I was nearly there when I was hooked with an arm across my chest and pulled back into the solidness that was all Tate.
“Hang on there, Ace, the shop isn’t gonna go up in a puff of smoke,” he said into my hair as I forced us forward even though we were locked together.
“Unh-hunh,” I said back, pushed open the door to La-La Land and entered, pulling Tate with me.
“Flower Petal!” Shambles cried upon seeing me, his face lighting up behind his blue tinted, round sunglasses then his eyes went to Tate and his face froze.
Sunny’s head popped up down the counter.
“Petal,” she smiled at me and her smile didn’t waiver when her eyes went to Tate and she watched as, still locked together, he moved us to the counter.
“Hey guys, what’s today’s theme?” I asked.
“Who’s that?” Shambles asked, stealthily moving away from the front counter toward the back.
“Ignore him, I am,” I stated audaciously, seeing as Tate still had his arm around me, and I looked in the display case. “Let me guess, chocolate?”
That wasn’t so much a guess as a dream.
Tate’s other arm joined his first wrapped around my chest.
“Lemon,” Sunny answered and came to stand in front of Tate and I at the counter. “Hey dude, I’m Sunny,” she said to Tate.
“Tate,” Tate replied.
“Awesome, Tate. This is my man, Shambles.” She gestured to Shambles.
“Dude,” Shambles muttered, eyeing up Tate and me in a way I didn’t really notice but if I had I would have seen it was like a brother would eye up his sister’s new boyfriend. Uncertain, tentative, holding back and ready to pass resoundingly negative judgment if the new boyfriend gave even a hint of being a jerk.
I ignored this, focused on processing my disappointment that Shambles had yet to hit on a chocolate theme at the same time surveying the case seeing lemon drizzle cake, lemon squares and lemon curd filled cupcakes and wondering what I was going to order.
I looked at Shambles. “What do you recommend?”
“Um…” Shambles mumbled, still eyeing Tate, still not quite certain how his judgment would come down.
“That’s hard,” Sunny put in, “Shambles is a master with lemon.”
After she imparted this knowledge, I stared at her. Then, knowing what it meant, I ordered, “I’ll take one of anything with lemon in it.”
Tate burst out laughing behind me, his arms going tight and his head moved so he could shove his face into my neck where I felt his beard tickle me and his lips kissing me.
Shambles looked at me then he looked at Tate’s head bent to my neck. Then he took two steps forward.
“Dude,” he called and Tate’s head came up.
“Yeah?”
Shambles swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed when he did.
“You look like you like her but Petal doesn’t look like she likes you. What gives?”
“Petal?” Tate whispered in my ear.
“She’s flowery,” Sunny answered him. “See? At her ears and her wrists and her neck. Flowers. Petal. Get it?”
Tate curved me around to face him and his eyes went from my ears to my neck to mine.
“Flowery,” he muttered and something about his deep, rough voice saying that word slid through me in a way that felt really nice.
Even so, I demanded, “Do you mind letting me go so I can have something lemon chased by coffee?”
Tate didn’t answer verbally but him not letting me go was his answer physically. His fingers came to my neck and I felt one twist a chain there, tightening it. His eyes watched his movements then they came to my face.
“That dick buy you these?” he asked.
“No,” I answered truthfully wondering, if I said yes, if Tate would rip it off which he seemed like he was preparing to do.
Then I realized, outside my wedding and engagement rings, Brad had never bought me jewelry. In fact, he’d not bought me many presents. In fact, even though my college boyfriend remembered my birthday every year, Brad normally forgot it, even though I always made a big to-do about his and spent weeks prior dropping hints about mine. Ditto with our anniversary. At first, I used to remind him. The last two years of our marriage, I didn’t bother.
“You got anything he gave you?” Tate asked as his finger released the chain at my neck.
My eyes slid to the side and I thought about it.
Then they slid back and I answered, “No, except a lot of really bad memories and the knowledge that I was stupid enough to put up with him for ten years.”
“Right,” Tate said then asked, “You done bein’ pissed at me, again for no reason?”
I felt my body get tight.
Then I whispered, “No reason?”
“Babe,” was his response.
“You have a child!” I shouted, trying to pull back but both his arms went around me and he yanked me forward.
“Yeah and you get to meet him next weekend.”
Oh no. I hadn’t thought of that.
I wasn’t exactly good with children. I wasn’t bad with them, as such, I just wasn’t around them much and, because of that, when I was, they freaked me out because I didn’t know what to do with them.