The Guy Who Became My Grumpy Boss (Curvy Girl Crew #7)

Chapter 4

-Peter-

“Are you really going to put those next to each other?” Mrs. Santos eyed the two sets of flowers as if they were cats and dogs.

“Not sure,” I muttered as I perused the other options. “How many bouquets do we need?”

“At least six. I’ll get you the list.”

I grunted in affirmation.

Mrs. Santos muttered a few words in Filipino and walked to the front of the shop. She’d tried to get me to explain my process, but it wasn’t something I could quantify, qualify, or make a checklist of. The shapes, sizes, and colors of flowers simply made sense to me. Some went together. Others didn’t. That was that.

I grabbed a few more options and dropped them in my bucket, then moved to the small corner Mrs. Santos let me use to arrange bouquets.

After five days in the office and one at home in which I worked another four to six hours then did all my chores for the week, I needed this. This was the one thing outside of work I didn’t merely tolerate but looked forward to.

A tiny table, the size of a large pizza box, stood on a tripod of wobbly legs next to an equally precarious wood stool that had to be at least fifty years old.

The entire place smelled like both death and life. Flowers and rot. I let the scents infiltrate my nostrils and wash away the tension of dealing with people and work and Jessica.

Her face always tried to invade my personal time. I gently pushed her out of my mind. I had work to do, and bouquets didn’t arrange themselves.

And yet, Jessica was always there. It didn’t help that I’d watched each and every one of her and her friends’ YouTube videos multiple times. I should have stopped, but I couldn’t help it.

At work, Jessica was an organizational force to be reckoned with, and it stood as a testament to her ability to get along with just about everyone that she’d been my assistant for a year. Those I’d had before her had been promoted to other positions after six or eight months, which I’d finally made my boss, Tyrell, confess was their way of getting out of working with me.

With her friends, Jessica was a ray of sunshine like I’d never seen before. She wasn’t na?ve or simple in any way. Instead, she saw the world through a lens that I had a difficult time processing.

For her, people were good. People were opportunities to learn or experience new things. To Jessica, meeting someone meant a chance to help them. To have fun with them.

To me, people were intrusive. People were problems that I had to work through. For me, people meant having to expend energy that I didn’t possess on those that I didn’t care to have a connection with.

I’d often wondered if there was something wrong with me, but this was my personality. I couldn’t exactly rewrite the way my brain worked.

Mrs. Santos came back through the thick plastic flaps that led to the front of the store with a hot pink square of paper in her hand. “They need seven.” The woman held the note out. I took it. She turned and walked away.

Some people might think the exchange rude.

I found it refreshing.

There was never a shortage of terminal patients at the nearby hospital. One of the nurses had worked there since my mother had died, and she was the one who sent the list of people she thought could use an extra boost.

Some patients might not have family who visited, and others may have family there all the time. Every patient was different, and each of their grieving cycles varied. Pamela, the nurse, had a gift for knowing who would most benefit from an anonymously donated bouquet of flowers.

At first, it had been a quiet endeavor. I’d come here, to Mrs. Santos’ shop, to get flowers for my mother, and after she’d died, I’d continued to come by and ask if I could have some of the leftover flowers. When Mrs. Santos had figured out what I was up to, the woman had dragged me in the back, pointed to this corner, and ordered me to work in here. I’d been eleven at the time.

I’d been sending between two and eight bouquets to the hospital at least one Sunday a month ever since.

“I had another reporter asking about you,” Mrs. Santos said loudly from the front.

I didn’t answer. She liked to talk, and I was fine listening until a response was absolutely necessary.

“This one was persistent. Lurked around for a couple of days.”

The bouquets had become a sort of legend at the hospital, and many people had tried to find the source. Lucky for me, I could get in and out of here unseen, and Mrs. Santos loved to egg reporters on. She’d sent them on wild goose chases all through the city looking for the mysterious arranger. All anyone knew was that this shop delivered the flowers, but they didn’t take responsibility for them.

Someday my secret would be out, but not anytime soon. Not while Mrs. Santos had a dramatic bone left in her body.

“I sent him across town,” Mrs. Santos cackled. “Sucker.”

I smiled as I scanned the list and chose a woman in her forties who was losing in her third round of cancer. Pamela said she loved bright colors.

