Started With a Lie

Chapter Twenty-Eight

        I press a hand to my chin and stare at him real hard. I look from his long legs up. He’s pretty tall and has better legs than I do. His eyes are a nice shade of green, like the green in trees after blooming. He has tattoos running up and down his left arm and I squint to see that they are various things—a rose, a ship, Things I Can’t, etc.

        I know that I’ve seen him before and my heart lurches every time I try to remember.

        “Hey,” he says softly. Marcel walks over to me and takes my left wrist. He brings me over back to where the flowers are and outstretches his hand. “Pick any flowers. I will give them to you, free of charge.”

        I look at the bright dashes of colors from every flower. “I shouldn’t, really.”

        Marcel looks at me. “Please do. I don’t mind. And my boss inside probably won’t mind I gave some pretty flowers to a pretty girl.”

        I laugh. “Quit flirting with me. Didn’t you hear Lee?”

        “Lee?” Marcel says, raising his eyebrows. “What a name for such a…passionate man.” He presses his lips together to stop laughing.

        “Hey!” I say, but I laugh as I say it. “That’s my man you’re talking about!”

        “Okay okay,” he says, raising his hands in surrender. He smiles and shows me both his dimples. “But take some flowers or I will continue to harass your fiance.”

        I giggle as I reach for some baby’s breath. They’ve always enchanted me with their simplicity and beauty. “These are all I want,” I say to Marcel and he grabs some cellophane and wraps it up for me. He even adds a pretty pink bow.

        “So, where are you two headed?” Marcel asks, handing me the bouquet of flowers. He starts to walk back to his bike.

        “Uh, I don’t know actually,” I say. Where are we headed? Lee never said and I will have to ask him once he’s done in the store. “We kind of just drove off and had a impulsive date thing. It’s crazy, really.”

        Marcel starts wrenching some screws and tightening them before he finishes and sets his tools aside. He enters his key into the ignition and revs his motorbike that creates a growling noise. He smiles at it before taking his key out. “That’s sweet of you and Lee,” he says. “You two in love?”

        I look at him and suddenly it kind of hits me. Nobody’s really asked me directly to my face if I was actually in love with Lee Richardson. And now that Marcel has, I don’t know how to let the words out of my mouth. I glance down at my flowers and smile. “I do,” I say, “I do love him and I’m in love with him.”

        “Deeply?”

        “Deeply.”

        “And what about him? Is that old chap in love with you?”

        “I hope so,” I say, nervously laughing. “That’d be awkward if he wasn’t.”

        Marcel laughs along with me before putting the tools he had been using inside a box and setting it to the side. “Listen…I have to go now.”

        “You do?” I ask. “Don’t you work here though?”

        “About that…,” Marcel says, looking at the ground and scratching the back of his head. “I don’t actually work here and my name isn’t even Marcel.”