“Mar?” He shifted the bag in his arm.
“Marlee has left the building.” Jase ducked out of the cooler. “But I am here for all your floral needs. What’ll it be? An I’m-sorry-I-screwed-up bouquet or a sorry-I’m-a-dense-dumbass houseplant?”
Marlee wasn’t there? Not that she had to check in with him, but he hadn’t realized how often they usually talked throughout the day until right then. Random texts, popping in to see each other. He’d gone nearly six hours without a Marlee hit. It was making him edgy. “Where’d she go?”
“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to disclose that.” Jase shrugged.
Eli set the paper food bag by the cash register. “Bullshit.”
“Yes, it is.” Jase lay out a vase and a bunch of purple flowers. “She went to lunch with her mom.”
Fuck a duck.
“Why’d you let her do that?”
“Her mom showed up here. Nice lady. Asked Marlee if she could buy her a meal. Marlee balked, but not much. Seemed like she wanted to go.”
“When will she be back?” This wasn’t Marlee withdrawals. This was just Eli checking she was okay after he walked out on her this morning and then she walked out on him right into the clutches of her mom.
“After lunch.” Jase gave him a funny look. “What did you do? Judging by how quiet she was today, you fucked up something.”
“Nothing.” Eli should’ve headed back to his kitchen. He didn’t. He pulled up a stool to Jase’s design counter, because he was a masochist who didn’t want to deal with his own head. So he’d let Jase deal with it. Which was probably worse. Much, much worse.
“Hold tight.” Jase grabbed his cell, tapped out a message, and dropped it back on the counter. “We’ll wait for Brek and Dean. They’ll want in on this.”
That was not what Eli had in mind to clear his head. “Why?”
“Because you’ve got a case of the Marlees.” He clipped the ends off the purple flower stems. “And when I had a case of the Heathers, you all gathered around and gave me shit advice. Same with Brek when he had the Velmas. And Dean when he had the Claires.”
Eli sighed. “There’s no use lying—Marlee’s burrowed under my skin nice and tight.”
“Yeah, I realized that when you started bringing her lunch and busting my balls for stealing her.” Jase shoved the flowers into the vase. Not shoved exactly, he took his time doing it.
Eli missed Marlee in the kitchen, but she was in heaven working for Jase, so he couldn’t be pissed about it for long. Jase must’ve misunderstood his silence, because Jase didn’t get serious often. Not taking anything serious was kind of his thing.
Right then, though, he turned to Eli, and in total seriousness, he said, “Have you seen how good she is at floral design? She could run her own fucking shop.”
Marlee loved it. And Eli loved that Marlee loved it.
“And if Marlee ran her own shop,myshop would probably go under because she’s that much better at this,” Jase continued blabbing through Eli’s internal crisis.
“I slept with her,” Eli mumbled.
“I heard.” Jase nodded and continued on like this was not news. “Vegas’ll do that.”
Jase had no idea what Vegas could do. But this wasn’t about what happened in Vegas.
“Last night. I slept with her.” Eli’s cheeks heated at the thought of what had happened afterward. That morning.
Jase paused. “I take it you weren’t in Vegas last night.”
“Nope.” Eli folded his hands together on the table. “Neither of us was drinking. We just decided to have sex.”
“Like grown-ups.” Jase nodded along with whatever he was thinking. “Doesn’t sound like something that would be that big of a deal. You’ve had sex before, my friend. Not drunk, grown-up sex.”
Eli had, but he’d never done what followed…
“And then I freaked out and ran out on her this morning.”
