Page 17 of Wallflower in Bloom

Gray shook his head with regret. “The DD who got thrown in jail.”

“The paparazzi practically had hard-ons after taking pictures of me in handcuffs, covered in that homophobe’s blood from his broken nose. My mother has never been happier.”

“She’s happy?” Gray’s eyebrows leapt to the top of his face.

“You know her. All publicity is good publicity.”

His mother had been a C-level movie star for a decade and desperately wanted him to follow in her footsteps. “She wants me out in LA, building a family dynasty of actors. But I like the consistency of my job now. I wake up, charge across the misty hills, and say some dashing lines in the poshest of accents. I'm back home by 5 and in bed by 10. Wake up, do it all over again.”

“Sounds very domestic,” Gray drawled.

An older woman with impossibly pink nails screeched to a halt in front of their booth. “Just my luck. Aren't these the two prettiest faces I ever seen?”

The waitress, who must have been at least 80 years old, had blonde poofy hair and a face of makeup that would give a drag queen a run for her money.

“Hey, Margie,” Gray waved. “Two breakfast specials.”

“Easy enough. You want my phone number to go with it?” She winked at Jack.

“I'm to be on my best behavior.” Jack solemnly put a hand over his heart.

“That ain't gonna work for me.” Margie cackled as she snapped up the menus and swished away.

He wished his diner in Vancouver came with such an entertaining delight.

Gray fiddled with his mug. “So, your mom wants you to be a movie star PR disaster like her?”

“And my dad wants me back in the UK, being a farmer and having as many grandbabies as I can convince a woman to have.”

Gray snorted into his coffee. “And Shay?”

Jack looked down at his phone and saw another 12 missed texts.

“If she could reach through her phone and kill me, I’d already be in pieces. She wants me to apologize. Again.”

Jack took a swig of his coffee, thinking about the unending circus that was his life the last three months. “But I’m sick of apologizing for things that aren’t even wrong. Like having a former lover talk publicly about the size of my dick or the paparazzi catching me with multiple women. I won't apologize for laying flat a homophobe who said unforgivable things about my mate on his stag night.”

Gray tilted his head in agreement. “You are loyal; I’ll give you that. What do you want, though?”

That is the million-dollar question.

“I honestly don't know.” He shrugged, fiddling with a creamer on the table. “I don’t want to disappoint anyone. Shay needs me to bring in the bucks to pay her bills. I support my dad and don’t want to disappoint my mom. But I still won’t apologize to a bigot to keep all that in motion.”

“Figure out what you want. Does saying romantic shit right as they cut to commercial set your soul on fire?”

Jack laughed. “Set my soul on fire? No. It’s stable. That’s what I want. Being an actor who hasn’t had to audition for five years is a luxury. Does being a flower farmer in Fairwick Falls set your soul on fire?”

Gray stretched out an arm across the back of the booth with a shit-eating grin. “Maybe it does.”

“You’re here forever, then?”

Gray had changed so much since Jack first met him. They’d been carefree twenty-somethings gallivanting through the fashion industry. He was downright domestic now.

“Damn right, I am. And if I convince that goddess to stay with me forever, I’ll have everything I’ve ever wanted.”

“You deserve nothing less.”

Margie slid heaping plates under their noses featuring a mountain range of bacon, eggs, and waffles.

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