"Not get upset? My brother's lying in a hospital bed unconscious after three back-to-back surgeries and no one knows why! We don't know what will happen when he wakes up, we don't know what kind of brain damage there might be, if any. We don't know what happened during the car accident because the damn traffic cameras weren't hooked up, and I'm not supposed to be upset!?"
Hospital? I was in a hospital? Wait a second, what accident?
Oh shit. The car. My phone.
Holy fuck. The Caribbean. I'm not in the Caribbean. Wake up, Alfred. Wake the fuck up! Your business needs you!
I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I was aware of the world around me, but I still didn't have the faintest clue as to what was going on. Well, I was slowly piecing things together when the world wasn't black. Dark. Empty.
I kept screaming for my leg to move. For my arm to move. For my eyes to open or my tongue to start working or my lips to part. Any sort of movement to prove to me that I had control. That I had the capability of controlling my body enough to get done what had to get done. Mom had no idea what was going on at work. I'd probably missed my flight. Three surgeries? What the hell?
I needed to talk to the doctor.
But it was like my will was disconnected from my physical form.
"Oh, Alfred," my mother said. "I'm begging you. Just open your eyes."
I'm trying, Mom. I swear to you, I'm trying.
"I can't lose you, too," she said breathlessly.
"We aren't going to lose him," Cara said. "Life isn't that cruel."
Say that to the guy that can't move, why don't you?
I felt my mother's face fall to my arm. I could feel her tears running across my skin. I wanted to move my arm. To put it around her and reassure her that things were going to be okay. That I was okay. That I could hear her. That I wasn't gone. Not like Dad had been taken from us. I wasn't going to go out like that. With a car like it had happened to Dad.
Come on. Just one fucking finger. That was all I was asking my body to do.
"Please," my mother said with a whisper. "Please don't leave me, Alfred. I can't bury you, too."
You won't, Mom. I swear if it's the last thing I make sure, you won't have to bury me.
Amanda POV
"Natalie, you got that arrangement almost done?"
"The one with the lilies and the orchids? Yep. Almost done."
"Good. Because I'm going to have to take them over soon," I said.
"I thought they were being picked up? Aren't they always picked up?"
"Not today," I said. "Today, I'm supposed to deliver them to a house."
"I guess that's good news. Maybe?"
"You never know. The arrangement could be for a funeral."
"You really have a morbid sense of humor, Amanda."
"It's amazing what florists tolerate and what people will spew in their moments of emotional weakness," I said.
For the past three weeks, a maid had been coming into our shop to pick up a flower arrangement every single day. And the order was always the same. Lilies and orchids with a splash of greenery. Always arranged the same, always large, and always picked up at eleven in the morning.
But this time, a phone call told me they needed to be hand-delivered by that same time to a specific address.
"Do you even know who's supposed to receive them?" Natalie asked.
"I'm assuming the woman who's been picking them up will be at the house," I said.
"But you don't know."
"Nope."
"Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?" she asked.
"Natalie, I've delivered flowers before. I'm sure I'll be okay."
"But you always know who's receiving those flowers. You don't today. It might be a trap."
"What are we, in some kind of spy movie? Natalie, are you some super-secret spy using your florist shop as a cover-up?" I asked.
"It would be more exciting than the life I lead now."
"Girl, your significant other is a billionaire."
"True," she laughed. "Speaking of, how's your love life?"
"I'm fine, thank you."
"You need to get out more, you never know when you'll meet Prince Charming," she said.
"Maybe a handsome man will be receiving these flowers. He'll open the door with his shirt off and sweat dripping down his body after working out. He'll wipe the sweat off his forehead and grin at me, then reach out for my waist instead of the flowers."
"Bought a new romance novel, I see."
"And it's great."
"What's the plot line this time?"
"Smut with a timeline," I said with a grin.
"I swear, behind those glasses of yours lies a nasty little freak waiting to be set free."
"Now I could've told you that."
"All right, got the flower arrangement done. What time is it?" she asked.
"Fifteen 'til. I gotta get out of here if I'm going to make the delivery on time. Which means you'll have to take over the front counter. Are you good with that?"
"Believe it or not, I know how to take an order and press buttons, reminding me I do own the place," she said.
"Just making sure. Sometimes I don't know if your fingers work properly anymore, you know since you took some time off." Her billionaire boy toy had taken her around Europe for two months right after she hired me. I had gotten used to working on my own in the shop. Between that trip and all the weddings she handled, I was usually on my own.
"It was one bad input."
"That made it look as if we'd made seven thousand dollars worth of profit in one day!"
"I said I was sorry!"
"Yeah, with a flower arrangement you made me make."
"Is it the thought that counts?"
"I'll be back in a little bit, Natalie."