Page 12 of King
“Be sure that whatever you give her, it’s too heavy for her to pick up and throw at you.” He ran a finger over the scar in the middle of his forehead, the small mark contrasting sharply against the darkness of his skin. “I learned that with Ol’ Lady number two. I got her a bottle of really nice perfume after I’d pissed her off one too many times. She chucked it at me, and it took four stitches to get the bleeding to stop.”
I remembered that night. He’d bled like a stuck pig while she’d packed her shit and left him without a backward glance. I had no idea what had brought on that particular fight, but I knew it had something to do with the club bunnies. Joker had proven time and time again that he wasnota one-woman man. He’d finally given up on Ol’ Ladies and stuck to the club bunnies and hangarounds these days. He often tag-teamed them with Skid, although I didn’t really understand why. Sharing a woman had never been my thing.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I assured him dryly, and he nodded confidently before strolling over to the bar. I noticed that Star and some of the other bunnies had come out to play, and I cast a jaded eye over them. Maybe I was just getting old, but damned if a single one of them stirred anything in me except the desire to avoid them.
“Look, man, you can’t show up empty handed,” Cowboy said as he finally took pity on me. “Stop on the way and buy her some flowers.”
Flowers seemed pretty cliché to me, and I told him so.
He just snorted and shook his head. “That’s what I did whenever BeBe and I fought, and it worked every time,” heassured me. Shit, as much as he and my sister had fought over the years, he’d probably kept the florist in business.
Luckily, the food arrived then, so all talk of me and my fuck-up with Eleanor was forgotten for the moment.
A little over an hour later, I pulled open the door of the flower shop. A tiny little bell tinkled overhead, announcing the presence of a new customer, and an older woman came around the corner from the back of the shop to greet me. Her brows rose in surprise as she took in my appearance, but she didn’t seem afraid of the sight of me in my leather MC cut. That was something, anyway.
“How may I help you?”
“I need to buy some flowers.” I glanced around as I stated the obvious, feeling out of my element in the midst of all the dainty little flower arrangements on display. The only time I’d ever bought flowers in my life was when my mom was in the hospital, and when Abby gave birth to the kids, and then I’d just called and placed the orders to be delivered. I sure as hell had never bought them for my ex-wife. She was the type of woman to prefer cold, hard cash anyway.
She nodded, then asked if it was for a special occasion.
“No,” I grunted, bringing my hand up to massage the sudden tension in my neck. “I just need to apologize to someone and thought flowers might help.”
“Ah,” the little old lady said with a twinkle in her eye. “You need a butthead bouquet then.”
My eyebrows rose in surprise at her words. “A what?” I asked, not sure I’d heard correctly.
“A butthead bouquet,” she explained patiently. “You’ve been a butthead, so now you need a bouquet.”
I chuckled, amazed at the balls on this woman, who was all of five-foot tall and had to be pushing seventy years old. She clearly gave zero fucks that she was talking to a biker twice her size.
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” I admitted wryly.
“OK, dear, I can help you with that. Now, are these for your wife, or a girlfriend? A sister, perhaps?”
I just looked at her blankly, and she tsked under her breath.
“It will help me determine what kind of flowers you need if I understand the relationship you have with the woman you’re giving them to.”
“I just met the lady, but I really put my foot in my mouth and said some things that offended her.”
“I see,” she said, and I could see her trying to hide her smile.
After I rejected her first couple of suggestions – I wanted something a little more impressive than a measly little vase of daisies – we settled on a large display of mixed flowers that Dorothy the florist assured me any woman would be thrilled to receive. I eyed the glass vase she put them in, remembering Joker’s warning. I mentally shrugged, pretty sure my reflexes were good enough to duck before the vase could make contact with my skull if Eleanor ended up heaving it at me.
After paying for them and accepting Dorothy’s well wishes that I’d be forgiven, I carefully secured them in the front passenger seat of my truck. I was thankful that Cowboy had reminded me to swing by my house to switch my bike out for the truck, since there was no way a vase of flowers would fit in mysaddlebags. This apology shit was getting complicated, so I was glad I’d never had to fuck around with it before.
I found myself standing on Eleanor’s porch a few minutes later, holding onto the vase with one hand as I rang the doorbell and waited for her to answer.
I straightened to my full height as she pulled the door open, looking up at me in surprise. Her eyes widened as they darted from me to the flowers, and I held them out to her with my most charming smile – the one I usually used to melt the panties off my chosen hookup for the night.
“These are for you. Could I come in for a few minutes? I’d like to apologize for yesterday.”
Her eyes widened even further as she accepted the flowers, then stepped back to allow me to slide past her. She closed the door, clutching the vase to her chest and looking everywhere but at me.
A timer went off in the kitchen at the same time I noticed the incredible aroma of something delicious in the air. She darted across the living room and into the kitchen, setting the vase on the kitchen table as she called out an apology over her shoulder.
“I need to get something out of the oven. I’ll be right with you.”
