Page 5 of He Loves Me Not (Cambric Creek #5)

Ranar

“Ranar, what is wrong with you?!”

Grace wasted no time rounding on him; the pretty, dark-haired woman barely clearing the sidewalk with her wrap of loose stems before Grace was slapping her hand down on the counter once more.

“What? She was nice! Did you want me to lie to her? Doom her to heartache and probably bankruptcy? And you call yourself a people person?”

They both turned as the woman backed out of a parking space in front of the shop, pulling out of the shared lot a moment later, brake light flaring.

He followed the shape of her car as it disappeared into the world beyond his windows, gone forever.

“Ranar, she was flirting with you.

At least, she was trying to.

She probably would’ve had more luck with this spool of ribbon.”

Ranar rolled his eyes, snorting.

Grace was a dreamy romantic who spent too much time with equally optimistic newlyweds, their rose-colored glasses too secure for them to see the sharp edges of the world beyond the fifteen-minute ceremony of their nuptials.

And this is why the divorce rate is so high.

“Seriously, are your eyes okay?” She glared.

“Did you not notice the way she was looking at you? The way she was laughing? Fucking stars, she was twirling her hair.

I don’t think she could have been any more obvious without lifting her shirt and asking if you liked her boobies and maybe wanted to take a squeeze.”

“Gracie, you are out of your mind.

That mothman has broken you.

The buzzing of his wings is probably a decibel that’s dangerous for humans.

I hope the sex is good, because it’s scrambled your frontal cortex.”

“How?” Grace turned away in disgust, moaning out the question to the empty shop.

“How can you be this stupid? How can I be friends with such a stupid snake? Have you ever even been on a date, be honest with me.

How is it that you have a child?”

“Because that was an arranged marriage,” he added helpfully, ducking easily when she flung the spool of ribbon at his head, catching it as it rolled across the counter.

“Yeah, and now I understand why it didn’t work out.”

Ranar nearly choked on his laughter as he turned away from the counter, critically eyeing the coolers where the woman had stood just a few minutes earlier.

It was a wonder she was able to put anything together at all.

Pickings were slim, and the meager order arriving that afternoon likely wouldn’t bolster the display much.

“She was pretty.” The words were out before he was able to control his tongue, not especially wanting to engage in this particular conversation with Grace, not wanting to have this conversation at all.

His friend was well-meaning, but she was a little too keen to see him coupled, desperate to force him into meeting her and her mothman scientist boyfriend for an evening of couples drudgery, he assumed.

There was no need to give her any encouragement, but Grace had already turned at his words, flinging her arms open.

“I mean, if she had lifted her shirt, I absolutely would have taken the offered squeeze.”

“She was! And she’s brand-new in town.

At least, she will be soon.

You can get to her first!”

“I’m pretty sure she’d find that offensive, boobie squeeze or not.

She’s a person, Grace.

Not a collectible.

Besides, I don’t have time for a relationship right now.

As it is, I have like twelve orders in the queue for this afternoon.”

Grace rolled her eyes.

“Don’t even pretend you won’t have them all done within the hour,” she snapped before closing her eyes, sucking in a deep breath, steadying herself as if this was the most aggravating conversation she’d ever had in her life. “Look.”

Her voice was gentler, her tone a bit closer to her normal sunny disposition, and Ranar almost laughed out loud at the notion that he and his inability to spot the subtle flirtations of strangers were the cause of her near apoplexy.

“All I’m saying is you are selling yourself short.

And yes, I think you need a head start because you’re not nearly half as smooth as the majority of the men in this town.

And don’t get me wrong,“ she added quickly, already knowing the way he would turn the conversation.

“I know you have a lot on your plate.

I know you’re dealing with so much right now and I don’t envy you any of it. And I’m here whenever you need a shoulder to cry on. But you’re one of the nicest guys I know. You’re genuinely a good guy, and that’s more than I can say for some of my other friends.”

“If you compare me to Tris, I am never speaking to you again.”