I began pulling flowers from my bucket to put into a Mason jar. I started with a beautiful orange Gerber daisy and began to fill in the space around it. Some yellow there. Red here. More greenery. A spray of white. Another hue of orange.

The process broke up the crystalized cobwebs in my mind, allowing me to finally relax. Here I didn’t have anything I had to plan for. I didn’t have anyone I needed to interact with. And, most importantly, here I could let myself go.

As I arranged, the bell on the front door tinkled several times. I heard Mrs. Santos talking and others answering. At the office, I dreaded hearing these things, but at the shop, I knew it wasn’t my responsibility, and I didn’t mind the murmur of voices, the quick laugh of Mrs. Santos, or the appreciation expressed by each customer.

That’s what owning the same shop in the same space in New York for almost two decades got you.

I was on to the fifth bouquet—this one with every shade of purple and pink I could find—when my phone buzzed.

My shoulders tensed up, and my fingers curled.

I had the device on do not disturb. There were only three people with the number to get through that. My aunt and uncle, and Tyrell.

I hadn’t received my proof of life picture from Aunt Mei yet today, but that shouldn’t bypass the block. Something could have happened to them.

If it was Tyrell, I was going to kill him. He knew this was my private time. Six hours a week is all I asked for, and I’d explicitly mandated that no one ever disturbed me.

After I placed the flower in my hand into the vase, I drew my phone out of my pocket.

Unknown number.

I frowned. A salesman shouldn’t be able to get through my do not disturb. I went to swipe the call away when I remembered one more person that had my emergency number.

Marissa.

She’d mentioned doing a scavenger hunt in the city today. What if something had happened to her?

Right before the call went to voicemail, I answered. “Hello?”

“Hello,” an unfamiliar man’s voice said. “Is this Peter Kim?” I heard a lot of noise in the background.

“It is.”

“I’m calling on behalf of Marissa Addams. I’m sorry to say there’s been an accident, and you are her emergency contact.”

It had been a while since I’d gone through a scenario like this in my head, so it took me a moment longer than normal to answer.

What should I ask first? What information would be the most beneficial? I decided to start with her health. “Is she seriously injured?”

“She is, but I can’t give you specifics over the phone,” the man said.

“Can you tell me if her life is in danger?”

“It shouldn’t be.”

The next question was easier. “Where is she?”

He gave the name of a hospital across town.

It would take almost two hours to get there by train.

My eyes strayed to the list. I had two more bouquets to finish.

Marissa and I had known each other for a long time. She never would have asked them to call me if it wasn’t serious.

I swallowed. I wasn’t unfamiliar with death, but it wasn’t an easy thing to face.

“Can you come?” the man asked.

“Have you contacted her parents?” I responded.

“We have, and they’re in California. They’re getting the soonest flight they can but suggested that we call you.”

Of course they had.

I eyed the last two vases and knew that I could throw the arrangements together in twenty minutes, and if I did that, I could get a rideshare and be at the hospital in an hour.

“Sir?” the man asked me.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

***

Just over an hour later, I entered the hospital with a small vase of flowers and inquired after Marissa.

“They just put her in a room,” the woman behind the front desk said. “That way.”

“Thank you.” I walked in the direction indicated and, after a few wrong turns, found my way to where Marissa lay in a bed with her leg in a splint. She had her eyes closed and looked pale.

“Are you her husband?” a short, Latina woman doctor asked as I stood outside the room.

“A friend,” I said.

The doctor frowned.

“And her emergency contact,” I added.

“Come on in. She’s on heavy pain killers, so she might say some interesting things.”

I followed the woman, set the flowers down on a counter, and went to stand by Marissa, who was lying back with her mouth open.

“What happened?” I asked the doctor.

She shrugged. “Evidently, she fell. You’ll have to ask her the details.”

“Who brought her in?”

“Someone found her on the sidewalk and called 911.”

“Peter?” Marissa muttered in a slurred voice.

My attention went to her, and I found her blinking as if she’d just woken from a deep sleep.

“Hey.” She grinned.

“What happened?” I moved to her side.

She grabbed my hand and squeezed. “I fell off a wall.” She giggled.

“A wall?”

Marissa nodded. “A big one.” She looked at the doctor. “Tell him.”

The doctor shrugged. “It must have been, because her humerus is broken in two places. The specialist is waiting for the swelling to go down before he operates.”

