Page 52 of The Arrangement

Chuckling, he snatched a kiss and released me, then vaulted over the counter like a complete show-off instead of going around it like a normal person. I watched curiously until I realized he was locking the door, then with just as much energy he came back and propped me back on the counter. “Now, where were we?”

“Isn’t this how all this trouble started?” I snickered through the kiss he was determined to give me.

“You forget, my baby boy likes to be on display.” He finished giving me a kiss I was convinced was strategically designed to steal my senses, gave me a wink that should be locked up on principle, then leaned over to suck me down to the root in one go. Damn him for being right.

Chapter 26

James

Iheld a flower in each hand and tried to eyeball how much would need to be trimmed in order to fit them in the vase. To my right, Marc was breezing through his third arrangement and periodically glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. I dropped them into the clear hourglass-like vase to try judging them that way again.Nope. Not any better a second time. The playful daisies—also not Marc’s flower name—towered above the rim, but I’d already cut several flowers too short, and I’d be damned if I was going to do it again.

“You’re overthinking it.” Marc finished his vase with a crisp bow and walked it over to the flower fridge to join the others we’d made so far. Mine were easy to pick out, not just for their simplicity—Marc could only salvage so much—but my bows were perhaps a little more over the top than their corresponding arrangements.

“Easy for you to say,” I grumbled, returning my attention to the daisies, which I was positive would laugh at me if they could. “Flowers actuallylikeyou.”

He laughed, his gaze sliding from me back to the fridge as he wiped his hands down his apron. Of course, pure saint that I was, I pictured him doing exactly that withonlythe apron. “The flowers like you just fine,” he replied, dragging my mind out of the gutter.

Not that it ever got all that far from the gutter where Marc was concerned. Jesus, when he put his mouth on me yesterday… It was a wonder I didn’t blow right then. And I swore to God, if that miracle ever happened again, I didn’t give a single fuck about being polite or whatever bullshit was going through my head; I wasn’t missing a second. Margaret May could find some other handsome florist to chase.Dibs.

I froze in the process of adding some greenery for height comparison. Except I didn’t really have dibs, not only because that shouldn’t actually be a thing—I wasn’t five—but because it implied that I was anything more than an experiment, a secret. If I hadn’t been entirely sure where we stood before, how fast Marc dove under the counter pretty much sealed it.

“Hey, I didn’t mean it as a criticism,” Marc said, concern braided into his voice as he ran his hand along my arm.

I took the ugly reality of our situation and stomped it into a box. My heart was already collateral. There was no sense in not enjoying the time we still had, even if it was only pretend. “It’s okay. I didn’t expect to be a savant or anything. Though I expected my measuring skills to be a little more on point.” I held the vase up to view the daisies and added greenery. It wasn’tbad. Okay, it was bad. “I don’t get it. How are theystilltoo short?”

He chuckled and nudged me aside. “I’ll give you a hint. Some of them aren’t.”

I crossed my arms. “Is this like your hint about your flower name? Because also not helpful.”

“It was totally helpful. And yes. See,” he pulled the flowers free of the vase and held them so we could see the blooms and the stems, “the ones on the outside ring are perfect. But as you go further in, you have to account for the inevitable squish and cut them longer so they stand above the others.”

“Inevitable squish. Is that a technical term?” I teased.

“Absolutely, and it will be on the final,” he deadpanned. I laughed, and his smile poked through before he returned to the hopeless task of rescuing my disaster of an arrangement.

I cozied up behind him, nuzzling into the side of his neck, before propping my chin on his shoulder with a miserable sigh. “I’m sorry I’m so bad at this. I really wanted to help.”

“You’re not bad at this, Hone—JD. I just have a lot more practice, that’s all.” He finished fixing the flowers as much as they were ever going to be fixed, which involved using a significantly shorter vase, and stepped back from the counter, forcing me to let him go. “If, uh, if anything, I should be apologizing to you. This isn’t exactly what you signed up for.” He gestured broadly, encompassing the general chaos of cut stems, ribbon trimmings, and fallen petals.

I’d have searched his face for a clue about where his head was at, but he was too busy looking away from me. Did it have to do with the Southern endearment that had almost slipped? I might not have noticed his twitch before he caught himself if I hadn’t been holding him. Even though it was a common enough thing to say here, he probably didn’t want me to get the wrong idea. Still, I wished he’d look at me.

“It’s, um, okay if you don’t want to do any more of these. I don’t mind, really.” He wrapped an arm around his middle and brushed the hair out of his eyes with his free hand. “Like I said, you signed up for manual labor, not, you know, playing withflowers.” Even though I couldn’t see his face, his ears were pink enough to betray the blush likely darkening his cheeks.

Oh, baby boy.I’d play with flowers all day long if it meant I got to be near you.

I stepped into his bubble and placed a knuckle under his chin, gently encouraging his head upward until he met my gaze with those stunning eyes of his, though I could have done without the self-doubt making them murky. “I like the flowers.”

An emotion I didn’t dare presume to name shimmered in his eyes. “The flowers like you, too.” His words were simple, but there was something raw about them, something that called to my innate need to protect this man at all costs.

I rubbed my thumb under his lower lip, and when his lips parted, it was all the invitation I needed to close the distance. One of these days, I’d figure out why even predominantly chaste kisses with Marc seemed to rob me of my senses, not to mention my situational awareness. Because yet again we were kissing in the shop front with all its glass windows, and neither of us clocked someone about to walk in.

No sooner had the bell chimed above the door than a voice announced, “The cavalry has arrived! You may now cheer.”

Marc broke the kiss to beam at his great aunt, but he didn’t lurch away or scramble to explain or dismiss what shedefinitelysaw. Instead, he turned that radiant grin on me, gave me a wink, then stepped away to go hug his aunt, leaving me feeling like I was doing reconnaissance with a concussion and half a map in the middle of a sandstorm. What the hell? It couldn’t be because he knew it was his Aunt Petunia, because neither of us had seen her. Though I suppose he could have been expecting her. But that didn’t guarantee it would have beenher. So what made today’s reaction so different from yesterday’s?

“Who did these, dear?” Aunt Petunia asked, as if she didn’t already know.

Marc flashed me an appraising smile. “JD’s been trying his hand at arrangements.”