Wallflower (Whittaker Floral #2)

15. Hannah

15

HANNAH

A hand grabbed my forearm as I walked into the back room at work Thursday morning, pulling me along. “Ow,” I muttered, twisting out of Matty’s grasp. “I would follow you if you asked,” I groused.

Matty ignored my complaints, swinging the door to her little office shut and crossing her arms over her chest. “I texted you a million times,” she said seriously.

“I texted you back,” I protested. Matty texted me late the night of the game, demanding to know if I’d been murdered yet, and, while I’d responded that I was not, I’d barely talked to her in the time since, so her anger wasn’t surprising.

Matty’s eyes went wide and she pulled out her phone. “‘Hannah, how’d your date go?’ ‘Can’t talk. Fill you in later,’” she began, reading what was clearly a string of texts. “‘Why are you not calling me?’ ‘At work. Date was amazing. I’ll call you later.’” She looked up at me. “Then I called. And I called. No answer. Then I texted, ‘Hannah, I thought maybe you were kidnapped and murdered, but my mom says you came to work yesterday.’” Another meaningful look. “To which you replied, ‘I’ll see you at work tomorrow.’” She turned the screen to face me. “And then you had the gall to send a smiley face.” This last bit she said with the approximate tone of a prosecutor saying, “Case closed, Your Honor.”

The worst part was she wasn’t wrong. Matty and I usually shared everything, but the last three days were different. I was living in this little bubble of bliss, and I was genuinely afraid of accidentally popping it. Matty had been very clear—date the man, sleep with the man, but develop no feelings for the man. People weren’t supposed to like each other as much as I liked Declan, especially after so little time, and especially considering I’d disliked him when I first met him. Was there a such thing as love at third sight?

Not that I loved him, obviously.

Because that would be insane.

Which was exactly why I hadn’t called Matty back.

Matty was my best friend in the world and she wanted what was best for me, but she wouldn’t hesitate to pop my bliss bubble if she thought I was being unrealistic. I simply hadn’t been ready to say goodbye to my sweet little bubble. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“I called Drea to see if you’d talked to her,” Matty said, an edge to her voice. Matty was so tough. That little edge would be the only tell I’d hurt her feelings.

“I haven’t talked to Drea since the weekend,” I said. Drea had worked at Whittaker until she moved last year, and both Matty and I had been close to her. We didn’t see her much now, but we texted most days of the week and Facetimed a few times a month.

I glanced down at my watch. “Your mom’s going to be mad if we don’t get out there,” I reminded Matty.

She grinned conspiratorially. “Mom and I have been getting along so well lately. Don’t you think I have a Get Out of Jail Free card?”

It was true Matty was fighting far less with her mother now than she had even six months prior, in large part because Matty was, more and more, learning to smile gracefully and agree with Elizabeth, but they still butt heads plenty, and I had no doubt Elizabeth would be annoyed if we were late to the morning meeting. Thursdays began the busiest part of the week, after all. “I think she’ll be pissed,” I said.

“Fine,” Matty huffed. “But we’re working together today, because I want to hear all about Declan Andrews.” She stood from the spot where she’d been leaning on her desk, her expression softening. “But tell me, before we go out, did you have fun?”

I couldn’t help my goofy smile, and I nodded as I pulled open her French door. “Definitely.”

Thirty minutes later, as we set up our station, I had every intention of sharing the details of my date with Declan without sounding like a gushing high schooler, but the second I began speaking I was sure I was failing. “We went out to dinner after the game.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Ethiopian.”

Matty’s nose curled. It was no secret Matty hated my favorite cuisine with a fiery passion. “ Your idea I’m sure.Did he declare that finger-bread they serve gross and then ditch you? Because I would’ve.”

I rolled my eyes. “I never ask you to come with me to eat Ethiopian, so don’t be so dramatic. And no, he liked it.”

“Have you been out since?”

“I had to leave for work the next morning, but we took a walk down by the lake and ended up at the Belmont Driving Range on Wednesday morning.”