“And I just think,” she went on a bit louder, ignoring him, “that all of this with your dad wouldn’t feel like such a heavy burden if you had someone to share it with.”

“I thought you were here whenever I needed a shoulder to cry on?” he challenged, fighting his grin as she stamped her foot.

“I have you, Gracie.

I have my friend online.

I don’t have the mental bandwidth to start dating someone new and keep this place going by myself and be the only responsible adult in my family.

That’s just a fact.”

“Yeah, but you lied and told that woman that you have a girlfriend!”

“Because she said she had a boyfriend!” He turned to her, incredulous.

“Now who’s being obtuse? She’s someone from my plant server, I didn’t want her to think I was only talking to her because I’m on the prowl.”

“Literally, how are you so bad at this? If it weren’t for Ruma, I would be convinced you’ve never had sex before.

That you’ve never even talked to a woman!”

Ranar rolled his eyes.

It was his turn to ignore her, he decided.

And he really did have orders to get to.

“Grace, I appreciate you, and I hear what you’re saying.

It’s just not a good time.”

She sighed heavily, re-accepting the spool of gold ribbon before trudging to the doorway.

She stopped just before pulling it open, turning back to him.

“Thanks for this.

Just let me know if any orders come in, I’m pretty sure we have everything in stock for the standard and the extra-large basket.

And it’s never a good time, babe.

Learn from my mistakes.

This is one of those things you make time for.”

Ranar rolled his eyes one last time as Grace made her exit.

It wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have, not even with himself.

How are you supposed to make time for a girlfriend when you barely have time for anything as it is.

Bending to the printer below the work desk opposite the POS station, he pulled out the afternoon’s orders, glaring at the logo in the corner of each.

Bloomerang.

It was galling, being dependent on the floral industry giant.

Perhaps, he allowed, Grace was right.

He shouldn’t have been as blunt as he was with the pretty stranger, but he was steadfast in what he had told her.

Unless she wanted to be a wedding florist, which was a thankless job with endless hours and no shortage of stress during bridal season, there was no way to compete with the flower giant’s latest scheme to cut out the middleman.

Once upon a time ago, people came into the shop directly for all their flower-sending needs.

He had been a child — big enough to help, old enough for some responsibility — tasked with unwrapping boxes of vases and baskets, placing them carefully on the shelf and breaking down the packaging.

They came in for roses before dinner dates, cheery baskets of daisies and sunflowers to send to a sick friend, stood in line to place orders for school dances and graduations, table arrangements for holidays and bouquets for the school play.

He was old enough to remember the phone in the shop ringing throughout the day, customers who called the flower behemoth’s 1-800 number to place an order, patched through to local little stores like his family’s, all across the unification.

Then had come the fax machine.

The whirring, buzzing click of an incoming fax was one of his keystone memories.

The fax machine gave way to the wire service with the advent of the Internet, requiring a dedicated line and a modem, the unending noise from the dot matrix printer in the office like a song he’d been forced to hear for hours on end.

Now the entire industry was almost exclusively online, excluding weddings.

He understood the why behind it.

The Bloomerang website was easy to shop, searchable by both price point and occasion, pre-made vase designs and twee containers for everything from birthdays to a sick co-worker.

They had a bottomless national advertising budget to ensure they were the biggest name in the industry, owned multiple web addresses and toll-free numbers, ensuring that if one were attempting to order flowers, they would be on the receiving end of the request.

The Perfect Petal had been a Bloomerang partner for as long as he could remember, buying into the wire service as soon as it became available, although the cost of membership to the service was ever-rising.

Orders from the service were sent directly to the shop and printed automatically throughout the afternoon, although there were fewer since the industry behemoth had begun opening its own stores.

The Bloomerang-branded flower shops were a blight on more than just the floral industry.

They were a clarion call, a warning to every small business of the fate that awaited them once whoever their corporate overlord was decided that they, too, would cut out the middleman.

Most people didn’t see the invisible labor that went into every item they purchased in the course of their everyday, but he did.

