Wallflower (Whittaker Floral #2)

17. Hannah

17

HANNAH

Declan: Hate not seeing you today

Declan: If I come in to order event flowers do I get to see you?

Hannah: Do you have an event?

Declan: No but it would be worth the $

I sent him an eye roll emoji, but I, too, was disappointed not to see him.Although we’d known each other only a short amount of time, I’d come to look forward to spending time with Declan Andrews. Being with him filled a need I was previously unaware I had.

I tried to focus on the arrangement in front of me, but my mind was wandering, picturing his wide smile or his crooked grin or the laugh that originated in his belly and flowed out of him musically. I blushed as I pictured the hungry look he gave me when we had sex. I reached across the table for greenery and found Matty staring at me, one eyebrow raised in distaste. “My date last night was awful, and you being all in love is just annoying,” she declared.

“Sorry,” I said, my tone accurately getting across my actual sorry- not-sorry feelings. Matty’s lips twisted into a wry smile.“And I’m not in love with Declan, but go ahead and tell me what happened with your date. Who was this guy?”

“No one I’ve mentioned. It was a first date, and nothing happened because he was a sleeping pill in the shape of a human. The. Worst.”

My nose curled. “That’s shitty. Did you meet him online?”

She nodded. “And, say what you will, but you're certainly behaving like someone with love on the brain. I’ve been staring at your goofy smile and gushy eyes for an hour.”

I shot her a look. “I do not have gushy eyes.”

“Okay,” she agreed sarcastically, lacing her fingers under her tilted chin and batting her eyes as if she were on the verge of swooning.

I waved a hand dismissively, laughing, but a hot blush crept up my cheeks. “I don’t know him well enough to be in love with him, but I do like him a lot.”

“One, that’s obvious, and two, that’s exciting,” she replied, her expression softening as she propped her chin on her still-intertwined fingers. Matty was a lot of things. She was dark-humored and sarcastic, driven and hardworking, and, at times, judgmental and jealous. She always wanted the people she loved to be happy, though. “Now, when do I get to actually meet him? I feel like everyone here has met him but me.”

I shrugged. “We can go out soon. This weekend we’re having dinner with his brother and his brother’s wife, but next week sometime? When there’s not a night game. What are you doing tonight? Declan’s working, but we could grab dinner.”

Her countenance brightened immediately. “Can we get takeout and binge Past the End ? I’m behind two episodes.” Past the End was our favorite weekly drama. At one point it had been mostly about a police department, but now it included a fire department and hospital. Regardless, the plot lines had less to do with emergencies and more to do with hook-ups and break-ups, and Matty and I ate that shit up. We’d been watching together for years.

“I’m behind, too. And there’s a new episode tonight.”

“Don’t tell me what happens!” she exclaimed .

“I just told you I’m behind,” I muttered. “I can’t tell you what happens.”

“I wonder if Julian and Kylee get together.”

I shook my head. “I vote no.”

“You’re such a pessimist,” she replied with an exaggerated eye roll.

“I’m not a pessimist. I’m realistic. Besides, Julian still loves Paulette, doesn’t he?”

Matty shrugged, glancing at her watch. “I’m betting he gets with Kylee,” she responded, setting down the shears she’d been fiddling with. “I’ll text you when I’m on my way, but I have an appointment in five minutes.”

“Sounds good,” I said, watching her head to her office as I tucked some ruscusinto the arrangement in front of me and popped my earbuds back in.

Guilt lanced through my chest as the buzzer rang, because I should never feel disappointed to see Matty. I adored her. We were like sisters, and yet I wanted to open my door and find Declan on the other side. It was terrible to even acknowledge—I always had fun when Matty and I watched Past the End together, but today all I could think about was when I would see Declan next. I hopped up to hit my end of the buzzer, glancing down at the text conversation I’d been having with Deck.

Declan: What are you up to?

Hannah: Matty’s coming over & we’re going to watch our favorite show

Hannah: She wants to meet you

Declan: I cant tonight

Hannah: I meant when you don't have a game

Declan: Sounds good

Declan: I’ll miss you tonight

Hannah: Come by after the game

Declan: I wouldn’t even get there until after 10

Hannah: I can work with that

Declan: I want to. I really really want to. But we should both get some sleep

Declan: You’ve tuckered me out Hannah Jackson

Reviewing the words, I smiled, but I felt disappointed. I was very willing to be tuckered out for another day.

Hannah: OK. See you Saturday

Declan: I’ll pick you up after the game

Hannah: I thought baseball teams went on the road? When does this damn team go on the road???

Declan: Most of next week I’ll be all yours

Declan: But I am going to a few Sox games

Of course he was.

Declan: Wanna come?

Matty was halfway up the stairs as I typed a quick reply.

