7 – Flowers

Reed rolled her shoulders as she race-walked back to the kitchen to see what food was ready for her. The place was filling up and she was already behind, but if she could just get the next few orders out she might have a minute or two to take a breather. Just before she headed into the back, the front door opened, and a group of three couples and a single guy walked in. The four men in the group didn’t walk, they lumbered and loped in, like most every cop she’d ever seen. The cops were different in uniform, more stiff and weighed down, but when you saw them in street clothes? They rolled inside their clothes. They glided. They looked as ready to dance all night as they did to brawl all night.

Reed’s breath caught in her throat as she saw the guy in the back, holding the door for everyone else. He came through last, loping the most, his gait powerful and sexy. She didn’t know about that vintage mustache on his face, but he did have yummy, bad-boy sideburns and his body was thick but rangy, like he chopped down trees for a living, but did yoga when all the sexy tree-chopping was done. Too bad he was beat up like an MMA fighter. One of the cuts on his face was fresh, like he’d been in a street fight right outside!

Nope. Uh, uh, ReRe. Grown men with bad boy sideburns are always a bad idea. That’s a heartbreaker, right there. Just look away. Reed did, easily. The last thing she needed was a fun distraction that would eventually leave her alone and eating Ben and Jerry’s like she owned stock in the company.

Reed eyed the group, without eyeing them, watching them move into the bar and decide where to sit. She couldn’t look away. She busied herself with organizing menus just to the other side of the door, holding her breath to see whose section they would sit in. They went right. Sage’s section. Reed breathed a sigh of relief and pulled herself away from the sights. She hit the door that separated the bar from the behind the scenes workings, ready to yell for Sage, when she saw Sage at the back door with a man. Reed stopped at the setup table and began to quietly load her tray, not eavesdropping more than a little.

He was a big one, with dark hair cropped close to his head. He stood just outside the doorway, hands held behind his back, looking over Sage, leaning in close to her, looking like he wanted to touch her, but he didn’t quite dare. His adoration and her upper hand were obvious from across the room. Reed sent him a tiny, silent apology. Sorry buddy, don’t get attached, Sage never does. Sage fluttered her hands at the big guy and he stepped back like she’d pushed him. She smiled at him and he moved in, trying to conform his body to hers. Reed snickered. Too late for this guy. She’d never seen him before, but he was already a smitten kitten over Sage. He’d get over it. Most of them did.

Sage kissed him on the cheek and tried to flutter him away from the door again, but he brought his hands out from behind his back and─

Flowers. Reed startled and backed away.

Sage grabbed at them and looked over her shoulder, catching Reed’s eye, a look of apology on her face. “Thank you, thank you, that’s so sweet, you’re really very sweet, but you’re going to get me in trouble if you don’t go now.” Sage pushed him out and watched him go for a second. She looked over her shoulder again at Reed and Reed tried to tell her it was ok. But it wasn’t ok. The flowers drew her attention like a bloody knife would have. She couldn’t help it. The ghost of her headache flashed bright pain behind her eyes and she closed them. She heard the screen door to the back open and close and when she opened her eyes, Sage was gone.

Reed loaded more and more silverware on her tray, her mind a still lake before a storm in which no rational thought could exist. Silverware. Tray. Silverware. Tray.

Sage rushed back inside, hands empty. “I took care of them,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

Reed shrugged, the storm beginning to blow inside her while she prepared to weather it, to pretend it wasn’t happening at all. All at once she was aware of her racing heart and the moisture in her palms. Her headache was back, too. The flowers had brought the storm, and Reed resented the hell out of it. These… attacks she had? They weren’t getting better, and the tools she’d learned from those books she’d read, they weren’t working anymore. Get ahold of yourself, ReRe, she whispered inside the swirl of her mind, trying to be her own still, calm voice.

Anthophobia, it was called, the fear of flowers, and she’d had it as long as she could remember. Except that wasn’t exactly what she had because what Reed had was fear of only cut flowers. There was a big difference, there was a huge difference!

Reed shouted the last few words inside her head, forgetting where she was for a moment, forgetting what she was doing, forgetting everything but those damn flowers screaming from the crystal vase.

A hand on her arm. A cool, soft hand that calmed her at once, that made the noise in her head fall away. “Are you ok?” a soft voice said. Familiar. Sweet. Sage.

Reed pulled herself together with effort, thick fear settling in the place where the noise had been. She was losing her hold on herself, on reality, and it was getting worse every hour. How many days away from a public episode was she? Did she have two days? Three days? A week? And once she blanked out or worse, did something that made no sense or ruined her reputation, then what? She’d have to move back home and live with her mother.

Reed grabbed at Sage’s retreating fingers like a life jacket. She squeezed Sage’s hand before letting it go, waiting for what came next. Nothing. She was tired, a little cranky, but she felt mostly normal. Thank goodness.

She smiled at Sage and nodded. “I am, thanks.”

Out in the bar, the music was turned up. The evening was getting started.

“He a cop?” Reed asked, lifting her chin at the door where the big guy had been. Normally she could tell with a look, but that guy hadn’t been obvious.

“Nah, he’s a hose man,” Sage said, her smile widening for just a moment.

Reed laughed, not asking if that meant firefighter. She would just assume it did. She pulled herself back into work mode, with effort, and told Sage what she’d meant to before she’d seen the “hose man.”

“You have seven in booth two, they look like they want food and lots of it. I’ve never seen any of them before, but the four guys are definitely cops, one of the women is probably a cop, and the other two women are possibles.” It was always good to know who were cops and who weren’t, because then they knew which fighting to stop, and which to ignore. Fighting between cops, they always ignored. They let them fight, they let boys be boys or assholes be assholes, whatever, but if it was cops fighting with bikers, or cops fighting with people who didn’t know any better, they didn’t ignore it, she’d learned that lesson early. A big fight had broken out between cops and firefighters, and the next day the bar had been empty. Not one cop or firefighter had come in for days, while their rank actively chewed them out and punishments were doled out, she’d learned later. Reed had been eating ramen with a side of ice water for all her meals. She relied on her tip money for rent and groceries, it wasn’t extra money. Anything that hurt tips, hurt Reed’s bottom line. In her new job, her real job, she would have a salary.

Sage stood on tiptoe to see out the window to booth two, where the party of seven had sat down. “Thanks,” she said, hurrying out the out-door.

Reed circled the back once, got food that belonged to her tables, and made a round through the floor, feeling eyes on her the entire time.

Someone was watching her.