“I’m going up for a shower, I’ll see you at dinner,” she said, folding her hand around the card and feeling the expensive bond paper cut into her palm. Her father’s face fell when she made no mention of the card’s contents. After she reached her room, she put the card onto her dresser and meticulously smoothed the creases out of the stiff paper. She read the words one last time before tearing the card up into four squares and tossing them into her dresser drawer.
After a quick shower, she decided to call Chase. He answered his cell phone almost immediately.
“Tell him to stop this,” she said, seething, before he’d even had a chance say hello.
“What?” he asked in confusion.
“Chase, tell him to stop! I’m not amused.” She hung up and tossed the phone aside.
“So what’s going on?” Chase asked Gabe, who was sitting in the den, staring at the muted television.
“What do you mean?” Gabe asked, looking up from the dancing couple on the screen.
“What the hell are you watching?” Chase was momentarily diverted by the garish costumes and blindingly white smiles.
“Some competition about vaguely famous people learning ballroom dancing, I think.” Gabe shrugged listlessly.
“Why are you watching it with the sound turned down?”
“The music is terrible,” Gabe said before going back to Chase’s original subject. “What did you mean by that first question?”
Still staring at the screen in horrified fascination, Chase stumbled around the back of the sofa and sat down next to Gabe.
“Bobbi just called me.” That snagged Gabe’s interest and he sat up—wondering how pissed off she had been by his gesture. He knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t have been happy, but it would have gotten her attention at least.
“She wants you to stop. She’s not amused.” Pretty much what Gabe had expected and he felt a reluctant smile tug at the corners of his mouth. He hadn’t felt like smiling in weeks, but one angry message from her and he felt like a drowning man who had been thrown a lifeline.
“What did you do?” Chase asked curiously—his eyes glued to the screen. The whirling couple had stopped dancing and now seemed to be standing in front of a panel of excitable judges.
“I sent her flowers,” Gabe said, and Chase choked before turning to stare at Gabe in complete disbelief.
“Uh . . .” His brother seemed at a loss for words.
“Roughly twelve dozen white roses. I imagine she’s pretty pissed off right now.”
“If you knew she’d be angry why did you send them?” Chase looked baffled.
“Because I knew that it would prompt a reaction from her,” Gabe said. “She’s been ignoring my calls.”
“Sending flowers was a pretty public thing to do,” Chase commented.
“I know.”
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“God, I hope so,” Gabe said fervently. Chase merely studied him for a beat before allowing another gaudily outfitted couple on TV to distract him as they took to the dance floor.
“Hey, I’ve seen that guy before,” he said, grabbing the remote control from the coffee table. “That’s the guy from that early nineties archery action movie. Remember? We loved that movie when we were kids. What was the title?”
Gabe squinted at the screen and snorted.
“Yeah, I remember. We begged Mum to enroll us in archery classes after that,” Gabe recalled.
“And she stuck us in bloody ballet classes instead.” They both winced at the memory. Thankfully the ballet classes had only lasted a couple of months; their mother had been forced to remove them after the instructor complained about the eleven-year-old twins’ obstructive behavior. They had spent more time ruffling tutus and switching up everybody’s toe shoes than they had paying attention to the lessons.
“What was the title of that movie?” Gabe wondered aloud. Bobbi would know—she was awesome at remembering movie trivia and she had loved the movie as much as they had. At six years old she had still been young enough to score a plastic bow and arrow set with sucker cups on the ends of the arrows. She had had a fabulous time pretending to be the lead in her own action movie, constantly ambushing them when they least expected it. Gabe smiled at the memory. God, he missed her so much.
“Damn, how much work has this guy had done?” Chase leaned forward to peer more closely at the C-list actor who had once been a hero to them. Gabe grimaced at the plasticky sheen to the man’s skin. Chase turned the sound up and they both recoiled at the terrible rendition of “Yesterday” that the live band was offering up as an accompaniment to a halfway-decent waltz.
“He’s not too bad.” Chase was completely riveted by the dancing on the screen and Gabe left him to it. The music was too distracting and Gabe wasn’t in the right frame of mind to sit and watch television.
He went up to change into his swim trunks and spent a couple of hours relentlessly swimming laps in the hopes that it would tire him out enough to sleep through the night. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since that last night with Bobbi and it was starting to wear him down.
On his way up to bed two hours later he passed the open door of the den and was surprised to see Chase still sitting there watching that same god-awful dancing show. It amused him enough to go into the room.
“Why are you still watching this?” he asked. Chase barely acknowledged him, keeping his eyes glued on the screen.
“It’s a marathon. Ssh,” he shushed urgently. “They’re leading up to a double elimination!” Rolling his eyes, Gabe turned and exited the room. The dramatic music reached a crescendo and the announcer’s voice rang out to be instantly followed by both boos and cheers.
“Oh my God, that’s crap. She was the better dancer out there!” Chase yelled, and followed that diatribe up with a string of colorful curses. Gabe left him to it and made his way upstairs, his mind back on Bobbi and his next plan of action.
