“Why don’t you do it for me?” I gave him my sweetest sisterly grin. “I mean, it would help me out tremendously. After all, I am letting you camp out on my couch and eat my food.”
“It’s not nice to manipulate your brother.”
“Hey, nothing in life is free. Ya gotta pay your own way.” I handed over his phone.
“Hey, Cass.” Lucy appeared. “The Russian gentleman is asking for you. He brought flowers.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
I looked at Steve for a long beat, trying to recall what we were talking about, but my mind had gone blank at the mention of Alek.
“Hellooo? Earth to Cass. Do you want me to tell him you’re busy?” Lucy asked.
“Oh, sorry.” I placed my hand on my forehead and exhaled a breath. “No, I’m coming. Get back to work,” I told Steve and pointed up at the attic.
He groaned like most twenty-year-old brothers when asked to do a dirty job.
“Thank you!” I said in a sing-song voice and followed Lucy to the front of the café.
Sure enough, Alek was waiting at the bar with a massive flower arrangement. This thing was in a glass vase and could be seen from across the building.
Holy smokes! Talk about making a statement and drawing attention.
“Alek, it’s nice to see you.” It’d been a long time, almost a week since I last saw him. I’d wondered if he had returned to Russia without saying good-bye. If he had, I wouldn’t have been sad about it.
“Cassandra, these are for you.” He gave me his gift.
“Wow, they’re beautiful. What’s the occasion?” I acted pleasantly surprised and accepted the ginormous arrangement, which was also heavy.
He couldn’t have known when my birthday was, and it wasn’t Christmas. I could not imagine why he would give me such a large, and expensive gift.
“I felt a little bad to have disappeared without a word. This is my apology.”
“Oh. You really didn’t have to do this. No apology is necessary. Truly. You’re a busy man and don’t owe me anything.” I admired the flowers. They were lovely. The last time I’d received flowers was at my high school graduation and they were from my parents.
“I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten about you.” He leaned toward me and kissed my cheek. “Can I take you to out to a late dinner tonight?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes.”
“Um.” I worried my bottom lip between my teeth, feeling pressured to say yes.
“I’ll be back at seven, when you close. We can leave from here.”
Wait. What? I hadn’t agreed to anything.
“But I’d need to change. Freshen up.” My head was spinning. What was happening? “Today isn’t a good day.”
“You’re perfect just as you are.” He kissed my cheek again, and I was so stunned that I let him. “See you later, Cassandra.” The way my name rolled off his tongue alluded to something more intimate than friendship.
“I guess you have a new boyfriend, right?” Lucy bounced over. “It’s so romantic how he took control and left you speechless. I’m so jelly!”
“What boyfriend?” Steve asked from behind me.
“Alek the Russian hottie,” Lucy replied, while I was still struggling to find my voice. “When a man spends hundreds of dollars on a bouquet of flowers, he’s a keeper.”
“Well, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard today.” Steve screwed up his face. “Do you know what I can do with the money he spent on that?”
“Rent a motel room instead of sleeping at Cass’s?” Lucy shrugged and went behind the counter. “That was just the first thing that popped into my mind.”
