Page 16 of Red Hot Harmony

I did exactly that. Cleaned up. Changed. Put on a fresh pair of jeans and a black cotton shirt.

Snowflake was waiting for me downstairs. Yanneth had already put his crate in the back seat of my Navigator and, at first, he objected, barking at me thinly and trying to bite my finger.

It took him a good ten minutes to get used to the noise of the engine. He listened intently and studied his surroundings while I browsed through the website of Camille’s store. There’s was so much white that looking at the phone started to blind me. The page wasn’t hard to find with a catchy name like Dream Bride. Again, I praised Google. Best...and worst thing that had ever happened to humanity.

As I scanned through the photos of dresses, I thought about last night, about how much it scared me.

The heavy feeling behind my ribs condensed into a foreboding sense of loss. I didn’t have a whole lot to lose to begin with. My life perhaps, but then I considered the intensity of my emotions with Camille near, and the need for affirmation pushed me over the edge.

I had to see her. I had to make sure none of it had been a dream.

I drove with my windows up and my music on. Despite his earlier melodrama, Snowflake was quiet and seemed to have settled into the routine.

We stopped at the flower shop first. It was a couple of blocks away from the boutique and the sales associate—an older gentleman with graying hair whose lines around his mouth deepened when he smiled—skillfully put together a very neat rose arrangement. Blood red with small buds on the cusp of blooming.

I watched him work in silence, realizing that this—giving flowers to a woman I hadn’t fucked yet...or giving flowers in general—was so out of character for me.

“Would you like to add a card?” he asked once he was finished.

“No, thank you.” I handed him my plastic and he ran it through without paying attention to my name.

I cherished this moment of brief anonymity because it was slipping away from me like a glass sliding through oily hands.

Snowflake clung to my boot, his leash twisted around my ankles after he’d turned in several circles.

“He a troublemaker, your puppy?” The old man smiled again.

“He is,” I agreed, untangling the little rascal’s handiwork.

“You have a nice day now.”

“You too.”

We exited the flower shop and drove to the building where Camille worked. I knew she was there. She usually had only Sundays off. And then it occurred to me that there were so many little things we’d picked up from each other during our conversations that I couldn’t remember where my life ended and hers began.

The parking lot was full, typical for a Saturday. Small clouds drifted across the sky and a thin trickle of smoke rose from beyond the tree line. Perhaps another fire or perhaps someone was having a barbeque.

“You gotta promise me to behave,” I told Snowflake as I extracted him from the crate and attached the leash.

The front of the boutique was all glass and fabric. Behind, several silhouettes moved. I didn’t see Camille, but I recognized Harper. He wore a light pink button-down shirt and black fitted dress slacks that might have looked horrible on someone else, but he seriously rocked them.

I held the door for Snowflake, and he waddled in.

Multiple gazes swept over in my direction, all eyes wide and a little terrified, mouths hanging open, and I realized how ridiculous I looked with flowers in one hand and puppy on a leash in the other.

Ridiculous and domesticated. Something I never believed I’d be.

A young girl with black hair was the first to snap out of the collective daze. “Hello,” she said, then glanced at Snowflake, who was trying to bite the hem of the dress on the mannequin closest to the entrance.

I carefully pulled him away. “I’m here to see Camille.”

That did the trick. They all started moving, returning to whatever tasks they’d been doing before I interrupted them.

“She didn’t say you’d be stopping by.” Harper extended his hand for a shake but quickly withdrew it when he saw that I couldn’t reciprocate at the moment on account of the roses and a small dog.

Instead, he lowered into a crouch and gave my dog some attention. “So this is Snowflake?”

“The one and only.”

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