“Oh dear God.” Bobbi watched helplessly as an endless stream of deliverymen carried in basket after basket of fresh flowers. She had tried to send them back, but the guy in charge had shrugged and told her that since the flowers were paid for there was nothing he could do except deliver them. If she wanted to return them or send them elsewhere she would have to take it up with his boss. Craig and Sean flanked her and Pieter stood slightly behind her as they watched every surface of their workshop get covered with pretty purple hyacinth and pink rose bouquets. The only reason the flower-illiterate Bobbi even knew the purple flower was a hyacinth was because of the card one of the deliverymen thrust into her hands. She had glanced down instinctively and had been caught off guard by the distinctive script on the paper:
Did you know that purple hyacinths are the perfect flower for begging forgiveness? And pink roses signify my admiration for you (I’m not making this stuff up. Google and Wikipedia are truly my allies here) —G
His handwriting had gotten increasingly cramped as he ran out of space on the small square of paper and this time only an arrow was there to indicate that she should turn over. She stubbornly refused to do so. And shoved the card into the breast pocket of her overalls instead.
“This is pretty embarrassing, boss,” Sean groused. “We’re an auto shop, not some flower shop.”
“I know that!” Bobbi snapped. “Do you think I don’t know that?” Sean backed off.
“I’m just saying.” He shrugged.
“Well you don’t have to say everything that pops into your head, Sean! Especially not something so perfectly obvious.” She glared at him and he shrugged again, wisely choosing not to respond.
“So what are we supposed to do with this stuff?” Pieter asked in that surly way of his, sending death stares at the pretty flowers cluttering up their workspace.
“Hey, boss, do you suppose I could have one of these bouquets for Ellie?” Craig asked hopefully. “She’s a bit angry with me at the moment.”
“What did you do this time?” Sean asked, and Craig s
hook his head, lifting his baseball cap to scratch at his slightly receding hairline.
“Take my advice, son, there is no right answer to the question, ‘how big is my bum in this skirt?’ especially not if she asks you to rate the size from one to ten.”
“Not even if you say one?” Sean asked curiously.
“It’s best to lie through your teeth. Whatever you think the answer is, subtract at least a hundred from it. I thought three and a half was being generous. I mean the woman had three children, for chrissakes! You’d think she’d have been happy with a three and half.”
Bobbi was too distracted by the stupid flowers and Gabe’s message to pay any attention to the back-and-forth banter between the two men. She told them to help themselves to bouquets for their girlfriends, mothers, or wives and then retreated to her office. It wasn’t quite the escape she’d hoped for, not while she could still see the flowers brightening up the place. Gabe’s card was burning a hole in her pocket, and she resisted it for a few more minutes before tugging it out. She reread the message on the front before reluctantly flipping it over to have a look at the back:
Violets are purple
You know that it’s true
Without you in my life
I truly am blue
“Damn it,” she whispered. The words blurred as she fought back angry tears. She itched to call him, even if just to beg him to stop this, but that was what he wanted. He wanted her to call him, to acknowledge him, and she needed more time to get over him. It was going to take a while before she had hardened her heart enough to be in his proximity again.
She knuckled away the stupid tears and decided to have the flowers delivered to old-age homes and hospitals. Maybe if she just continued to ignore him he would stop whatever it was that he thought he was doing.
Two nights later she came home to find the house inundated with the garish combination of iris and orange rose bouquets. Her father glared at her when she trudged in wearily after a tough day.
“I don’t know what’s going on between you and Gabriel—you’re both being so stubbornly close-mouthed about it—but I am getting sick of the both of you languishing around me in despair and this . . . endless procession of flowers has got to stop. It’s wreaking havoc with my allergies.”
“You don’t have allergies, Daddy,” Bobbi pointed out.
“I damned well will by the time the two of you come to your senses. I don’t know what this fight was about, but Gabriel is running a multimillion-dollar corporation, and he’s worse than a damned teenager these days. I want my efficient and cold-as-ice CEO back right now. And I tell you what: I’m getting damned sick of your moping around too. So you and he had better fix this ridiculousness as soon as possible. Watching the two of you carefully avoiding each other is depressing as hell.”
She didn’t say anything and her father threw up his hands in frustration before thrusting the inevitable card into her hand.
“Here’s your card,” he growled before stalking off toward his man cave.
I know this combination is a bit loud but did you know that irises represent eternal friendship? And the orange roses embody my desire for you.
I know I’m a terrible poet but I hope you’ll read my latest attempt on the other side of this card —G
Friendship and desire? That left them in pretty much the same boat as before. The separation between the two roles was too large and Bobbi was so done with being torn between the role of good friend and lover. She sighed, bowed down to the inevitable, and flipped the card over.
Your eyes are pretty
Your lips are too
Bobbi, my darling
I’m miserable without you
She examined the card for a long time before carefully tucking it into one of her jeans pockets. A headache was forming above her brow, and she slunk up to her bedroom, deciding to forego dinner in favor of a good night’s sleep.
“Bobbi,” her name was whispered directly into her ear and Bobbi sighed, before murmuring a protest and turning over in bed. “Bobbi, wake up.”
She groaned and batted at the person hovering above her. Her hand made contact with warm flesh.
