Sophia...
"Do you want me to wrap these for you, Mrs Morris?" I loudly ask the very hard of hearing, but also the very sweet and elderly customer. She loyally comes in every single Saturday to buy her sister a small bunch of flowers before she goes to her house for afternoon tea.
"Yes please, dear."
"Freesias are your sisters favourite, aren't they?" I politely start chatting to Mrs Morris, she is always so lovely to talk to.
"They are indeed. Gladys will be especially pleased with her bunch today, Sophia." She watches me carefully wrapping the inexpensive pink Freesias and Gypsophilia with as much care and attention to detail as I do with an expensive bunch of flowers. As I hand the kindly Mrs Morris her thoughtfully bought flowers, she frowns at me with a worried smile on her face. "Thank you. You look awfully pale today, Sophia. Are you working too hard, dear?"
Chuckling quietly, I shake my head. "No, I'm fine. I've just had a really late night, that's all."
"Oh to be young again!" Mrs Morris chorally replies with a nostalgic twinkle in her eye as she pays for her flowers. Giving back her change with a warm and open smile, my lovely customer then sweetly says. "See you next week, Sophia." With a spritely spring in her step, Mrs Morris is soon turning to leave the shop.
Rushing to open the door for her, I broadly smile. "Have a nice time at your sisters." With a brief wave, we say our warm goodbye's and then I quickly go out to the back room to grab a new pack of assorted tissue paper. I do wrap flowers in cellophane, but only if I am asked. I prefer to dress my beautiful flowers in the delicate paper. To me, they look even more enchanting when they are swaddled in a fine pastel and papery cocoon. My gentle door bell then tells me that a customer has just come into the shop. With the tissue paper in my arms, I hurry back out to the counter. My heart momentarily stops and my stomach rolls over and over with wild anxiety. "Cade? What are you doing here?" I anxiously ask, laying the paper down on the counter as I blink in total disbelief at the confident sight of him.
With a crooked grin, he eagerly gives me his answer. "I was left feeling slightly used after last night. You didn't even say goodbye." His amused green eyes are playfully fixed on me as he pretends to be offended by my hasty retreat from his bed last night. In my tatty ripped jeans and off white T shirt, I feel totally scruffy in his clean and casual company. Even in the hair department, he totally wins. His is tidily groomed, while mine is in an unbrushed messy top bun. Cade is not only here, he is here when I am looking and feeling like absolute shite.
Feeling embarrassed, mortified and super awkward, my tone quickly becomes abrupt. "I had to work." I nervously start playing with the corners of the tissue paper, wanting to be anywhere but here.
"You look a little tired."
His warm and naturally expressed concern is kind of nice, but I still feel really uncomfortable in his surprising presence, meaning that my tone becomes even more abrupt. "I am tired." I rudely snap, trying not to think too much about why exactly I am feeling so tired. As nice as Cade is actually being, I just can't handle him being here. I came to work, not wanting to think about last night. But last night has just walked into my bloody flower shop and I don't like it. I don't like it at all. Needing to be brutally blunt, I lay my cards rudely on the table. "Look, I honestly don't understand why you are even here? Last night was last night. I'm really not comfortable with you just showing up at my place of work."
Sensing my anger, Cade is suddenly no longer displaying his overly self assured smile. In fact, all of his confidence is quickly replaced with the onset of growing disappointment. "What's wrong, Sophia?"
My defensive shoulders pull back, my chin stubbornly high. "Nothing is wrong, you just shouldn't be here. What happened last night, it won't happen again." Is the clipped explanation I give for my unreasonable coolness towards him.
Cade blinks hard, processing my words. "I see." Comes his measured and calculated reply. Tilting his head slightly, he offers me a sympathetic smile. "I only came to check that you were okay, I didn't come because I wanted last night to happen again."
Still, I dig my stubborn heels in. "Thanks for that, but I really think you had better leave now." My stomach keeps on rolling over and over with huge waves of sickening nerves, his being here is now the constant reminder of what I stupidly did last night.
"Sophia, I am sorry if my behaviour upset you last night. Maybe it was wrong of me to have asked you to sleep with me? But just for the record, I had a wonderful time." He stands tall, proudly tall. "I would really like it if we could start again. Maybe dinner sometime?" There's a hopeful lilt to his otherwise deep voice.
I know Cade is trying to make me feel better, but today, there is no Chardonnay and no need to be reckless. "I just can't." Is my guiltily clad reply.
Wryly smiling, Cade shrugs his shoulders. "Help me out here, Sophia? I'm trying to apologise here!" Just as I'm about to grumble something back, another customer strolls in.
The older looking man instantly recognises Cade. "Lapley, I'm surprised to see you in here?" My ears are just as instantaneously alerted to the Lapley name being mentioned. Here in the market town of Cirencester, that name is pretty well known around these parts of east Gloucestershire. Revered and despised—usually at the same time, I am quietly floored to learn that Cade is the Lapley Lothario that I've heard mentioned from time to time over the years.
"You too, Benson." Cade stiffens, he himself now becoming uncomfortable.
"It's the wife's birthday, thought I'd better get her the obligatory bunch of flowers to mark the occasion."
