Page 72 of Just Come Over

“Yes.” It was a gasp. “Oh.Rhys.”

He was a gentleman, or he tried to be. You met the lady’s needs. He said, “I thought, this morning, that I shouldn’t push it. That’s why I didn’t put you on your knees on that couch that’s right there on the deck, tell you to hold onto the back, push your dress up, rip your undies off you, and solve our height problem, even though all I wanted to do was fuck your brains out.”

She was making some noise. He said, “Yeh. Just like that. Just like you’re imagining.” He wasn’t good at phone sex. He was better at actions than words, especially stringing together a whole narrative of touches and kisses and wardrobe details. But he could just about manage this. “I licked you and kissed you enough last night. Time for you to let me fuck you the way I want to.”

“Ahh.”It was a moan, and her eyes had closed.

“Open your eyes,” he said. “Look at me.”

It was an effort, he could tell. But she did it. He said, “Yeh. You’ll do what I say, if you want it, won’t you?”

“Yes.” She was gasping. “Yes.”

“Then open up, baby,” he said, “and take it hard.”

She closed her eyes again, her face twisted, the phone jerked and shook in her hand, and she hung up on him. Accidentally, he was fairly sure.

He was never going to make it twelve days. Not possible.

The next day, during lunch, Finn said, “What?”

Rhys jerked his attention back. “What?” Had he stopped in the middle of a sentence, or something? He couldn’t remember.

This morning, at breakfast, when she wouldn’t be awake yet, he’d texted Zora,Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense. That’s what I meant to text last night. I may have been a bit less romantic than that, as it turned out. Pretend I said it.

Ten minutes ago, she’d sent back a close-up photo of a deep-pink rose with dew coating its petals, and nothing else. You could call that photo distracting, though.

He asked Finn, “What do you give a woman, if you can’t send her flowers?”

“And you can’t send her flowers because... she’s allergic?” Finn hazarded.

“Take it that I can’t send her flowers, that’s all.”

“Ah,” Finn said. “Because she’s a florist, maybe. Coals to Newcastle, eh. Never tell me Jenna was right.”

“What?”

“Mate.” A smile broke through the craggy surface of Finn’s face. “Why d’you think we took the kids the other night?”

“Oh.” Rhys wondered whether he should be alarmed. Offended. Something. He decided on, “Well, tell her cheers for that.”

“What do you want to give her?” Finn asked.

“A ring,” Rhys said. He didn’t mean to. It just slipped out.

Finn looked startled. Small wonder. “It’s that bad?”

“Yeh. That one’s out, obviously. Could put too much pressure on.”

“You think? That could’ve been brewing for a while, then, I’m thinking.”

“You could say that. You could say ten years.”

Finn said, “So. No flowers, then. You could give her something else. Jewelry. Like that. Something small. No pressure, eh.”

It was Friday, and Zora’s hands were flying. She had three new home deliveries added to the list for today, which was good, and a wedding tomorrow, which was better. But it was a lot of deliveries to make in one afternoon.

Fourteen arrangements stood on her work tables: four standard, five premium, and best of all: Five supreme. Two of the new clients were Supremes. She loved Supremes. Not only did they pay the best, their arrangements were the most fun to do. Today, she was pairing the unabashed sensuality of cream, blush, and lavender roses with papery-white anemones, the deep-plum petals of ranunculus, and the open invitation of white clematis, all of it accented with more green and white: the tiny drops and delicate petals of snowberry, the fragility of maidenhair fern, the sturdy structure of eucalyptus, and the twining, trailing vines of jasmine winding through everything, trying to overtake it all.