I’d broken my arm as a kid, and it had been in a cast for six long, torturous weeks. I still had bizarre dreams about the itching. I couldn’t imagine how awful it would be for a leg.

“It’s too bad.” Marissa tugged me toward her, even as I tried to free my hand. “I guess this means you’re on your own for the company retreat.”

My mouth went dry.

“That leaves you in charge.” She giggled again. “And I had such plans for us.”

I barely heard what she was saying. Instead, my mind was already racing through what I was going to have to do for the retreat.

Almost everything that had to be put together beforehand was taken care of. The biggest issues would be at the retreat, where things would inevitably go wrong.

Marissa let go of my arm and looked as if she was about to point at me, but she got distracted by her own hand. Then she jumped when she saw me standing there.

“Marissa?” I attempted to hold her gaze.

She shook her head, then her face fell into a serious expression. “You’re going to need help.” Her brow furrowed; she bit her lip and narrowed her eyes as if she’d lost track of her train of thought. Then she snapped her fingers. “With the retreat!”

I stared at her.

She yanked my arm down, forcing me closer to her. “You’re going to need help,” she said again.

“Jessica will be there,” I said before I could stop myself.

Marisa made a face. “She’s not management.”

“Does that matter?”

“Of course. You need someone of your same stature and caliber to stand up with.”

“Jessica can do it,” I replied with confidence. I knew she could manage it; the question was, could I handle working that closely with her?

Marissa tried to lean toward me, and her whispering voice was more like a toddler’s squeal. “I guess she won’t be a distraction, if you know what I mean.” Marissa wiggled her eyebrows.

Jessica’s number one attribute was distracting me, even if she didn’t know it.

“You don’t like curvy girls.” Marissa pantomimed an exaggerated hourglass outline to her body with her free hand.

What was she talking about?

“You never have.”

I didn’t like curvy girls? That might have been true once, more than fifteen years ago, when I was a self-righteous teenager who had lost his mom and was worried that any sort of health issue would cause immediate death. I used to tell myself that if I had the time to keep myself in top shape that the girls I’d date would too.

That had been before I’d found both my adult brain and flower arranging. Since then, I’d learned to see beauty in all sorts of things. One of those being all the sizes and shapes women came in.

Marissa had been curvy back in middle school. She’d looked good but wasn’t satisfied with her appearance. Since then, she’d been obsessed with staying slender to the point of looking unhealthy.

Marissa continued. “You won’t be tempted to fall for her and mess everything up.”

I stopped breathing.

Did Marissa know I had a crush on Jessica?

And what did she mean by I’d mess everything up?

Marissa patted my hand. “I guess Jessica will be okay.”

The doctor eyed me.

I put all of the drug-induced things Marissa had just said to the side and focused on the doctor. “When will you know about surgery?”

“Tomorrow or the next day.”

“Her parents will likely be the contacts going forward.”

The doctor nodded.

“But until they arrive, please keep me apprised of what’s going on.” I wrote my number in the corner of a whiteboard on the wall.

If I was going to survive the retreat, I was going to have to rearrange my whole schedule for next week. I could call Jessica now but didn’t want to blow up her Sunday.

I imagined her hanging out with friends and basically having a party every night. None of that sounded appealing to me, which made me wonder if we could actually be compatible. It was one of many reasons I’d never approached her romantically.

I said goodbye to the doctor and then called Marissa’s parents, whom I’d known since my mother had died. After a brief report, I hung up and was walking out of the hospital when my phone buzzed again. I glared down at it, and the expression only deepened when I saw Tyrell’s number.

A quick check of the time told me he’d waited until after my flower arranging should have been finished to call.

More people in the world needed to be like Tyrell.

I swiped the phone to life. “Peter here.”

“Hey, Peter. Sorry to bug you on a Sunday.”

I didn’t reply.

Tyrell kept going. “I’m afraid there’s a problem with the retreat.”

“I just left Marissa,” I said simply.

“I didn’t think the two of you hung out on the weekends,” Tyrell commented.

“She’s in the hospital.”

“She’s what?” Tyrell asked.

“That’s not why you called?”

“No. I mean. What happened?”

I quickly brought Tyrell up to speed, and when I finished, silence filled the air.

Something was off.

“Tyrell?” I prompted.

Tyrell cleared his throat. “Well, I have more bad news for you. The facility we had booked for the retreat is temporarily shut down for safety purposes. We’re going to have to completely replan it.”