“Ouch.” She frowned at the muffled exclamation and opened her eyes in confusion. The light was still off and she could just make out the dark silhouette of the man in her room outlined against the slightly lighter backdrop of the window.
“What . . .” She sat up and clutched her comforter to her chest, staring at the large figure in fright. “Who . . . ?”
“Ssh, don’t panic,” the very familiar voice whispered frantically. “It’s me.”
“Gabe? What are you doing here? Who let you in?”
“I wanted to come in through the window, like in the old days.” He and Chase had often climbed the rose trellis below her second floor window and snuck into the house when they were children, and the three of them would then slink into Billy’s room and they would spend the night playing. By the time Faye would come to wake them up in the morning, the four of them would be piled on Billy’s bed, fast asleep, which had always resulted in a severe scolding from their parents, but it had never deterred them from doing it again.
“You didn’t?” She gasped, and could just make him shaking his head in the gloomy light.
“I think your security guys would probably have had me arrested if I’d attempted it. No I came in through the front door and your dad very happily told me where to find you—after ordering me to get rid of the orange and purple ‘monstrosities’ that were stinking up his house.” His voice was warm and engaging, clearly inviting her to join in his amusement, but Bobbi was too appalled by his presence in her room to feel anything other than alarm.
“My dad knows you’re up here?” she squeaked. “Oh God!”
“Relax,” Gabe soothed. “Firstly, you’re not exactly a teenager sneaking her boyfriend into her room, and secondly, your dad doesn’t know that I have licentious designs on your hot little body, now does he?”
“Of course he doesn’t,” she agreed bitterly. “Why would he? It’s not like it’s anything you wanted people to know.”
He didn’t respond to that and the silence seemed much too oppressive in the dark room. Bobbi reached for the lamp switch and flooded the area directly around the bed in a small pool of warm, yellow light. She still couldn’t see him clearly because he sat just outside the tiny circle of light, but she knew that he could see her and she immediately felt at a disadvantage.
“Why are you here?” she asked, keeping her voice cold as she folded her arms self-consciously across her chest.
“To see you.” The unspoken duh following those three words was so clear that he might as well have said it.
“I don’t want to see you. I want you to leave,” she said in her most authoritative voice. It lost its impact somewhat when the speaker was wearing a Daisy Duck nightshirt.
“Who are you going to the Valentine’s Day Ball with?” he asked unexpectedly, and she lifted her chin defiantly.
“None of your business,” she informed haughtily.
“Kyle Foster?”
“So what if I am?” She wasn’t going with Kyle; she had politely informed the man that while she liked him, it just wasn’t fair of her to keep seeing him when she was in love with another man. It would be like doing to someone else what had been done to her, and she understood the pain of unrequited love and passion too much to inflict it on someone else. He had very graciously conceded her point and had backed off.
“I would rather you went with me,” Gabe said.
“Well, I’m not. I’d hate to embarrass you in front of your colleagues with my lack of dress sense and grimy fingernails,” she said pointedly.
“I’d be honored to have you by my side,” he said, after a pause.
“Would you now?” she scoffed. “What if I chose to wear a tank top and jeans?”
“I don’t see why you would,” he said stiffly. “Your dad wouldn’t be happy.”
“
Oh so you’re banking on me looking semi-respectable because I wouldn’t want to embarrass my father?”
“Bobbi, I know that what I said the other night hurt you, but you have to admit . . . the way you dress sometimes just wouldn’t suit my lifestyle.”
She swallowed painfully.
“And that’s why it’s best if we just aren’t together,” she said pragmatically, attempting to disguise the pain in her eyes by lowering her gaze to the comforter. “I can’t possibly fit into your life and you won’t fit into mine. I was never interested in the elegant dinners and the fancy events that my dad hosted when we were growing up. I’m still not. I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to speak to some of the people you deal with. You were right, we were just never meant to be more than friends.”
“I never said that,” he protested.
“You implied it when you said that the way I am never bothered you when we were just friends. If being with you in a more intimate capacity means changing who I am, then I’m afraid it’s too big a sacrifice for me to make.”
“So I am the one who has to make all the changes? That hardly seems fair,” he declared.
“What changes? I haven’t asked you to change a single thing about yourself for me!” She was outraged that he’d implied as much.
“Of course you have,” he dissented. “Expecting me to not care about the appearance of the woman by my side goes against everything I believe in. I like order and you know that. I like everything to be neat and in its place. Where would I slot you in, if your role in my life changed? And don’t get me wrong, Bobbi, I want your role in my life to change. I want to give us a real chance . . . but we have to come to some sort of compromise here.”
“And by compromise you mean I change my hair, my clothes, my way of life just for the honor of what exactly? Being your girlfriend? Your mistress? And you, of course, would compromise by . . . ?” She left him to fill in the blank but he remained silent, and she snorted in bitter amusement. “I suppose your great compromise would be getting to tolerate a less than perfect bit of arm candy for the couple of months it’ll take you to work me out of your system. And when it does end, you go trotting on your merry way to pick your next conquest in your search to find a woman perfect enough to be Mrs. Gabriel Andrew Braddock and I go back to my shop feeling publicly humiliated for not being good enough to snag the great Gabriel Braddock.”