Walk of Shame
Page 18

You try to spend forty-five minutes on hold with some aging pop princess’s agent in hopes she’ll do a show for free.
Anyway, you get the point.
As far as distractions go, it hasn’t been a horrible one. Not only does it keep me busy, but it keeps me busy doing something that doesn’t feel brainless.
Okay. So, not quite as distracted as I thought. I just keep thinking of this morning, and, well . . . hurting.
Which is dumb, right? I’m letting some anal, uptight tool have way too much power over me.
I push back from my kitchen table to retrieve my phone from the couch, where I threw it after getting exasperated with the caterer’s insistence on asparagus-stuffed cheese puffs. Let me ask you this: what is the point of a cheese puff if it’s ruined with vegetables? Am I right? I’m right.
I pick up the phone and see a couple of texts from my mom asking if I want to meet up with her for dinner tomorrow night. Just her. No Dad. Hmm.
I’ll respond to that later.
I text Marley to ask what the plan is for tonight, and I’m a little embarrassed to say I consider texting Brody, even though I’ve recently learned the hard way that drowning one’s feelings in toxic substances has dire consequences. And as far as toxic substances go, I’m pretty sure that attention from Brody is right up there with too much vodka.
Luckily, I’m saved from making that mistake by an incoming phone call from the front desk of my apartment building.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Watkins, it’s Joe downstairs.”
I smile and plop onto the couch. “Joe! How are you? Is your pup all better after being fixed?”
“Hating the cone of shame, as expected, but all good, thanks. I’ve got a delivery for you here. You around for me to send it up, or shall I hold it here for you?”
“Sure, send it up,” I say, even as I scratch my nose in puzzlement.
UPS, FedEx, and all that good stuff is automatically received and delivered by them as part of the daily routine. The only time they ever call before sending something up is if it’s a food delivery, and I haven’t ordered anything.
A few minutes later I open the door to something that’s anything but part of my daily routine.
I can’t even see the person behind the delivery, because the flowers literally take up my entire doorway.
I gasp in pleasure. I’m totally not one of those girls who bemoans fresh flowers for the flowery death they represent. Nope, I love me some flowers, the more elaborate the arrangement the better, and this is most definitely in the elaborate category.
I hand the guy a generous tip and kick the door closed.
Heaving the arrangement onto the counter, I smile even wider as I take in the sheer impressiveness of the arrangement. It’s mostly pink roses and lilies, but some flower genius has mixed in white tulips and mums to keep it feeling fresh and unexpected.
The best part, though, is little sprigs of silver sparkle and rhinestones. The whole bouquet is very, well . . . Georgie.
I begin digging around for a card, wondering which of the florists I called and spoke with today has the rather impressive marketing approach of sending a sample product to the woman who’ll be making the decisions on flowers for a big fundraiser, a job that will be worth thousands of dollars.
I finally find the envelope, but the discreet lavender logo of the card isn’t one that I recognize. Odd.
I fish out the small ivory card and read what’s written there.
Then I read it again.
Perfectly ridiculous.
There’s just those two words. No name, but then, I don’t need one. The ridiculous is a calling card of sorts.
Although it’s not the ridiculous that has me smiling a little bit. It’s the perfectly.
Perfectly ridiculous.
There are two ways to read that. Perfectly ridiculous as in the most perfect example of ridiculous. Could not be more ridiculous.
Knowing Andrew Mulroney, that’s a possible interpretation. Probable, even.
But there’s another interpretation that I like far better: perfectly ridiculous as in perfect in its ridiculousness.
Because the flowers are exactly that. The arrangement is wonderfully frivolous.
Just like me?
I mean, I like to think so. But does he?
Hmm.
Which is it?
I’m so busy overanalyzing the two words that I belatedly notice that there’s a phone number at the bottom. I skipped it at first, assuming it was the florist’s number, but it’s handwritten, and different from the phone number that’s beneath the florist’s logo and address on the back of the card.
I tap the card against my bottom lip as I study the sparkling, ostentatious bouquet, my smile growing wider all the time.
As far as apologies go . . .
Well, is it one?
There’s no sorry. There’s certainly not nearly enough groveling, considering he callously insulted my intellect.
And yet this gesture feels sort of perfectly . . . us.
I retrieve my phone and consider texting him (no, I’m not going to call him; this isn’t the nineties), but . . .
What to say?
Thank you is too obvious to a man who can’t say sorry.
And I can’t say, All good! Because I’m not sure it is all good. Not quite yet.
In the end, I decide not to text him at all.
I’ve got something better in mind.
Andrew

THURSDAY, 5:06 A.M. If anyone accused him of waiting for her, he’d deny it with his dying breath, but damn it, where was the infernal woman?
Had she gotten the fucking flowers or not? Had she liked them? Apparently not, or he wouldn’t be lingering in the lobby of his own building, pretending to have a conversation with Charles when really all of his attention was on whether or not Georgiana Watkins would join him.
Hell, he didn’t care which direction she came from. She could come from the elevators, or she could come from the front door, returning from a long night out.
Scratch that. He’d only be okay with her coming home from a night out so long as her night hadn’t involved another man. . . .
Andrew blew out a breath and tried to get a hold of himself and focus on Charles’s polite small talk. What the hell was up with him? Since when did he care how Georgiana Watkins spent her time?
And since when did her morning appearances seem so vital to his very existence?
He lingered until five fucking twenty before accepting that she wasn’t going to show. She hadn’t liked the flowers. Hadn’t forgiven him.