in, Troy,” she said, moving through the dinky kitchen to the couch.
There was a movie on Pause and a plate of something snacky on the coffee table. He peered at it.
“Pizza rolls. I was just watching a chick flick but it’ll keep. Now what’s up with you? And take off your shoes.”
He did as he was told, then sat on the far end of the couch. “Really, nothing. I worked at Cooper’s, which is why I don’t have a date or anything. It was dead tonight, and it was still early. I had about three choices—Cliff’s, Waylan’s or your place.”
“You could have taken that new Jeep up to North Bend or even Bandon. Found a lively bar. Party a little.” She picked up the plate and offered him a pizza roll.
“Thanks.” He chewed it and nodded. “Not bad. I didn’t feel like dealing with a bunch of strangers,” he said. “I just felt like some company before I go home.” He grinned at her. “And I thought maybe I’d run into one of your boyfriends.”
“Oh, so that’s your ulterior motive and the reason you didn’t call. I didn’t want to go out tonight. I went for a run.”
“A run? You don’t get enough exercise?”
“Short hours in the shop today. The nice thing about being a one-person operation, I can close early or open late if I want as long as I have a cell number for the shop. That way I can take orders anytime. In fact, if I’m available and someone needs something, I can run downstairs and make up an arrangement. But I knew there wouldn’t be any calls tonight and, God, it was beautiful on the beach. There were a few people out there—Sarah Cooper and her dog, a couple of teenagers, one older couple I’ve never met—maybe part-timers. And me. I like to work out, but there isn’t a gym around here that matches my oddball hours.”
“You work out?” he asked.
“Not regularly. Just a bike ride or jog. I don’t lift anymore—my arms and legs get enough of a workout in the shop. My flower girl calisthenics are enough. I add cardio just so I can drink a beer and eat pizza rolls.” She offered him the last one. After putting the empty plate back on the coffee table, she curled into her corner of the sofa, her knees under her chin. “Tell me about Christmas, tell me about your family. Are you close?”
“I guess. As long as we don’t have too much togetherness.”
“What does that mean?”
He took a pull on his beer. “I love my family. I do. We don’t all get together that often and when we’re gearing up for a family thing, I get excited. Then on the third or fourth day I want to kill my sister and shove my brother in a hole.”
She sat forward a little. “Really?”
“My sister can be a bossy bitch and my brother is a screwup. Jess was married at nineteen and they started trying to repopulate the world—my niece was born when Jess was twenty. Then came a nephew and another niece and she thinks she runs a tight ship but if you ask me, the ship is sinking. The kids are out of control, my brother-in-law, Rick, works as much overtime as he can—he’s a firefighter—the house is upside down and I think Rick likes the firehouse because it’s the only place there’s enough quiet to watch a game. And my brother, Sam, can be such an idiot. He’s twenty-one going on seven and my mother would cut his meat for him if she could. He’s spoiled and irresponsible. He doesn’t even walk his plate to the sink and he has to eat on the hour. He looks in the refrigerator and sees eight slices of leftover pizza, so does he ask if anyone wants some? Of course not—he eats them all.”
Her eyes were large. “Should I be sorry I asked?”
Troy took a breath. “Nah, I’m just coming off another successful family gathering. I should’ve stayed in the motel with my folks—it gets a little tight at my sister’s”
“Your parents stayed in a motel? Why?”
“Because they’re smart! But take ’em one day at a time and they’re great, they’re really great. Jess’s kids might be loud and messy and hyperactive, but they’re also happy! Rick’s such a great guy, I don’t know how Jess captured him. And when I got moody and wouldn’t tell anyone what was bothering me, Sam took me out on the town. Not that it’s much of a town. We must’ve hit three whole bars. Of course Sam wasn’t really trying to cheer me up as much as he was hoping to get laid, but then...” His voice trailed off.
“Then...?” she asked.
“When I was twenty-one, that was always foremost on my mind. No apologies.”
She giggled. “And now?”
“Not always foremost.”
“So you love your family, when you don’t hate them?”
“I’m crazy about them all the time—we just get on each other’s nerves. We’re typical, I think. I’ll say this—half the time I want to punch my brother and slap my sister, but if anyone ever laid a hand on either one of them, I’d take ’em out. Really, I don’t know how my folks lived through us. What about your family?” he asked.
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she got up, took the plate and her bottle to the little kitchen area, retrieved two fresh beers and returned to her corner of the couch. “There’s very little to tell. My father died when I was fourteen and I’m an only child. My grandparents are gone, one set before I was even born and the other set before I was eighteen. There are some very distant relatives, but if I met some of them even once, I don’t remember. I did get a letter from someone who claimed to be a cousin or half cousin or something, but he only wanted a loan.” She laughed. “He apparently didn’t know anything about me.”
“How did you respond?”
She smiled. “I wrote back that it was very kind of him to reach out, but I wasn’t making loans at this time.”
“No one, huh?” he asked. “Your mother?”
“Also gone,” she lied, looking away. She just wasn’t willing to get into all that. Plus, she’d told Iris that she was alone. “There are friends, but probably not as many as you have. The couple who owned the flower shop in Portland where I worked, we’re close and stay in touch. I talk to them every week and visit now and then. They not only trained me in the shop but took me under their wing. Good people. They’re in their sixties and never had children, which probably explains why they think of me as family, though we’re not. And there are a couple of other friends who also stay in touch—Mikhail, to name one, but he travels all the time so I never see him. That might be one of the reasons I became good friends with Iris—we have that absence of family in common. And there’s the fact that I bought her flower shop, of course. Sometimes I look at people like Iris...and...well, you—and I feel a little abnormal, like I should try harder...”
“Iris? And me?”
“You’re both so connected to people. Iris doesn’t have family, but she has more good friends than anyone I know. The whole town loves her. The school definitely leans on her. And your family isn’t around here, but I bet you talk to them every week.”
“Pretty much,” he admitted.
“You’re really involved with people, too. The school, Cooper’s, even Waylan’s. All over town, people yell hello! But the reality is, I was raised an only child, had a very solitary upbringing and I’m probably a little too comfortable being alone.”
“People around here are pretty friendly to you, aren’t they?”
“They are. That’s what I love about this town. But I’m kind of a loner.”
“But you’ve had a lot of boyfriends,” he reminded her.
“This is true. And they’ve all been amazing. I spend time with a guy who actually owns a plantation in South Carolina, a guy with a British title of some kind—viscount I think. There’s Malone—he owns a lobster