Page 83 of The Attraction File

THIRTY-THREE

Edgar

I felt as if I needed a shower.

Having just emerged from Henrik’s place I could still smell the scent of sweat and whiskey on me. The two things Henrik had been marinating in for the past few days after being fired from Mimir.

He was a wreck and I couldn’t blame him. After the little trick he pulled and it not working out for him, I didn’t blame him for wanting to drown his sorrows.

As for me, I was fine. Evaleen and I came to an agreement. No sex in the office and when we did have sex, she would go home at night to her mom.

Of course, we haven’t stuck to that agreement as well as we would have liked. We did have a quickie in the supply closet yesterday.

It was about time I showed her I didn’t just want her sexually, but much more than that.

I headed down the street and turned a corner to a less crowded street. I made my way into a shop with a wooden storefront and various colorful flowers in tin buckets lining the front.

“Welcome to The Bloom Room. How may I help you?” A smiling woman with silky silver hair piled on her head, dotted with baby’s breath, put down the bouquet she was working on and wiped her hands on her green apron.

“Yes, I need a bouquet of flowers for someone special.”

“Can you tell me about this person?” She came up to me clasping her hands in front of her.

“She’s beautiful.”

She smiled and adjusted her glasses. “Aren’t they all.”

“No. I don’t mean she’s physically beautiful, even though she is. I meant her heart. When she walks into a room—”

“She lights it up? I know just what you mean.”

I shook my head. “No, she doesn’t.”

“Oh, uh, okay. I’m sorry, sir; I’m trying to get an idea of this beautiful woman you speak of. Maybe if you tell me something else?”

“What I meant to say was when she walks into a room heads turn. She’s striking, tall, like she belongs on a yacht in the Mediterranean. But she hides that part of herself. She hates it. The last thing she wants is for anyone to stare at the one thing she never asked for, her looks.”

“How does she hide it?”

I smiled imagining Evaleen in front of me. “She wears the frumpiest, most dowdy clothes you can imagine. Everything in her closet is navy, black, or brown. But there was one night. The night when she let me see her beauty. The rare moment that she hadn’t ever shown anyone, when she wore something beautiful and full of color.”

The woman leaned closer, her mouth wide with wonder. “What? What was it?”

“She wore a pink scarf. And that’s when I knew.”

The woman gripped my arm. “Knew what?”

“That I loved her. She has been hiding for so long. And I know why. Because if she showed everyone her true self, it would be too much. Her beauty is blinding.”

I heard a sniffle and looked down to find the woman wiping her eyes. She took a moment and then raised her head. “I know the perfect bouquet for you.”

She scurried around the room picking flowers from various vases and brought them together at the counter by the register. Once she finished wrapping it in a simple brown paper bag with a pink ribbon, I took out my wallet to pay.

“How much?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s on the house.”

“I do appreciate that, but I can afford to pay.”

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