.”
With perfect timing, my stomach grumbled, as if agreeing with him. I looked around again. “That sounds like a plan,” I mumbled, but I still didn’t move. “But maybe first I should clean the place up a bit.”
He ignored me completely. “Where is your coat?”
“In the kitchen. It must be in the kitchen.”
Wordlessly, he headed toward the back, walking around the huge rose explosion in the middle of the shop. I thought I heard him talk to someone on the phone, Raymond I think, but then he was back, and he was ordering me to put my arms into the sleeves. He pushed me all the way out, got the lights, even put in the code for the alarm, and locked everything up. With his warm hand on my back, he guided me down the road to where Raymond was parked.
Why did I always feel so safe when he was near me?
“I think I leaned down a little too much for too long. I’m just feeling dizzy, but I’m fine.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I stumbled on something and Jack caught my arm before my face could hit the ground. “Whoa. Really dizzy.”
I remembered getting in the car and maybe saying hi to Raymond, but I didn’t remember how I got up to the apartment and onto the couch. When Jack woke me up with a hand on my shoulder, I was feeling extremely disoriented. He helped me up and gave me two slices of pizza. It was cheese, pepperoni, and black olives, and he ordered me to eat up, and eat up quick. I finished in two minutes flat and even asked for another slice.
I had no recollection of what we talked about, but I did remember mumbling my answers and then wishing him a good night before stumbling to my bed.
The number of times Jack Hawthorne smiled: zero. (BUT…it’s coming soon. I can feel it.)
Chapter Nine
Rose
It was finally Monday, the opening day I’d been waiting such a long time for, and now that it had arrived, I didn’t know how to contain my happiness or my anxiousness. One minute I was on the verge of hyperventilating just thinking about opening the doors enough that Owen and Sally had to force me to sit down, and the next minute I couldn’t stay still and felt like I was about to burst from happiness. Mostly, though, I was feeling sick to my stomach, worrying everything was going to go wrong and everyone was going to hate everything.
What if no one showed up? That had been the first thing I’d thought the moment I had opened my eyes that morning. What if no one walked in? My goal was to at least serve fifty coffees on the first day. That sounded like a fairly doable number.
“I feel like I’m about to lose my virginity,” I blurted out