This Benson chap explains with a halfhearted chuckle, staring across at Cade with his beady blue eyes; who actually now seems a little annoyed and his reply absolutely conveys that annoyance. "A man should only ever buy flowers because he truly means the sentiment behind them."
"Are you drunk, Lapley?" Benson seems to know Cade quite well, judging by the humorous and familiar way that he converses with him.
Cade isn't impressed by this Benson's joking around, not one little bit. "I am quite myself, thank you." His voice is coated with a warning not to insist on pushing him any more than his acquaintance already has.
This Benson guy seems to take the subtle warning fully on board, his next question is asked in a far less bold and brash way. "So, who is the lucky lady that has Cade Lapley buying her flowers, then?"
Cade turns his disgruntled attention firmly back onto me, staring hard with his narrowed green eyes. "I wish to buy some flowers for someone I have only just met." He calmly says, keeping his spheres intimidatingly still onto mine.
This Benson fella just scoffs with his bushy greying eyebrows raised high on his weathered forehead. "I didn't have you down as the buying flowers kind at all, Lapley."
"There's a lot you don't know about me, Benson." Comes his sharp reply. I honestly don't know whether Cade is saying that to the slightly arrogant man in my shop, or to me, because still, he hasn't lifted his determined gaze.
Without putting any thought whatsoever into the flowers he is buying for his wife, the man just picks up the first bunch close to hand, thrusting them towards me without even looking in my direction. "Who is this lady? Anyone I know?" Benson gets out his wallet, pulling out a crisp fifty pound note and smugly placing it down on the counter beside me as I busily start wrapping the assorted tulips for him, knowing that Cade is watching my every edgy move.
"For now, I am keeping who she is, all to myself." That's when I stupidly look up at him, only to be met with one of his slanted and cocksure smirks.
No no no! Don't let him drag you into yet another one of his stupid little games! My panicking thoughts urge me to stay strong against Cade's compelling stare and his very appealing grin. "There you are, I hope your wife likes them." Handing over the now prettily dressed tulips, I completely bypass Cade and his tempting smirk, choosing not to react in any way whatsoever. Opening my till, I quickly organise giving this Benson chap his change.
"Thanks." He says, carefully putting the notes back into his wallet and shoving the handful of change deep into his trouser pocket. Not once does this Benson fella actually look at me, he's far too interested in Cade. "Will you be at the bar after work this Friday?"
Cade nonchalantly shrugs. "Not sure yet."
Benson turns with a wink of his wrinkled eye, tapping Cade's shoulder as he prepares to leave. "That's if you're not otherwise engaged, am I right?" He crudely grins as he nears the shop door, not even waiting for an answer because he seems to know that Cade won't let on either way what he is doing on Friday night.
As soon as the arrogant customer has thankfully gone, I stand behind my counter with a determined stance. "Are you going to leave me to get on with some work now?" My annoyance with Cade hasn't disappeared, nor is it likely to. He's Cade bloody Lapley!
With just a small and inquiring smile, he replies. "That depends."
"On what?"
"That you will let me take you out for dinner tonight?"
"I'm sorry, I can't." I'm now leaning against my counter, feel tireder by the second.
Cade sighs, sinking both of his hands into the pockets of his expensive jeans. "I meant what I said earlier, let me make it up to you, Sophia...no dares, no strings."
Jaded and cautious, I cock my head slowly to the side. "I appreciate the apology and I appreciate you coming to check on me, but I can't go out with you again...I'm sorry."
Cade doesn't hide his frustration, more than likely because he isn't used to being told no. "Okay...well, I guess I had better let you get on, then." He rigidly turns, reluctant almost. As he opens the shop door, he pauses to look back at me. "Take care of yourself, Sophia." He throws me a weak and hindered smile.
With his back to me, the guilt quickly hits. "Cade?"
"Yeah?"
"I really am sorry. It's just...Paul and then what happened last night...it's just....." I can't seem to find what I know I want to say. As great as being with Cade was, it never should have happened. I was hurting and reeling from Paul breaking up with me. Last night was a mistake, a mistake that I can't ever return to.
Being his charismatic self, Cade tries to put me out of my babbling misery. "I get it, Sophia...I really do."
But because he is being so very nice, I feel even guiltier. "You really are wonderful, just not my wonderful." There's a solemness coating my words as I smile across at him standing in the doorway, now so ready to leave. Cade simply nods with an empty and brief smile—his goodbye smile. As he disappears from out of sight, I feel like my lungs are finally able to work again. Then from out of nowhere, I cry.
I cry because of Cade.
I cry because of Paul.
I cry because of last night.
I cry because of my tiredness.
For a few minutes, I let out my overwhelmed feelings and let my tears freely fall. I have kept them all inside of me, and letting it all out, actually helps.
I know I will be okay. I just need to give myself a little bit of tlc first.
I will get over Paul and I will get over last night. Everyone does stupid things when they are hurting, and I'm certainly no different. I guess as one night stands go, I had an epic one. I have unwittingly become yet another notch on the Lapley Lothario's bedpost. But for all of his notorious ways, Cade has shown me he actually has a sweet side.
He didn't need to come here today, yet he did.
Maybe all the rumours are just that?
But there's usually no smoke without fire, right?
Anyway, I really can't be thinking about all of this right now. I just need to chalk it down to epically stupid experience...and move on.