Page 54 of Lost Petal

Chapter 31

J

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t know where else to go.”

She’s standing in my doorway, wearing a blush pink sweater and black skinny jeans, topped with brightly colored ballerina shoes, her dainty little hands folded in front of her. Her long ash-blonde hair is falling down her shoulders in loose waves, and her face is only kissed by a hint of makeup, leaving room for her natural beauty to shine. Perfectly innocent, just how she’s always looked.

“No reason to apologize. Come in.”

She called me on the same evening I visited her father’s flower shop, making a surprised gasp when I picked up.

“Oh my God, you still have this number,” she breathed, sounding nervous. I shared her surprise, though it was only because I had no way of knowing she was the one calling me. Unlike me, she’s using a new phone number.

“I’m sorry we got interrupted today,” she said. “And I was wondering whether I could... speak to you alone.”

I sat there, dumbfounded for longer than I care to admit, and incapable of believing what was happening.

After all those years. She’s back after all those years. And she wants to talk to me.

Alone.

It’s been three days since then, but still I feel like I had no time to prepare for this. She didn’t tell me what this was about, but the fact that she asked to see me in my office gives some room for assumptions.

“Do you want something to drink?” I ask as I lead her inside, gesturing for her to sit down at one of the chairs reserved for clients, leaving my massive desk between us once I take a seat myself.

She looks up at me, a shy smirk traveling across her face. “You don’t have any gin, do you?”

I chuckle. She remembers. It was a quick instance, an evening both of us never mentioned again. Gin was the last drink we ever shared, a lifetime ago. She was a teenager still, unruly in her own way, reaching for every little straw of independence and freedom that she could grasp.

And I was there to help her. Like I always was.

“That depends,” I tell her, as I walk over to a cabinet that harbors every drink one could think of, including gin. “What kind of visit is this? Business or private?”

She takes a deep breath, fiddling with the hem of her blush-colored sweater. “I’m not sure, actually. Maybe a bit of both.”

I arch my eyebrows in surprise. That I didn’t expect. Does she really want my services?

“Fine, a bit of gin it is then,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant when in reality, I’m dizzy with the prospect. What is it that she could possibly want from me? And why now?

I pour both of us a swig of gin on ice, handing her the glass before I take my seat opposite to her. She casts me a grateful smile, holding the glass up to her lips with both hands as she closes her eyes to take a first sip. I take a first taste myself, watching her over the rim of my glass. She looks nervous, her shoulders tense and up to her ears and her fingers trembling as they close around the glass. It’s striking that she empties half the glass in one swig, obviously seeking courage at the bottom of her drink.

“What brings you here?” I ask, trying to help her out.

She clears her throat, and her eyes follow longingly as she lowers the glass into her lap in an attempt to restrain herself. Good girl.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m back,” she begins, throwing me a look that screams of insecurity. It bothers me to see her like this, as if she owes me anything, an explanation even. Well, maybe she does.

I raise an eyebrow, swaying my head from one side to the other.

“Not sure if it’s any of my business, but yes, I do wonder,” I say eventually. “The last time I saw you, you told me you’d never end up here in this town, at your father’s shop. That’s why you left in the first place, and why we picked a college on the West Coast for you.”

“It was a good school,” she adds.

“It was,” I agree. “And far away.”

She nods, taking another sip of gin.

“I always thought you’d pursue graduate studies,” I continue. “Get your master’s, maybe even a PhD. I never thought you’d come back here right after graduating.”

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