CHAPTER ONE
If you happened to peek into Dirty Hoes Flower Co.’s window, you wouldn’t be drawn to our dancing lilies waving in their pots or the aesthetic wall of glass vases. The fresh, clean scents wouldn’t lure you in. And you definitely wouldn’t feel calm or at peace, despite the lavender. Instead, you’d be focused on the two women in the back, stacked on top of one another, screaming, swatting, and swearing—profoundly.
Why? I wish I had a better answer.
Maggie’s shoulders wobbled under my weight as she held my legs and I tried to reach the top shelf of our hardware room—a room we never went in because we didn’t know how to fix shit anyway. It was more of a neglected closet than anything. Dark wood shelves lined the small space filled with pot liners, planting gloves, clippers, and cleaning supplies. Thecracked, beige tiles creaked under us. With no light or windows, I couldn’t see but continued reaching into the abyss.
“Stand still,” I groaned, stretching my arm over a dust-covered shelf looking for a damned pitchfork. A pitchfork to help catch the creature in the greenhouse. Because we were obviously experienced enough to do so.
“Reece,” she grumbled, “hurry up or my back is going to hurt worse than when Henry—”
“Nope,” I called down. “That’s enough. I don’t”—I grunted—
“need to know what Henry did to your back.”
“Fine,” Maggie whimpered, “but hurry up.”
“If you’d quit moving.”
“I can’t quit moving.” Maggie kept mumbling beneath me as my fingers began to lose feeling from holding on to the lip of the shelf. Looking for a better grip, something far worse caught my eye.
Not the pitchfork.
It was a spider crawling in a direct beeline for my head.
“Oh, fuck!” I yanked back, and with me, Maggie lost any sense of balance she’d held on to. Heart in my chest, I snapped my jaw shut and swallowed. If I didn’t, I’d puke. Only the flames of hell created such things, and we’d already hada morning. I curled my toes in my boots, stressed and clinging to the soles.
Vaguely aware of Maggie screaming, I swatted, thrashed, and slapped until I no longer saw the beast.
“What in the world?” She gradually regained her balance, no longer swaying me.
Between post-panicking breaths, I managed to get out the word “Spider.”
She tightened her grip on my legs. “Where did it go?” The nervous rasp in her throat increased.
Truthfully, I didn’t know where it fell. But I’d have rather not told Maggie that. My hand brushed a wooden handle, and I almost cried out with joy.
“Found it.” A loud clatter to the floor told her as much. Glancing down as I dropped the pitchfork, making sure my friend stood clear of the danger zone, I saw that atop her brown curls sat the too-many-legged creepy crawler.Cursed carnations.“Maggie, get me down.”
Hysterically, I grabbed for something to hold on to, anything. “Get me down. Get me down. Get me down.”This is the end, I thought as I fought for my Gods-damned life.
“Reece!” Maggie screeched. “Oh my Gods, what’s wrong now?”
I leapt from her shoulders, wrapping my hand around the top of the door frame, and prayed to any God listening to keep me alive for ten more minutes. Ten more minutes and everything would be back to normal.
My life flashed before my eyes, and dust blew up from the ground where I crashed, but the world finally slowed. Glaring up at a very confused Maggie, I took in her round, brown eyes and knew they’d soon glow red with hatred. “There’s a spider in your hair.”
One inaudible scream later, she zoomed out of the room, smacking away at her curls.
With the pitchfork next to me, I took several deep breaths and tried to relax, knowing this should’ve been the easy part. Behind me, footsteps stormed from one end of the shop to the other. The yelling faded and Maggie’s fit ended with two slightly less angry eyes hovering above me.
“Got the bastard.” The look of victory painted her features. Dark, feathered lashes encircled her eyes, naturally rosy cheeks flushed against her brown skin. Maggie had always been the epitome of sunshine and everything else good in this world. The longer she stared at me from her stance, the harder I tried to hold back the muffled laugh blowing up my cheeks until I couldn’t any longer.
“Come on, now.” She reached out a hand. “We’ve got a rodent to catch and ten minutes until the store opens on our busiest day of the year. Best get our shit together.”
I took her hand, smiled, and pulled until I stood eye to eye with her. “Our shit is never together.”
That much remained true as we stood outside with our backs against the glass wall of our greenhouse.
