His eyes shadow, and his thick brows pull together. “I guess, if we have to.”
“It’s your choice.” Sonia leans back and reseats herself on the wingback chair. “These sessions are for you. They’re to discuss whatever it is you’d like to discuss, not what I suggest. So if you don’t want to, then you certainly do not have to.”
“Maybe next time.” Like Sonia, he sits taller again, switches legs when he realizes he’s uncomfortable, and when he notices I’m watching and making notes, he stretches forward and takes his glass of water.
He’s nervous, and I’m not sure he understands why… which is both intriguing and inconvenient, because I want to know what’s in his mind. I want so badly to be able to dissect his thoughts and drill down to what he’s really thinking.
But since that’s not possible, I’m forced to instead watch his actions. His bouncing knee, his tapping fingers. His broad chest expanding, his Adam’s apple as it bobs in his throat, and his darting eyes as they come back to me, time and time again.
Jason’s hour progresses with more stories of his Maria. More crazy times, wild nights, failed high school exams, and memorable pride parades. It’s warming to hear of this woman he never stopped loving. He laughs at her silly behavior, but he speaks with such reverence. He shakes his head at the memories of rallies they attended together, or parades, political events, simple town hall meetings. They were just children themselves, but they were vocal… or at least, she was. And he accepted that about her, and was ready to ride the rollercoaster right along with her.
Each time he broaches the topic of ‘the end’, he backtracks, and remembers something else that makes us all smile. He’s a professional procrastinator, a skilled deflector, because although logic demands he finish his story, he never truly does.
The end hurts him, and he’s resistant to visiting that time again.
An hour after he walked in, he walks out again, and smiles for us as he goes. The second the door closes, Sonia leaps up from her chair and dives onto the phone on her desk.
“Calla. Is Ryan here yet?” She waits for a response. “Alright. Can you give us ten minutes before sending him in? I need time to debrief from the last. Excellent. Thank you.”
She hangs up, and then like the proverbial executioner, she turns to me, leans against the edge of her desk, and folds her arms. “What happened this morning between you, Jason, and Luke? Spill it all.”
Luke
Dinner Date
Whoever invented the necktie can suck a dirty dick. Whoever thought that was the standard to which men should dress when escorting beautiful women out to dinner after dark can join the first guy, and then they can suck each other’s dicks. And then the guy who decided flowers are where it’s at, something pretty and smelly to impress the ladies… he can join the first two, and they can take it in turns to rotate on each other’s laps.
But here I am anyway, standing inside a flower shop while a tie attempts to choke me to death.
“Umm…” I reach up and try to loosen the noose around my neck as the scents from a billion flowers permeate the air and make me dizzy. “Maybe something that says she’s beautiful and important, but not ‘We’re going to a funeral’?”
The shop’s owner – Abigail, with her bicolored eyes, and light red hair… a red much different to Ally’s – laughs and walks the aisles of her store. She’s so small, so dainty and soft, that I’m afraid to breathe too heavily and knock her over.
And let’s not get it twisted; I’m not afraid of hurting her when I knock her over. I’m afraid of her seven-foot-tall army commando, muscle-clad, gun-toting psycho-husband killing me when I accidentally make her stumble a single inch.
Spencer Serrano is a family friend, for sure. But look at his wife wrong, and they’ll never find your body.
“First date?” She stops in front of a display of tulips and sniffs. “In love, or buying forgiveness?”
“Er… I’m not asking for forgiveness. But it’s a first date, so love is… ya know…” I wave her off. “Not yet.”
“Hm.” Grinning, she moves away from the tulips and slows in front of a vase overflowing with something that droops and dangles over the edge. “Not this.” She fingers the weeping greenery, and moves into roses. “But this… roses are typical for a first date, and they communicate to the recipient that they’re important. But I think, perhaps,” she hedges, “red might give off vibes you’re not quite ready for. So how do you feel about pink?”
“Um…” I reach up to loosen the godforsaken tie again. I feel like a monkey on show – dance for me, you whipped bitch. “Sure. If you think pink is the right choice.”
“You’re really struggling with this, huh?” Abigail looks across the shop when the door opens and the bell above jingles, then when she catches sight of her visitor, she smiles, comes back to me, and grabs two bouquets; one red, one pink. “Come with me.”
She hugs the bouquets to her almost flat chest, and circles around to the other side of the counter. Then, grabbing a pair of scissors, she goes to work massacring the bouquets until two dozen roses lay out on the counter between us.
“Red feels a little serious, but pink seems almost a little too blasé. So how about we use both.”
She grabs a red. Then a pink. Red. Pink. She builds a brand new bouquet by circling the first two flowers, and between all those, she adds little sprigs of… something green.
“Your lady friend will love this bunch, guaranteed.” Smiling and humming as she works, Abigail holds the new bouquet in one hand, and reaches into the pocket of her apron with the other to grab out a spool of ribbon.
Her movements are fast, practiced, as she wraps white lace around the stems, then tying it all together, she snips the ends, fusses until it’s to her liking, then sweeping the unwanted trash away, she sets her new creation in a vase that sits by the till, just waiting for flowers to fill it.
“She’ll love them, and if they don’t buy you an immediate kiss on the cheek and a heartfelt thank you, then you come back here, and I’ll refund your money.”
“Wow.” Reaching back, I take out my wallet and chuckle. “That’s quite the guarantee. You give that kind of assurance to all of your customers?”
Laughing, she shakes her head and offers the card-reading machine so I can tap. “But I get the feeling I could be right with you. You’re dressed up so nice, and that tie is annoying the dickens out of you, but you did it anyway.”
“Do women really, truly care about the tie? Is it a deal-breaker?”
“No, Luke.” When my card is accepted and a receipt begins shooting out of the machine, she shakes her head a second time and looks up at me with a sweet smile. “You can lose the tie, and I doubt you’ll be punished for it.”
“Thank god.” I rip the choking material from around my neck and fist it within a second. Shoving it into my pocket, I grab my heavy bunch of roses and finally smile. “I can already breathe better.”
“No point being uncomfortable. I hope you have a lovely night, and whoever is getting those flowers, I hope she appreciates them the way she should.”