“Grace Zhang, eh? Haven’t heard of her,” Jeannie said, squinting at the phone.
“She rose to fame pretty recently, but the press is all over her. You’ll be seeing her name around,” Ani assured her, a smile on her face but inwardly losing hope.
Madison popped out from behind a corner. “Did you just say that mega flower order was for Grace Zhang? LikeMafia PrincessGrace Zhang? Are we seriously doing her wedding?”
Jeannie stepped back and stared at Ani. “Vogue, you say? I haven’t had a feature there in a while; wearedue.”
Ani nodded. “A very strong possibility.”
The older woman considered Madison, who had pulled out her phone while humming the Auto-Tune version of “I just wanna like…swallow it,” and gasped. “Oh my God, Grace is riding horses in Malibu with her fiancée! Iconic.”
Jeannie tapped her leg while staring at Madison, considering. “Well, it was a large order. And we did already call in some special favors. Would be a shame to lose out on that.”
Ani nodded again, eagerly. “It would, it would.” Madison loudly agreed as well.
She felt a presence behind her. Talar, no doubt, catching up to them.
“All right,” Jeannie said. “We can do it.”
Ani’s smile grew huge and she restrained herself—with great effort—from looking too enthusiastic. “Yes? It’s back on?”
Apparently her—and Madison’s—excitement was contagious because Jeannie had some sort of mini-smile on her face, too. “It’s back on.”
“Oh thank God,” said a man’s voice behind her. A man who soundeda lotlike Raffi.
Ani whipped around. ItwasRaffi. Standing right next to Talar.
“What’re you doing here?” Ani asked, shocked.
“What’reyoudoing here?” Raffi returned. He appeared surprised himself, but thrilled, like he had been given an unexpected gift.
“Who is this man, and how do you two know each other?” Talar asked, an impressed tone to her voice as she sized up Raffi. She didn’t know him well and obviously didn’t recognize him out of context here in the flower shop. But she clearly thought he was hot and was jazzed that her sister was consorting with a guy like this. Little did Talar know…
Jeannie, seeing that these questions had nothing to do with her, turned on her heel and waltzed to the back of the shop.
“I asked first,” Ani said.
Raffi appeared like he wanted to hug her but then clocked Talar, undoubtedly remembering her from the photo on Ani’s phone, and shifted from one foot to the other instead. “The florist called me and left me a message that I didn’t really understand, because I thought it sounded like she said the entire flower order was canceled, but that seemed too ludicrous to be true. Anyway, I was a few stores down when I listened to my voicemail so I figured I’d pop in. And if anything was really wrong I’d give you a call right away.”
Sweet of him. Try to sort it out himself but knew this was Ani’s territory. God, it was difficult being this close to him andnotbeing able to hold him, kiss him. She could smell his cologne very faintly and wanted more of it. How would she introduce him to Talar? She’d better figure it out because she owed Talar an answer to her question.
Ani avoided Talar’s question a little longer and said, “And we’re here because you’re right, someone did apparently call Tilde and cancel the flowers. Which is insane. I have no clue who, or how it could have happened.” Although she did wonder, with Raffi’s father so displeased by the queer wedding and so disgusted by the paparazzi and reporters…she could imagine him taking steps to ruin it. But canceling the flower order? That felt more of a mean jab, less “shut down the whole thing.”
Raffi’s jaw tightened. “This isn’t good.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not.” They were so close, so very close, to the wedding, and someone was playing around trying to sabotage it. To screw around with her future. If this wedding didn’t end up the perfect fairy-tale dreamland she’d promised,she was toast—and not the cute, artisanal kind. Photos ruined, no magazine features, and worst of all, now there was the threat ofbadpress.
“Do you have any idea who it could have been?” Raffi asked tentatively.
Ani wasn’t about to blurt, “Your dad!” but in truth, that was her only lead. “I’m—I’m not sure. Someone who doesn’t like the idea of a queer wedding maybe?”
Raffi pressed his lips into a thin line. “Hmm. I hope not. My first thought was that this was related to Grace’s sudden celebrity. Either an enemy or someone trying to make a great story.”
Ani thought. “Someone who wanted theMafia Princessrole but didn’t get it?” Canceling flowers did feel like the petty kind of thing someone who was trying to poke at their nemesis would do. It was possible, but that theory, a fellow celebrity, would be a tough one to track and confirm.
Talar stepped forward. “I’m sorry, Ani, do you mind introducing me to your new…friend?”
“Uh, sure,” Ani said uneasily. “This is Raffi. He runs Ô winery.”
