sofia
I’m standing in the conference room, going over different flower pictures in front of me. “Knock, knock, knock.” I hear the voice coming from the hallway right before I hear the sound of the pitter-patter of feet running. “Charlotte, be careful.” The minute I hear her name, a smile just fills my face.
“Sofia,” Charlotte, my baby cousin, says running into the room, her voice bright and clear, matching the massive smile on her face. “Sofia, Sofia.” I see her brown pigtails moving side to side as she makes her way over to me.
“Charlie, Charlie,” I call her by her nickname, squatting down and opening my arms for her and she lunges herself into them.
“Sofia.” She giggles my name as I bury my face in her neck blowing kisses. “That tickles.” She squirms in my arms.
“Wow,” my aunt Harlow says from the doorway, “you are wearing a white shirt and literally just took a toddler into your arms.” She shakes her head. “Courageous.” I look down at my white sleeveless shirt that I paired with my black-and-white checkered pants.
I smile at her and then look back at Charlie, who is playing with my hair as she looks at me. “She could be covered in red paint, and I would still want all the cuddles.”
“I don’t have red paint,” Charlie says, looking down at herself.
“You don’t,” I tell her, and I bring her back to me to kiss her again. Ever since I was a young kid, my aunt Harlow was always by my side. We did everything together until she moved here about ten years ago. She came to attend the wedding of her ex-boyfriend, not knowing the wedding was going to be called off the same day. I heard from a couple of people that they started back again that very same night. Either way, she moved here, and Travis is Shelby, Clarabella, and Presley’s older brother.
“Do I hear my little girl?” Clarabella says, sticking her head out of her office. “I have presents for you.”
Charlie squirms out of my arms and runs out. “Traitor,” I mumble, making Harlow laugh as she comes over to me and gives me a hug. “Where is Theo?”
“He’s having a father/son day,” she says with a massive smile on her face. “Besides, I don’t think Clarabella would be happy if he comes back here. Last time it was like the Roadrunner all over the place, and then he threw up in her office and didn’t tell her.” She tries not to laugh but fails. “Anyway, how is my favorite niece?” she asks and I give her the biggest hug.
“Amazing,” I spout sarcastically.
“What is that tone?” she says, letting go of me.
I walk back to the table, and she follows me and looks down at the pictures of the flowers. “I’m in the middle of planning my first wedding.” I look over at her as she moves the images around. “Matthew’s wedding,” I state, and her head whips to look over at me.
“Matthew who?” she asks, but I have a feeling she already knows what I’m about to tell her.
“No, you are not!” she shrieks out and throws her hands in the air. “You are fucking not.”
“That’s a bad word, Mommy,” Charlotte says from the hallway.
“Sorry.” She puts her hands on her cheeks. “Please explain to me what is happening right now?”
I laugh at her reaction, which I think is why I haven’t told her. “Well, his fiancée, Helena, reached out to me." I start telling her the story as she pulls out a chair. I sit down next to her as I recap everything that has been going on. “The last time he came in, he was alone,” I tell her, the pit of my stomach burning when I think back to the day last week. “He said we should talk, but I cut him off.”
“Don’t you think you two should have a conversation?” she asks and I glare at her. She holds her hands up to me in a motion not to go after her. “I’m just saying, you guys didn’t exactly have closure.”
“I mean, it’s pretty much self-explanatory that he breaks up with me and then dumps my shit at my door,” I point out.
“But didn’t you send his shit back with a guy?” she reminds me, and I roll my eyes. Did I get pissed off when he sent my things back? Yes. Did I do the most petty thing of all time and ask a hot guy to do me a favor? Yes.
“What choice did I have?” I ask.
“I don’t know, maybe calling him and asking him if you could talk?” The glare I had on my face before is nothing like it is now. “I’m just saying that you two never got closure.”
“Oh, nothing says closure like a box of your shit that he had at his house on your doorstep after standing me up for a date and arriving back home drunk.” I shake my head.
“This explains why Grandpa needed me to bring you some extra sweet tea,” Harlow voices, and I shake my head laughing.
“I might have called in a small favor.” I hold up my hands and press them together. “Anyway, it’ll be fine. Today we pick the flowers, and I think I’ll be clear of him until it’s closer to the wedding.” She looks at me, not sure about what I’m saying. “In other news, guess who has a date tonight?” She opens her eyes even bigger now.
“Not from that dating app?” she huffs.
“Is nothing a secret?” I throw up my hands.
Harlow tosses her head back and laughs. “If you wanted to keep things a secret, why the hell would you let my sisters-in-law help you?”
“Good point,” I concede, laughing. “Well, by tonight we are going to know if it’s a good plan or a bad plan. But before then, I have a flower appointment in thirty minutes.”
“Oh, this should be good,” Harlow says, getting up.
“So good.” I put my hands up in fists and shake them side to side sarcastically. Harlow bends to kiss my shoulder as she walks out of the conference room. I get up and take the pictures with me to the space we were in before.
