herself, she decided to do something for herself. She took classes while caring for her two young children and dealing with the aftermath of what it looks like to have a husband divorce you but not before getting another woman pregnant. And now I can’t imagine a world without her. She’s not just my manager, she’s also my friend.
I’m turning the vase around on my station to make sure that the bright orange and pink arrangement I just created is perfect when the door chimes alerting me that someone has come in.
“Be right with you,” I say, slipping the plastic stem into the center and attaching the card that the customer already filled out. Once it’s settled, I place it in the large cooler and mark it ready for delivery in our computer system. We have high school girls who already have their license help and one of their favorite parts of the job is delivering flowers.
“No rush.” I hear in a deep voice that causes my head to jerk up.
“Tyson?”
“Hi, Addy.”
“Holy crap. Tyson?”
“In the flesh,” he says, bright white teeth gleaming when he smiles, arms spread out next to him.
He takes a step toward me and I come out behind the counter to greet him.
I wasn’t planning on him hugging me tightly and picking me up, but that’s exactly what he does.
“Holy shit, you look amazing,” he says into my hair.
“Not so bad yourself,” I tell him when he sets me on my feet again. “How are you here?” I ask, shaking my head. “I’m just… wow! You’re here! It’s been, what? Ten years?”
“Eleven, but who’s counting.”
“You, apparently,” I tease.
“Missed you.”
I lightly punch his shoulder. “I see that, considering it’s been eleven years since you’ve seen me.”
He bites his lower lip and looks at me. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Now what would be the fun in that?”
“Absolutely no fun at all.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask him, calling for Mary, one of the other designers, to watch the front so Tyson and I can go to my office and talk. He follows after me and takes a seat in a chair across from my desk. Rather than sit behind it, though, I sit down next to him. “So? Tell me everything!”
“I’m moving back home.”
“No way! You are?”
“I am. You didn’t hear?”
“No, you egomaniac. I didn’t hear.”
He smirks. “Damn. I’d really hoped I was worth more gossip, I guess.”
“Don’t throw all your eggs in that basket. No one cares about you anymore,” I joke.
“Good to know.”
“Seriously, Tyson. You okay? I heard about your injury.”
“Yeah, I’m okay. It sucks and I’m done with baseball now, which sucks even more, but it is what it is. Life isn’t always supposed to be perfect, right?”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Heard about your mom, Addy.”
“Yeah. That was a not so perfect time.”
“Sorry to hear that. I didn’t know or I would have come back sooner.”
“Nothing you could have done,” I tell him.
“Still shoulda been here. Can’t believe she’s gone.”
“Yeah,” I say, looking around the office that was once hers. “Sometimes I can’t believe it either. You heard about Chris, right?”
“I did. Came out of nowhere, huh?”
“Yeah. We really weren’t expecting it. He was here one minute and gone the next.”
“Fuck.”
“Pretty much.”
His eyes land on a picture on my desk and zero in there. I know what he’s looking at. Considering that I’m not on social media, it’s not that he’d see pictures of Zoey anywhere.
“Addy?”
He stands, lifts the picture frame, and stares down at it.
“Yes, Tyson?”
“Is this…”
“Go on.”
“You have a daughter.”
“I do.”
“She’s beautiful,” he says quietly, not taking his eyes away from the photo inside.
“Thank you.”
He looks at it a little longer before setting the frame back down and looking at me, eyes trailing down to my hand.
“No, I’m not married.”
He blows out a breath. “Honestly wasn’t sure I could handle hearing any other news. Who’s the dad?”
“You don’t know?”
“Obviously not. Didn’t even know you had a kid.”
“Chris.”
“Chris what?”
“Chris is the father.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
I stand up and move to the other shelf in my office that he hasn’t seen yet and pull a frame from the shelf that has several pictures in it. All of which are of Zoey, Chris, and me. I hand him the frame and he takes it from me. “Chris is your daughter’s dad?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. That’s kind of how we all reacted when we found out I was pregnant.”
“I’ll bet. Wow. Guess I spoke too soon about not being able to handle hearing more news, huh? Is this why you and Beau