Hannah: Maybe. Have to go—Matty’s here

“Texting Declan?” she asked, making an oversized eye roll I knew she didn’t mean. She didn’t like that she hadn’t met him yet, but I had no doubt she’d adore him once she did. Matty could be a pain in the ass about little things, but she was ride or die about the big stuff, and me wishing I could spend every minute with this man was pretty big.

What if things were the other way around? How would I feel if Matty bailed on me to be with a man night after night? There’d been a few relationships in her past I thought might stick, and I was thrilled at the time, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt just a little. I didn’t want to hurt Matty, so I knew as much as I liked Deck, I needed some level of balance.

Matty held up a bottle of wine and a bag from the nearby grocery as she slipped through my door. “I come bearing wine and sustenance.” I accepted both from her so she could kick off her sandals, not at all surprised to discover her idea of sustenance was chocolate and a large bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.

“You eat like a raccoon,” I joked as I pulled the snacks out of their bag and set them on the coffee table. As much as I loved Matilda Whittaker, I cursed her every afternoon as I went jogging, trying to work off the trash food she survived on. Not everyone had her magical metabolism.

“I don’t,” she protested, although I could tell by the slight curve of her lips she knew I was right.

I held up the Doritos. “The Matilda Whittaker food pyramid would have a whole layer dedicated to “Foods that End in -itos .””

Matty grinned. “Possibly, but it would be one of those little layers near the top.”

I ripped the bag open, taking a Dorito. “We both know it would be the base. Doritos are your preferred carbohydrate.”

She plucked a chip from the bag and said, “Imagine how terrible it would be if I only ate salads and you felt ashamed to eat delicious food in front of me. You should count your lucky stars your best friend eats like a raccoon.”

I followed Matty as she wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a couple juice glasses, serving us generous glasses of wine. “Are you behind one or two episodes?” she asked.

“Two. ”

“Oh, good. I’ve been so worried someone's going to ruin the episode for me.”

I shrugged. “You can rest easy, it won’t be me. And I ordered pizza. It should be here pretty soon, you adorable little trash panda,” I added, accepting my glass of wine as she held it out.

“You take such good care of me,” she said, fluttering her long lashes dramatically.

I chuckled. “Ordering you pizza is enabling you, not taking care of you.”

“Fair enough,” she agreed, setting her wine on the coffee table as she sat with her legs tucked under her. Dragging the Doritos bag onto her lap, she took a chip, then offered the bag to me. Against my better judgment, I took another. Matty was right—I was glad she wasn’t a calorie-counting picky eater, even if eating junk food all the time was terrible for me. “Hannah,” she said sternly, pulling me out of my thoughts. Her expression was serious, and I braced myself, ready for more questions about Declan. “If they kill Gregory, I swear to you I’m never watching this show again.”

I laughed. We’d both heard rumors the actor who played Gregory was in contentious contract negotiations—a battle which often ended with dead characters—but, just like Matty, I’d gone to great lengths to avoid hearing Gregory’s fate. I was hoping Gregory was going to live, but we’d both keep watching week after week regardless. “Yes you will. Now, be quiet. I’m pressing play.”

Saturday morning, Declan picked me up in a silver Audi A7. “Where’d you get this car?” I asked.

“I rented it.”

“What on earth for? Are we going to our high school reunion and want to trick everyone into believing we’ve become very successful?” I asked sarcastically, my smile twisting as I tried not to giggle.

“You know, my reunion is this fall, but I wasn’t planning on going back to California for it. Anyway,” he turned and grinned at me, “my car at home is nicer.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course it is. I have a car, you know.”

“I thought about asking you, but then I thought it might be fun to rent this for the week and travel around the midwest. See the sights.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I have bad news for you, friend. There’s nothing in the midwest to see besides the city.”

He laughed. “I refuse to believe that, and I demand you show me interesting things outside of Chicago.”

I looked up at the ceiling as if I were thinking. “I think there’s a giant Paul Bunyan statue downstate.”

“Now we’re talking.”

I looked up Paul Bunyan on my phone and held it up to Deck, smiling. “Well, looky here, Paul is only a couple of hours away and, unexpectedly, he’s holding a hot dog.”

“Why does he have a hot dog?” Declan asked.

I glanced at the info that accompanied Bunyan, then shrugged.“Doesn’t say.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I like that you always smell like flowers. How was work today?”

I turned slightly in my seat so I could face him more. For the record, the car was amazing. With its wood and leather details it felt like Audi had created a professorial study on wheels. “We set up a Women’s Club party today. Lots of roses in all sizes and shades of pink. Not my favorite, but Elizabeth invited me to set up again, so that was good. She probably didn’t need me, either. The arrangements were pretty contained, not flowing the way your brother’s wedding arrangements were.”

“If she didn’t need you, why do you think she invited you along?”

