Page 10 of Because of Me

Am I really going to do this?

Pausing with my fingers on the handle, I wage an internal debate with myself. I’m just helping a drunk and sleepy friend get home safely versus I have no right picking her up. In the end, I open the car door slowly, reaching my free hand in to prop up her head before she falls. She grunts again, only this time it’s softer. More like a moan. And she nuzzles into my hand. I try one more time to wake her.

“Amira, we’re home. You’re home,” I say as I unbuckle her seatbelt.

“You smell good,” she whispers against my hand. But her eyes are still closed.

I fill my lungs with air, releasing the breath slowly before reaching underneath Amira and scooping her into my arms. She wriggles against me, closer to me, wrapping her hands around my neck as I carry her inside.

The steps are even harder than they were earlier today, and my muscles strain as I support Amira with one hand while opening her apartment door, but it’s worth it when I place Amira on her bed. She snuggles against the plush purple pillows.

“Thank you for carrying me home,” she mumbles as she drifts back into a deeper sleep.

Silently, I unbuckle her shoes and lay the throw blanket from the end of the bed over her. I find some pain killers in the medicine tub hidden in the back of the pantry and leave two tablets and a bottle of water on Amira’s bedside table.

“Goodnight Amira,” I whisper as I leave her room. And despite all I know now, it still feels a little like I’m leaving part of my heart with her as I go.

AMIRA

The coffee machine whirs to life, a sensory overload of sound and smell as it grinds the double-roasted beans. Under my fingers, the milk jug grows warm, and I work almost on autopilot to make two skinny lattes for the women in activewear. They weave between the tables of flowers, admiring Cassidy’s creations, and even though they came in for coffee during their mid-morning run, we all know they are going to leave with flowers too.

Combining her boutique with a coffee cart was Cassidy’s best decision ever. Her floral bouquets are a work of art, the trick was getting people in front of them. But considering she is incapable of making coffee that doesn’t taste like dirt, asking me to become her business partner was more of a necessity. I couldn’t be happier with the decision though.

Flowers may be Cassidy’s art, but coffee is mine. The little flowers I’ve started drawing with the milk foam on a latte, the idea to blend two brands of coffee beans in the machine for a deeper, more full-bodied flavour. Even baking endless sweet treats in our tiny kitchen at the apartment. It doesn’t just mean our rooms always smell divine; it gives me a creative outlet even when I’m not here at work. Only, it doesn’t feel like work at all. Even on the days our customers are few and far between, or the long night we spent doing a stocktake, or when I attended an intensive floristry course so I could help with that side of the store as needed. I love it all, and working for myself, with Cassidy, has been freeing.

As I top one of the coffees with a sprinkle of cinnamon—just the way this woman always requests—I watch Cass bundle up two small posies of wattle. They’re rustic and bright, and even from my vantage point behind the coffee cart and across the room, the fresh honey-like scent takes over as Cassidy fluffs the bouquets. I never paid attention to the way the flowers change through the seasons, but there’s no missing the bright yellow buds filling buckets on the front table. They have, I’ve learnt, a limited flowering season, so while they are available Cassidy is making the most of the unusually bold native flower to liven up the space.

Don’t get me wrong, the boutique is colourful and bright all year round, but in a more understated way. Cassidy specialises in Australian Native Flowers, which are stunning but seem to be more muted than the typical rainbow of colour some florists work with. The boutique is usually a sea of blush pinks and earthy greenery, save for the table near the back that Cassidy keeps loaded with all colours of roses, lilies, peonies and dahlias. So yeah, the sunshine yellow of the wattle stands out, in the best way, and we’ve already sold through more than half of what Cassidy ordered. She knows flowers, and she knows that side of the business better than I can ever hope to.

After we say goodbye to the women, who walk out with grins as bright as the wattle and a promise to be back next week, Cassidy steps around the coffee cart and starts fiddling with the machine.

“I want an iced latte,” she says as she scoops ice into her reusable tumbler.

“Is that your way of asking me to make you one?”

Without waiting for her to answer, because I don’t need to hear her response to know, I grab the cup from her hands and get to work making us both a drink. I bump her hip with my own, nudging her out of the small space. Cassidy sits down on the edge of one of the tables, squished between two buckets, one overflowing with gum leaves and the other with a handful of the remaining pink banksias from this morning’s delivery.

“You always talk more when your hands are busy,” she muses as she reties the bow on her apron. “And I’m still certain something happened at the wedding.”

It’s been two weeks since Kaya’s wedding, and despite my efforts to convince her otherwise, Cassidy seems convinced there is a story to tell. I roll my eyes in response to her statement. “Nothing happened.”

“Noah said the same thing. But you both end up looking like Rudolf when you say it.”

Ignoring her, I wiggle my nose and focus on the drinks, adding a swirl of caramel syrup around Cassidy’s cup before pouring in the milk. I’ve tried to tell her Noah was the perfect gentleman when he walked inside and made sure I was safely in the apartment before leaving. She doesn’t believe there wasn’t more to it than that. And okay, I skipped the part where he carried me up the stairs and put me to bed. I skipped how I woke up a little in his arms and felt so at ease and warm that I didn’t want him to put me down. That I had to grab hold of my pillow to stop myself from grabbing him.

Normally, I tell Cassidy everything. But with Noah, it feels different. Maybe because they are cousins. Maybe because I’ve never quite felt this kind of pull to someone. Maybe because I still don’t know what it means or where to go from here.

Noah coming to the wedding with me meant nothing to him. He was helping a friend escape whatever terrible date my father had tried to set me up with. That was all.

I give our drinks a little shake to hide the shivers that race through me. Cassidy lunges forward to grab hers before sitting back down and taking her first sip.

“Mmm.” She closes her eyes as she tastes her drink.

“Seriously Cass, do youwantto know if anything happened between me and your cousin?”

She chokes a little, snapping her eyes open to gawk at me. “Did it?!”

The gentle bells of our electronic door sensor chime, freeing me from the conversation I don’t know how to finish. Cassidy jumps off the table and wipes her apron smooth with her free hand while she rushes to the counter to deposit her stainless steel cup. I lean down with the intent to put my own drink on the shelf under the cart.

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