Page 22 of Make Me Sin (Bad Habit 2)
I pound on the steering wheel. It makes me feel a little better, but doesn’t help the situation. I dig my cell from my purse, hit Contacts, and select Trina’s name. I need to send her a text to let her know she needs to be ready to start putting out fires today.
But I’ve already sent Trina a text, this morning at one thirty. It’s there in black and white. I stare at the message, befuddled.
Can you do the market this morning? Feeling sick. So sorry. Will be in as soon as I can.
I have no recollection of sending it.
I sit in my car, staring at the text, until a tentative honk makes me look up. An older woman in a battered Volvo is motioning to me. She wants to know if I’m leaving. Even at this hour parking spots are at a premium.
I wave at her, start the car, and head to work.
When I arrive, I’m relieved to see Trina definitely got my text, because the shop is buzzing with activity.
“Morning, Carlos,” I say to the young Latino guy who processes the flowers. There’s a mess of leaves and stems around his feet from the stem chopper. He’s starting to sweep up.
He smiles, nodding. “Morning, Miss C.”
Farther inside the shop, hidden from the main sales floor behind a wall, are the long stainless steel design tables, where Trina and Renee, my junior designer, are standing chatting while they arrange. White plastic buckets of flowers surround them. Trina’s working on an extravagant, modern piece for a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon’s office—I can tell whose arrangement it is because they spend the most, and it’s composed almost entirely of cut phalaenopsis orchids, one of the most expensive flowers available. Renee’s dropping trios of white roses wrapped with wire into little blue bud vases for the desks of the attorneys at a law firm.
I’m impressed; they obviously started early. “You guys are awesome!”
Trina says, “You’re here! I thought you were sick! How’re you feeling?”
“I’m okay. Better now. Thanks for handling the market, Trin, you saved my behind.”
She waves off my thanks. “No worries. When I got your text, I texted Renee to see if she could come in a little earlier since we’d be down a man. I’m happy you’re here, though. Mrs. Goldman left a message that she’s having a lunch at Spago and she needs flowers for it.”
“Another lunch at Spago? Doesn’t the woman eat anywhere else? Or cook?”
“Apparently not. Fifteen guests today. She needs it delivered by eleven.”
“Of course she does.” I drop my purse on the desk, make myself a coffee, and get to work.
Two hours later, Jeff, our driver, arrives, and starts loading up. I can finally take a break.
I’ve been distracted all morning. On the back burner of my mind simmers everything that happened yesterday. My parents, Eric, A.J.
Especially A.J.
I remember leaving the bar with him and getting on his death mobile. I remember parts of the ride home. There’s also a hazy, patchy memory of being carried, though i
t has the quality of a dream, so I’m not sure if it’s real or not. That’s about it.
I distinctly do not remember giving him my home address.
I check my phone. There are six missed phone calls, all of them from Eric. He hasn’t left any voicemail messages. I get a sick feeling in my stomach when I realize I’m going to have to tell him that I left a bar with a guy he’s never met. Who then drove me home on his motorcycle.
Who then may or may not have tucked me into bed.
Idi spat, laskovaya moya.
Ghostly and indistinct, the strange words appear in my mind like a warm breath blown on a cold pane of glass. I don’t know what they mean, but I do know that the tone they were spoken in was anything but angry.
The tone was tender. Almost . . . loving.
I’m tempted to think my mind is playing tricks on me. But there’s something . . . I don’t know. There’s something that tells me it wasn’t a drunk dream. Something tells me I really heard those words, in those sweet tones.
I’m staring off into the distance, lost in thought, when Trina comes up behind me and nearly scares me out of my skin.