I hesitated as I thought about the question.It was the same question I’d been swirling around my head lately, but I hadn’t been brave enough to ask. “I haven’t actually asked, but I think she may be preparing me to take on a different role, the way Adelaide does for her. At some point she’ll retire, and Matty will run the business, but Matty has a business mind. She can put flowers together beautifully from someone else’s sketch, but she can’t improvise or make up her own stuff. Her brain just isn’t creative like that. She’s brilliant, don’t get me wrong, but she’s inheriting a business she isn’t personally good at.”

“But you are.”It was a statement of fact the way he said it, not a question.

I blushed. “I’m okay. I’m not as good as Elizabeth.”

“Why are women always so modest when they’re great at something?”

“I don’t know. That’s probably a gross generalization, don’t you think? I’ve known women who weren’t so modest.”

“That’s true, I suppose.Successful women certainly can’t afford to be modest like that.” He glanced over at me, his eyes serious.“Do you think Elizabeth sits down with clients and tells them she’s okay at making arrangements?”

“Obviously not.”

“I’m sure Elizabeth knows her daughter can run a business, but not do the art. She’s probably grooming you to do that side of her work, and if you think you’re only okay , you’re doing her a disservice. I bet she realizes you’re better than she is.”

“Declan, I’m not better than Elizabeth.”

He shot me a skeptical look. “Did she make the design for Ethan and Ellie’s wedding flowers?”

“Yes.”

“Did you make changes to those designs while you built them onsite, and did Elizabeth then tell you she liked your changes?”

“Yes.”

“Did you make an arrangement for my mother that was far more beautiful than any of those arrangements from the wedding?”

“I’m pretty sure I made the arrangement for you, not your mother, but yes, it turned out very well.”

“Did it magic itself together or did you design and build it?”

I looked at him, growing mildly impatient. “Obviously I designed and built it. ”

“And it was spectacular. So don’t give the credit to the flowers. Don’t say, ‘It turned out well,’ say, ‘I built an amazing arrangement.’”

“All right, all right,” I was sick of discussing it, but I had to admit his points were cogent.I doubted he’d gotten his job with MLB by telling them he was “okay” at marketing.

We got off the expressway after a while and followed the navigation through a generic suburb full of generic chain stores and fast food. I’d never grown to love the suburbs, although something about them fascinated me. Down a few more streets Declan finally turned into a driveway.

The house was probably a hundred years old, but it showed an enormous amount of love and attention. It reminded me of many of the houses I saw on the north side of the city, a lovely brick bungalow that curved out in the front. The door was on the right side of the home, and we walked up the steps and rang the bell.

Ellie answered, beaming and embracing each of us before she let us through the threshold. I’d only seen her the couple times she’d come into the shop, and we hadn’t needed to interact much during those visits, so it felt strange to be hugging-friends now.

Once inside, I could see we were in a square entryway with beautiful wood floors. “Come in!” Ellie was clearly excited. “Nady and Mason just got here, too, but they’ve been here before. You guys haven’t. Do you want the tour?”

“That would be great. What a beautiful home,” I responded as Ethan walked up and put his arm around his wife. He was handsome as hell—a near duplicate to his brother—but I didn’t feel comfortable around him, not yet at least.

Ethan reached to embrace his brother warmly, then he gave me a similar hug.Declan wrapped an arm around my waist tightly as his brother stepped back, and I wondered if there’d once been friendly competition amongst the brothers that made Deck a little possessive. Ethan smiled and led us on our tour, beginning with the living room, which was large thanks to the curved wall of windows in front. It was bright, and the tasteful-but-eclectic mix of vintage and new furniture centered around a gorgeous original brick fireplace.

Down a hall, we passed a large dining room on one side and two bedrooms separated by a bathroom on the other. One bedroom had its door shut. “Max’s room,” Ethan explained with a wave of his hand and a roll of his eyes. "He’s at a sleepover, but I’m not showing off that disaster.” The other room was an office full of antique shelving and books.

“This is stunning,” I murmured.

“Thanks,” he responded with a smile, continuing his way into the kitchen. The kitchen was new with very high-end appliances, but it was a long thin galley, which was not my favorite. I shouldn’t be critical, considering I lived in a scant 450-square-foot apartment, but my dream home had a large and expansive kitchen area.

Like most bungalows, doors out the back of the kitchen led to an interior space Ethan and Ellie used as a mudroom, but it also held the stairs leading to both attic and basement. “The basement is a basement,” Ethan continued, waving dismissively once more, this time toward the stairs that went down. “Maybe we’ll finish it if Max or Cora start crowding us, but for now it’s just storage. Up here are our rooms.” We followed him up a set of stairs where we found a master suite, a nursery for baby Cora, and a third bathroom.

“Nice place, E.” Declan nodded, looking impressed.