Ranar knew how many people were put of work when small businesses fell like dominoes, entire industries left in the hands of the corporate giants who’d bulldozed their way to be at the top.

He might have been tactless in his words to the attractive stranger, but better for her to hear honesty than be snookered in by aesthetic-driven social media, believing that this business was sustainable in the current climate.

As it was, it was only Jack Hemming’s disdain for human-run businesses and chain stores that was keeping his family’s shop afloat.

He disliked being reliant on the Bloomerang wire orders, but at least he still had them coming in daily.

It was more than some of his former peers could say.

On the days his father insisted on coming into the shop, as he had for more than forty years, Ranar had made it a habit to make a sweep of both the front of house and back several times a day.

His father had a habit of taking the orders from the printed queue and misplacing them.

Ranar would find them on the front counter, on the back cutting table, on the shelves in between boxes of floral foam.

Once, he’d found a request for a casket spray inside the cooler next to a birthday arrangement, a juxtaposition that nearly sent into an existential spiral until he remembered that his grandfather had not shared the same illness as his son, remaining quick of mind and sharp of tongue until his final breaths.

It was easy for Grace to give relationship advice now that she was coupled.

He appreciated his friend and knew that she was only looking out for his best interests, but if she pushed the issue, he would remind her that she herself had been a workaholic with no social life not that long ago, without the responsibility of caring for aging parents and a limping business.

Besides, it wasn’t as if he had no one to talk to.

Pinky had become a fast friend.

It was nice, having someone else confide their troubles in him for a change, and really, all she needed was for someone to believe in her very attainable dreams.

She was knowledgeable about plants, spoke the same language of humidity and south facing windows, possessing an adorable collection of strings of pearls and pink accented philodendrons.

Ranar had not been at all surprised when she had disclosed that she had a boyfriend, because of course she would.

She was vivacious and funny, and he was positive he could tell just by the way she typed and the things she said that she would be beautiful.

But the more he had learned about her partner, piecing together offhand remarks she would make, likely thinking he wasn’t paying that much attention, the more annoyed over the situation he grew.

It was silly to be jealous of a stranger.

Even more preposterous to be jealous of that stranger’s relationship with another stranger.

It was a fact he reminded himself of often, not that it should have made any bit of difference.

She didn’t exist here in the real world, in his world.

Now she was moving to someplace new and embarking on a new chapter in her life, freeing herself of everything that weighted her down.

Ranar couldn’t relate.

He was happy for his friend, hoped that she would be successful in her new adventure, and even if he occasionally wished the possibility of that meeting and seeing if they were just as compatible on the upright side of the screen as they were behind it become a reality, keeping their relationship as it was didn’t detract for his happiness for her windfall.

Didn’t detract, but it did solidify the fact that she would never be more than his Internet friend.

And she’ll be happy once she moves, when she starts over again.

She’s going to meet someone, and probably won’t spend as much time chatting with the random plant guy.

The thought had occurred to him shortly after she had confessed that she would be selling her condo and moving to this house she’d inherited, that soon her life would be too full for chatting with him.

It made him sad, but Ranar had reminded himself that there was beauty in ephemera.

Some things weren’t designed to last forever.

They were lovely for a minute, provided happiness for a brief window, and then they were gone — like the flowers he sold.

He sucked a breath in through his teeth the thought, his mind flickering back to the woman who’d been in his store that day.

He hadn’t lied to Grace.

She was pretty, beautiful, in fact.

Long dark hair to the middle of her back, full and lush like a peony at the height of its bloom.

Was she really flirting with you? She couldn’t have been.

He wondered where she would be living once she moved to Cambric Creek, what her actual job was, outside of her ill-fated desire to join his ranks.

If she were single, Grace was right — she wouldn’t be for long.

Not around here.

Some of his neighbors were the horniest folks in existence, and her full breasts and round hips would make a fast impression the first time she went grocery shopping.

Once they found out she was new to the neighborhood, that would be the end.

