Page 41 of Sugar Baby Mine

I keep going, starting on the next order because I can’t look back down at my phone when it buzzes again, can’t think of continuing with what he wanted with that exchange. While he might be at work, behind his desk in his big boy office overlooking a floor of employees or whatever it is he does day to day, I can’t just fall into this while I’m the only one who’s here to wait on customers and work on orders. Because this line of conversation will be my undoing. He’ll end me with dirty talk and no chance of reprieve. I swear I soaked in every word he said last night like a sponge, and it took me to a higher plane of existence. You could have wrung me out, I was so wet.

So instead of becoming distracted by him, I dive into these orders until I’m checking them all off the list as complete. If there’s one thing I can do well, it’s hyperfocus and hyper fixate, and when I put it to my job, that works out the best for everyone.

I slide my phone back into my pocket so it’s out of sight and out of mind, but I don’t miss the fact that it buzzes in my pocket several more times while I’m working.

I’m on the last order out of thirteen when the shop bell chimes from the front.

Wiping my hands on my apron, I shove my shears in the front pocket and stand from the stool with a stretch of my arms over my head and a yawn. When I walk through the doorway to the front counter, I blink and wonder if I fell asleep at the workbench instead, because surely I’m dreaming.

Ben is standing in front of the counter, looking down at his phone. I want to dig a hole with my bare hands and curl up in it and weep because he looks so incredible in a suit, tie, and fuckingglasses. He pushes the black frames up the bridge of his nose with his index finger as swipes through his phone.

I wipe a hand across my chin because I’m afraid of drooling like a dog over a bone, forcing my brows to relax and stomp toward the counter and rest my hands across it.

“Can I help you, sir?”

He looks up, seeming entirely unaffected by my presence, and tucks his phone into the pocket of his jacket as I long to drag him across the counter by his tie and press my lips to his.

“I’d like to order a bouquet.”

“Of course,” I say with a measured breath. “What would you like?”

“Surprise me.”

Normally I love those words, even when I get in my head that a customer will hate whatever I chose. But there’s something about this now that makes me uneasy.

“Okay. I think I have an idea of what to do. It’ll be seventy-five dollars.”

“Take your time.” Ben pulls out his wallet and slides his credit card across the counter.

I ring up the order and slide his credit card and receipt back to him before turning on my heel sharply to head to the backroom to pull the flowers.

“Emmeline,” he calls out. I freeze before I disappear from his eyesight. When he speaks again, his voice is low and it curlsaround me like tendrils of smoke off a fire. “I am not like the other men you’ve been with. I want to know that you make it home—to work—safely. This city is dangerous.”

“Boys,” I clarify, staring at the bucket of red roses in the backroom as my chest aches. “I’ve only been with boys. Selfish. Stupid.Boys.”

My legs almost refuse to move, but I slide around the frame of the doorway, striding toward the shelves with the flowers and pull on my gloves. I look over the selection of flowers, and the lilies catch my eyes. I grab a handful along with spray roses and carnations. Maybe a couple white roses. Ooh, and some bronze daisies. It’ll be a whirl of orange, autumnal goodness.

My shears snap the ends of the stems and I brush them into the trash bin, shucking my gloves. Grabbing a clear vase off the shelf, I put the flowers down into it and grab a length of white ribbon to tie around the middle of it.

I bring the vase out front and set it on the counter right in front of Ben. He looks over the tops of the flowers at me, not even acknowledging them.

I can’t place the look in his eyes, but there’s a furrow of his brow, a crease between them that combines sternly with the harsh set line of his mouth.

“Your order, sir.” I push the vase across the counter until the petals of the flowers brush his navy suit jacket.

He pushes the vase right back to me until the flowers are under my nose and the oil from the petals’ perfume invades my senses.

“Yours,” Ben says simply. “I bought them for you.”

Oh. The twisting in my gut that perhaps he was going to take this arrangement and go back to his office to set it on the desk of a wildly pretty personal assistant, or another of his employees, or the barista in his favorite coffee shop evaporates like hot steam in a sauna.

“How did you know I work here?”

The wordsthank youlay quietly in my throat, refusing to come out, and I hate myself for it.

“There are only so many flower shops within a couple blocks of your apartment. Good guess, I suppose.”

“How many?”

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