“It is. I love the bungalow. Just beautiful. It reminds me of a lot of houses in the city,” I agreed.

“Me too,” Ethan exclaimed. “That’s one of the things I liked about it. I never pictured myself being a boring suburban dad, so this was a nice compromise.” He grinned crookedly, and Ellie swatted at him playfully.

“Are you from here?” I asked Ellie.

“God, no.My sister Nady and I grew up in Waverly, which is a nothing town another hour northwest of here. She lives there now with Mason…so I guess I shouldn’t be talking smack about it.” She grimaced dramatically.“Nady and I lived together in Chicago before I met Mr. Suburban Dad over here. Then I moved out here and Nady ended up back in Waverly. ”

“Whereabouts in the city?” I asked, appreciating this little something I had in common with Ethan and Ellie.

“We lived in Lincoln Square.”

“I like it up there,” I responded, noting that, as Deck had suggested, Ellie seemed very down-to-earth and easy to talk to.“I live near Clark and Fullerton.”

Her eyes widened brightly. “Oh, it’s nice down there. I miss the city sometimes.” She made a face.“I also miss sleeping. God, if someone had told me how much I would miss sleeping, I would have rolled my eyes at them, because I think people did tell me that and I did roll my eyes, and, seriously, Cora and Max are the best things that ever happened to me, but oh my God .”

“Alright, Elle, let’s not scare the guests.” Ethan’s eyebrow twitched in a way that reminded me of Declan. “Our apologies, the baby’s been fussy and we’re not sleeping so well.”

Declan laughed. “We gathered that.”

Ethan led the way back downstairs. “Nadia and Mason are in the backyard already. Ellie can take you back. Can I get you anything to drink?”

“I’ll stay and help you,” Declan offered, and I wondered if he was going to talk to Ethan about the resentment he’d felt after Ethan cut him out last year. I figured not. I caught his eye and he winked at me once. It was ridiculous that one little wink could set off butterflies in my stomach, but it completely did.

Ellie walked me out and introduced me to Mason and Nadia, who was holding baby Cora, bouncing her on one knee. Both rose to give me hugs as Nadia passed off Cora to Ellie. I couldn’t help but marvel at how large Mason was, though I tried not to stare at all. The man was even taller and more built than Declan, whom I thought of as slightly above average in both height and build. Nadia, or Nady as she was introduced, was quite a bit smaller, athletic and beautiful, although very different looking from her sister. In conversation I discovered Mason was a doctor and Nady a nurse at his office. “Is that how you met?” I asked.

Mason grinned a bit wickedly. “No. I’ve been in love with her since we were in high school. I was just waiting around for her to realize."

Nady blushed a deep red and gave her fiancé one of those looks that held a million messages. Based on her expression I guessed those messages included both ‘ I love you, too’ and ‘ Shut up.’

“Your sister mentioned you’re living back in the town you grew up in.”

“The town next door, actually, but they’re basically identical,” Nady replied. “Where do you live?”

“Lincoln Park, near Clark and Fullerton.”

“Wow, it’s so busy over there. Sometimes I miss Chicago, but I don’t miss the really crowded parts, like there. I did love the lakefront path, though.”

“Me too! I love to run. Heading north—along the lake past Belmont—is one of my favorite routes.”

“That’s a great run,” Nady agreed. “That was the problem with being so far north and west, we couldn’t get to the lake easily enough.” Nady and I engaged in easy chat regarding the city and running, and Mason piped in occasionally, having apparently gone to college at Northwestern, and therefore being relatively familiar with the city and jogging on the lakefront, even if his experience tended to be much farther north than mine.

However nervous I’d been to attend this dinner, it turned out to be a lot of fun. Ethan was as funny as Deck and never seemed to run out of topics. Mason was quiet but whip-smart and extremely knowledgeable. Ellie and Nady were so different, but both really friendly. Ellie was outgoing and bubbly, Nady much more reserved, but she had a sarcastic and funny side that reminded me of Matty. We barbecued and ate outside, turning on a few towering heaters and starting a fire in the large outdoor fireplace as the evening chill set in. When the men began talking sports we shifted around spots so the women could talk about something else, and we ended up talking long into the evening. I was glad Deck was driving because I was both tired and tipsy by the time we left.

“What’d you think?” Deck asked .

“Of what?”

“Of Ethan and Ellie. Were they the scary rich folks you worried they’d be?”

I laughed. “No. They were really fun. I kind of wish they lived closer. Mason and Nady, too. I liked all of them a lot.”

“I know. If you think Chicago’s far, imagine how far New York is from Ethan.”

I was sleepy, my head fuzzy and eyes heavy as he spoke, but his words stuck in my brain, repeating as I drifted off, reminding me how lucky I was Deck had moved here.