“Again? Did your old schmooze-your-mom trick fail?”
I throw her a glance over my shoulder. “Nah, that worked well. I need flowers for my wife.” I walk over to my aunt’s workstation; this is probably her last order since she should be closed now.
She stills mid flower tuck and raises a brow at me. “Flowers because you enjoy teasing her or flowers because you actually want to make her smile?”
My jaw goes slack because my aunt is going to break me down too. “The latter,” I admit. Instantly, our eyes hold, and I know she’s studying me.
Her hip tips out, and she gives me a closed-mouth smile. “Ah, that’s right. Hadley is your wife now, which means she’s madly in love with you and won’t throw them at you?” She taps a purple flower.
“Have your theories, but I don’t know, I feel like… I need to change the playbook a bit. Shake it up.” I’m supposed to be a good husband to annoy her, but now I know it’s because I want to convince her, I’m not entirely sure of what because we shouldn’t be the end game, even if we’re meant to be.
“Sometimes we realize it’s true love a little later.” She indicates her head to a bouquet behind me. “Pick one. She likes roses, especially single roses because it’s simple and more fitting for a dancer, she says. Hadley orders one for each of her dancers at the year-end recital.”
That sounds like something she would do, she’s thoughtful like that.
“Then the red one it is, but make it six.”
“Classic.” My aunt walks to the bucket on the ground. “Remember when you helped me out here one summer?”
I snort a laugh. “You mean when I was grounded for throwing a party when you were watching us and had to volunteer my services? Yeah, I remember.”
“I made you study the meanings of flowers, especially the significance of numbers and roses. Funny that you pick six.”
Damn, she’s good.
I awkwardly rub the back of my neck. “Is it so wrong that a husband asks for six roses?”
She ceremoniously snips her scissors for the wrapping paper. “Not at all. I’m just happy that your inner emotions chose the number six, which I know you know means ‘I want to be yours.’ Someone is hopelessly romantic for their new wife, I’d say.”
So what? I’m using other methods to state the obvious. It’s far easier than saying it.
“Maybe,” I play coy.
My aunt laughs wickedly. “If your new playbook is to woo your wife into staying your wife, then you are off to the right start. Do you know what I think?” She adjusts her stance. “You’re going to hear it anyhow. You woke up married by accident and now you’re trying to decide the path to convince her to stay.”
I heave a long sigh. “Have you ever been in a situation where something feels too right but you know it won’t work?” Not after what happened.
She laughs as she tapes the paper. “You mean, did my now husband feel he wasn’t relationship material, even though we were explosive together? Yeah, I’ve been in
that situation, but eventually you can’t ignore that plans and feelings change, and you might just be inseparable.”
I tap the counter and stare down at the roses. I feel like I’m crawling in my skin. I’m beginning to think that I’ve done something so wrong, that it’s too late and the damage has been done, that I can’t make Hadley fall for me. But I think I should try, really try. It’s what I would have done all those years ago. It would have been easier, as she was already mine then.
“I hope you’re right,” I nearly whisper.
Maybe it’s time to fix a mistake.
* * *
I’m buriedamongst a pile of deliveries and presents when Hadley returns home.
“What in the world?” She drops her keys on the counter and surveys the breakfast-nook area.
“Wedding gifts. News spreads fast, and now we have sponsors and anyone who is anyone in hockey sending us stuff,” I explain as I open another package and pull out his-and-hers t-shirts and drop them like a hot potato.
Hadley studies the contents on the chairs and tables. “We have to donate some of this stuff. What would we do with a basket of a hundred candy bars? And do we really needanotherblender?”
I play with the card for the next gift. “You could always hoard this stuff and save it for when we decide to part ways.” I’m testing the waters.