Matty’s eyes narrowed dangerously, a smile playing on her lips.“The next morning?”

I looked sideways, then back at her, fighting my own smile. “Yeah. The next morning.”

She hit me in the leg, whisper-shouting, “Hannah! You slept with Declan Andrews?” Her eyes widened. “You slept with playboy Declan Andrews on the first date?”

He hadn’t seemed like a playboy this week, but she was probably right. My little bliss bubble wavered. “It wasn’t actually a date, I don’t think.”

She lifted a single finger, letting it tick in front of me scoldingly. It would’ve been annoying, but the way her golden eyes were lit up told me she was messing around. “I thought we agreed after Drea got pregnant not to have sex on the first date.”

One of my shoulders bounced. “You agreed. I haven’t had sex in forever, so there wasn’t much for me to agree to one way or another.”

She dropped her finger, her expression shifting into something much more serious. “Waiting makes sense, though. Drea was using a condom when she got pregnant. Delaying sex until at least the third date weeds out most of the guys you’d never want to have a baby with.”

I shrugged half-heartedly again. I didn’t want to think about unintended pregnancies. Unintended pregnancies were one of the many topics libel to break the precious bliss bubble. “Regardless, I’ve now gone on a second date with him and I’m due to see him tomorrow, so that’ll be three. I think it’s moot.” I wanted to drop the subject completely, but I couldn’t help myself when a point in my favor popped into my head. “And anyway, you had first-date sex with Kesean after Drea got pregnant.”

Her eyes went half-mast. “Kesean is my kryptonite. Don’t even get me started. The problem with him is he only wants first-date sex. Like, once every few months. It’s not like I need to get married tomorrow, but I’m too old to be his late-night call every time he’s in town.”

I grinned “I thought you liked being his late-night call?”

Matty smiled back, cutting a stem and slipping it into the arrangement she was working on. “I do, sometimes, but only on my terms.” She raised her eyebrows. “But back to you, because you’re not the type to just up and sleep with guys. Have you had sex since then?”

I did a quick review in my head, mostly for show, since I was intimately aware of the answer. I’d spent days thinking about it. “A couple times since then.”

Matty looked incredulous. “So I won’t ask his AOE.”

I laughed. The AOE—Average Orgasms Expected—was Matty’s invention, a statistic meant to rank men’s attention to our needs during sex. It occurred to me that it was probably inspired by baseball, and I wondered if Declan would find it funny or horrifying. “ Maybe let’s not use AOE anymore,” I said cautiously. “With my luck Deck will think it’s specifically about him and he’ll head for the hills.”

Her eyebrows bounced a couple of times. “I’ll retire the AOE if you tell me now—was the sex good?”

I hesitated, as if I might not share the answer with her, then spilled. “The sex was good, Matty, but he’s also really fun and funny and sweet.You know the flowers he came in and ordered?” I asked, and she nodded. “They weren’t for his mother, he just wanted an excuse to come by. He says he kept the flowers in his hotel room because they’re too beautiful to give away.”

Matty nodded thoughtfully, but I recognized concern at the edges of her expression.“I saw the sketch. That was a beautiful arrangement, Han. You’re ridiculously good at seeing how it’s going to come together before you even start. It’s almost obnoxious.” She shook her head once to clear her thoughts as she trailed off topic. “You seem to really like him.” She said these words with a cautious tone that was sure to be followed by bliss bubble breaking.

“I love you, Matty, but I’m okay. Right now, I’m happy, and whether this turns out to be long term or short term, I’ll be okay, alright?” Even as I said the words I thought they may be a lie, but I didn’t correct myself and Matty didn’t press.

She looked at me skeptically. “At the very least, I want to meet him, so I know how worried I should be.”

“Matty,” I scolded.

“I’m happy for you, Han. I really am. I’m not trying to give you a hard time. You know that, right?”

I did, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t giving me a hard time. “I guess.”

“I just—I have to decide if I trust him.”

“Fair enough,” I sighed.

“So don’t wait too long to introduce us, okay?”