Page 3 of The Fear of Falling
Somehow I managed to forget my youngest cousin would have made sure she was working during my flight. I should have prepared myself better, or maybe avoided her entirely. At twenty-one, Poppy is unerringly sweet, but with nine years between us, I’ve never been able to fully figure out what her deal is.
“Avery!” Poppy says again, way too loud for a crowded airport as it pulls a dozen glances our way. She presses her hands to my cheeks and seems to stare into my soul for a moment. Her eyes squint and her lip trembles, like she might burst into tears. “Oh, Avery. You’re hurting so much!”
“I’m fine,” I say, and I’m sure she would have believed me if my voice didn’t crack. I try to salvage my credibility by adding, “Really.”
She clucks her tongue and grabs hold of my hand, dragging me to the store where she works. “You’re not fine, but you will be.”
“That sounds…ominous.”
Laughing, she reaches for her display of handmade jewelry and grabs a necklace with a transparent, yellowish crystal swinging at the base, holding it out in front of my face like she might start trying to hypnotize me. I don’t know if hypnotism is something she’s into, but I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s the sort of person who reads the horoscopes every day and thinks a rock can heal your aura. “Avery, your luck is about to change. I can feel it!”
As long as that change of fortune doesn’t affect Rose & Quill, unless it’s for the better, I’m okay with that. “Great,” I mutter. “I have a flight to catch, so—”
“I also made you this!” Poppy holds out a bracelet to match the necklace, only the rock on this one is a light pink encasedin a braided leather band. Compared to the bold colors on the bracelet she gave Dani last month, this one is quite tame. It’s pretty. At least, I think it’s pretty until she says, “This one will help you find love.”
“I don’t want it.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, but they’re true. “That’s the last thing I need right now.”
Poppy deflates, looking like she did when she was three and following me around anytime the family got together. I was too grown up—a whole twelve years old—to want to spend time with a little girl, but for some reason she would never leave me alone. I once got mad at her for bothering me and made her cry, and I’m getting sudden flashbacks of her nonstop tears that day.
Before her sad eyes can make me feel worse, I cave. “Okay! Fine. I’ll take the love bracelet.” I snatch it from her fingers and stuff it into my purse along with the necklace. She really is sweet to look out for all of us the way she does, but if she thinks love is going to be good for me, she clearly has no idea how stressful my life is right now.
That’s not her fault. It’s not like I’ve been big on sharing with my cousins lately.
By some miracle, a woman over the loudspeaker announces they’re boarding my flight, giving me the perfect excuse to duck out of the store before I’m overrun by guilt and start telling Poppy all my woes.
“Thanks, Poppy,” I mumble on my way out. “Have fun at work.”
“Have fun in Italia! I’ll see you when you get back!”
At the moment, she and I are the only ones still single unless she ends up with some guy she met here at the airport a few weeks ago. I didn’t fully pay attention to that whole thing when she told us about it in our cousin chat, but apparently she practically tackled the guy and still managed to get a date out ofit. And if that doesn’t work out, she’s got some rando texting her cute but questionable things.
It must be all these love bracelets she keeps around.
Since neither of those men sound like viable dating options, most likely she’ll stay single along with me, and I don’t like what that might mean for future cousin get-togethers. Am I about to become Poppy’s favorite again? Maybe I need to find her a man she could actually end up with so she can be as distracted as Dani.
Then I can have some peace.
Right as I reach my gate, my phone starts ringing, and I reluctantly pull it from my pocket to find Eric’s name on the screen. Well, technically it reads “Colonel Buzzkill” because Dani got her hands on my phone at some point after the breakup, and I haven’t had the energy to change it back. It’s not like he ever calls me anymore, so it hasn’t mattered.
Given my mostly silent interactions with Eric lately, I figure if it’s worth an awkward phone call, it must be important. Sighing, I swipe the answer button. “Hey, I’m about to board, so—”
“Don’t go.”
My heart in my chest turns to lead at the sound of his desperation. “What?” Is he really doing this? Now?
“I need you, Avie. Don’t go to Italy.”
He’s really doing this. My chest grows tight, and I can’t decide if I love this declaration or hate it. It’s been almost two months since we officially decided to split, and I gave up hope on him showing any signs of regret. Do I want this change of heart? I don’t know. No. Maybe?
“Eric,” I say, pressing myself against a pillar so I’m out of the way of the people lining up to board. Why do they do that when they’re not in the current boarding group?
“I need you,” Eric says again, but then he adds a line that instantly turns my hope into irritation. “There’s so much we need to get done on the marketing plan before Sonny gets here.”
Rolling my eyes, I consider hanging up on him. But that feels petty, and I’ll leave that part to him. “Sonny isn’t coming to Utah until next week, and I thought the whole point of hiring him was so he can do all that work for us.” Why else would we hire a consultant? I was skeptical about bringing in a guy from out of state, but Eric and Sonny were college buddies, and Eric thinks his friend can work some kind of miracle for Rose & Quill.
Weneeda miracle after Dani’s book went viral and put our little company on the map. We’re barely keeping up with demand, drowning in the giant ocean we were plunged into at the start of the year, and if we don’t find a way to grow with Dani’s fame, we’re going to flounder.
“I want him to think we know what we’re doing,” Eric says.