It would be a race to see who could be the first to stick their dick into her, and she would have her pick of the neighborhood.

She’ll probably wind up with some big, muscular orc.

That cyclops landscaper who never wears a shirt.

Maybe a werewolf.

Even if Grace was right and she had been flirting with him, which he thought was unlikely, once she saw her other options, she would be sure to lose Ranar’s number.

No thanks. Been there, done that, have the postcard. Everyone ought to visit the Heartache Hills once, but there was never a need to go back for a second stay.

He wondered if Pinky would encounter the same mentality when she moved to her new town — that she was fresh meat, a prize to be claimed first.

He hoped she would find someone better than her current boyfriend.

Too bad it won’t be you.

At that thought, Ranar turned, slouching against the coils of his tail as he tapped the computed monitor to life, quickly clicking on the DiscHorse icon.

His palms itched, a desperate need to push Grace’s voice out of his head, and besides —he always sent her a little mid-day missive.

ChaoticConcertina: Do you know what I really hate?

Well-meaning friends.

They’re well-meaning, so no matter what they say and regardless of how much you

don’t want to hear it, you can’t ever really be mad at them

Because they’re well-meaning!

And if you ever tell them to stuff it, now you’re the bad guy.

“But I only meant well!”

Add that to my petty list of grievances.

Pinky had been halfheartedly venting about something her boyfriend hadn’t paid attention to, asking Ranar if he were similarly coupled.

Obviously he’d had to say yes.

What was wrong with Grace?

He had quickly answered the question in the affirmative, not offering any more details, secure in the knowledge Pinky wouldn’t ask.

He wasn’t turning up in her inbox in an effort to solicit her nudes, and had no intention of ambushing her with an image of his frilled erections, and didn’t want her to worry that it was a latent threat.

Ranar rationalized that if she thought he had a girlfriend as well, they would be able to continue conversing as they had, with no undue pressure.

And in the event that she ever asked, it wasn’t as there was no one in his life from whom he could draw details.

He had dinner with one of his aforementioned horny neighbors once or twice a month, “dinner” that consisted of a bottle of wine he would bring and an entrée on the stove that she had made, a thin pretext for the sex they had in place of eating.

She’s an insurance adjuster, he would say.

She has a blue kitchen and a fondness for copper tea kettles.

A perplexing number of stuffed animals on the bed.

The kitsune had no deep feelings for him and he had none for her, outside of mutual friendliness, but they were both single, both horny, and she enjoyed his cocks.

He would go home sated, leaving her well-fucked, and they wouldn’t do more than wave from their respective driveways when taking out the trash until the itch to do it again struck.

Pinky certainly didn’t need to know about that.

PinksPosies&Pearls: Oh yeah, that’s a good one.

Those people are the worst

Don’t you have anything better to do with time other than be considerate of me?!

You know what else is terrible?

When people expect you to have a reason for disliking someone

“Oh what happened? Did they do something?”

Yeah, their vibes are mid

I don’t need to wait until they do something to make them an enemy

A+ observations, you’re already a better student than my whole class

Ranar shifted in place, grinning once he turned back to his orders, undulating slowly as his thoughts turned once again to the woman from that afternoon.

Very pretty.

Was she really flirting with you?

This was Grace’s doing, he thought in annoyance.

If she hadn’t been there in the shop when the woman had come in, Ranar would have rung her out without incident, might not have even noticed how attractive she was, and he certainly wouldn’t be swaying here with heat in his belly if Grace hadn’t put the fantastical notion that the woman was flirting with him in his head, which in turn sent it straight to his groin.

It was Grace’s fault, but also his fault for letting his imagination run away with his online friendship.

Puddles of puberty be damned, he wasn’t a teenager with no control over his body’s responses.

He was a grown-up and he had work to do.

And this afternoon when you leave, you’re going to pick up a bottle of Shiraz.

It was the kitsune’s favorite, and visiting her that evening would be a sure way to get rid of this inch beneath his skin.