The three tables are set up with the same plates as Helena chose at the last meeting and asked that I add more bling. I grab the flowers as I arrange them on the table the way I have them in the pictures.
I hear the bell ring, letting me know they are here. I look down at my watch and see they are five minutes early. I walk over to the door, opening it to the waiting room, and again he’s alone. He’s standing there in track pants and a matching track jacket. His baseball hat is backward, and I have this sudden vision in my head of him walking in and kissing me. It’s so vivid that I’m stuck in mid step, making him look up at me.
“Hey,” he says softly, his eyes look like he hasn’t slept in a while and his face looks troubled. “Sorry, I came right after practice.” He looks down at his outfit.
“No worries,” I say to him, walking into the room, wringing my hands in front of me nervously.
“Would you like something to drink?” I ask at the same time I turn to walk to the kitchen.
“Water would be good,” he replies to me as I walk over to the fridge behind the counter.
“Is it okay that it’s in the fridge?” I ask and he nods his head at me.
I grab a bottle of water and bring it over to him. “Here you are,” I offer, holding the bottle out to him. His fingers graze mine, and my body tingles. My eyes fly up to his to see if he felt the same thing I felt and, sure enough, he’s looking at me.
“Thank you,” he says softly as I let the bottle go. All I can do is nod at him because my heart has moved from the middle of my chest to my throat. I shake my hand, trying to erase the heat of his hand when the door opens.
Helena comes in, and I have to say that we could not be more different. It’s a night and day sort of thing. She has light hair, whereas I have dark hair. Her eyes are also light, whereas mine are darker. Her skin is like a porcelain doll where I have a golden sun-kissed look.
“Sorry I’m late again,” she mentions as she goes to Matthew, who smiles at her. “Hi,” she greets him, tilting her head back and he bends to kiss her lips, but I turn away before I see it. I’m a glutton for punishment but I’m not a psychopath.
“Shall we?” I look over at them as I walk back to the room where the flowers are. I hold the door open for them. “To give a better picture of the flowers,” I explain when they step in, “I had it set up with the place setting you chose.” We walk over to the table.
“Oh, look at how pretty these are,” Helena says of the chandelier candle vases she said she wanted. “This is exactly like I thought it would look.”
“As you can see from this flower arrangement, I went with mostly all white flowers,” I tell her of the bouquet of white roses that is tied together with a couple of black roses intertwined in them. The black roses have a diamond in the middle. I look over at Matthew to see what he thinks, but I don’t even think he’s listening. I mean, let’s be honest, the bride usually has all the ideas and vision. The groom is just around for the ride. I would say one out of five grooms actually has an opinion. “The next one,” I continue, “I added green in there to give it a more earthy feeling.”
Helena hems and haws through the flower centerpieces. I’m very hands-on, so I’m right there creating the perfect piece for her. “That’s it,” she finally declares after what seems like twenty-five different changes she had me make.
“It’s going to look stunning.” I smile at her and take out my phone to take a picture of it, and it beeps in my hand.
Can’t wait to see you.
Charles and I have exchanged a couple of messages over the last three or four days. I finally caved and agreed to go out for dinner tonight. I don’t know what I was thinking.
“So what’s next?” Helena asks as we turn to walk back to the front door.
“I will send you over some sample menus, and we can set up some taste testing for next week.”
The phone buzzes in my hand, but I ignore it. “If there is anything that you want to try that is not on the menu, all you have to do is tell me. Our in-house chef is very good at finding what we need.” I’m about to say something else when the front door opens, and Charles comes in with a bouquet in his hand. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I’m early,” Charles apologizes and all I can do is smile at him, while I secretly scream internally. This is not happening, I tell myself, this can’t be happening. Not here, not now, and of all people not with Matthew here. My heart speeds up as I take a step to him. I can see Matthew look at him and then back at me.
“It’s fine,” I say, walking to him. “We were just finishing up.” I stand in front of him and look into his brown eyes. “Do you want to wait in my office?” Please, God, don’t make him say he doesn’t know which one it is. I ask the universe to be kind to me.
“Oh, don’t even worry about it,” Helena says. “We took up too much of your time.” She smiles at me and then looks at Matthew, who just sizes him up. “Have a great night.”
“Thank you,” I say to them as they walk out, and I swear I feel like I let out the biggest sigh of relief.
“I’m really sorry. I thought you said you were done,” Charles says.
“No, no, it’s fine.” I try to play it off, laughing nervously. “It went longer than I thought it would be.”
“These are for you,” he announces, handing me the bouquet of carnations. Don’t judge him, the left side of my brain says, while the right side says, that flower is for funerals.
“Thank you, I’m going to put these in water and then we can get going,” I tell him, and he just nods at me. I walk over to the kitchen, taking a couple of glances at him while he takes a look at the pictures on the wall. He stands there in chinos and a sweater. He’s about six foot three, and his black hair is curly. He pushes his glasses up from the middle of his nose.
Why are you doing this? I ask myself right before the other side of my head says, she’s trying not to think about the guy who just left.