Flowers and Financiers by Alina Jacobs

8

Sebastian

Icouldn’t believe I was going to have to work with that horse girl.

I fumed as I paced around my office. The building was a short walk from the Harrogate train station, on a slight hill, with a view over the quaint town. State of the art with polished concrete floors and floor-to-ceiling windows, the clean and sterile interior normally calmed me. But not today. Every time I took a step, I could feel the ever so slight catch of something sticky on my shoe against the floor.

I pulled my shoe off for the fifth time that afternoon and ran a wet wipe over the sole. It should have removed any lingering traces of the candy-topped coffee horror that Amy had spilled everywhere. But for some reason, it felt like a spot of the syrupy drink was still on my shoe.

It’s probably just your imagination.

Maybe it’s stress.

I had to admit I was stressed about the wedding.

I liked schedules. I liked plans. I liked to know what was happening months in advance.

At my company, everything from the types of products we developed to the ad campaigns we ran was planned out months if not years in advance. And now we were just supposed to what? Throw a wedding together in a few weeks? Impossible.

I hated uncertainty. It was messy. Just like Amy.

“Honestly, she had an entire plant in her bag,” I said to the wall.

“Who has a plant? Are you putting some plants in here?”

“Hey, Alfie.” I stood up and gave him a hug. “How was school?”

“Great! We’re starting a biology unit, and we have to make a self-sustaining biodome. Plants, dirt, and an animal go into a bottle, and they sustain one another,” he explained, showing me all his worksheets excitedly.

I winced at the thought of all that mud and moss in a bottle that was going to live in the house.

“If it does really well,” Alfie said brightly, “you can keep it in your office!”

Absolutely not.

“Sure,” I lied, hoping I sounded enthusiastic enough that I wouldn’t ruin his self-esteem.

My brother laughed and patted my arm. “You need some green in your life.”

“I can see a tree from my window.” I pointed.

“In your life. And you need a girlfriend.”

“I’m busy.”

“No, you aren’t.” Alfie hopped into my chair. “I talked to your secretary.”

I bit down the urge to tell him to be careful. He was fine—had been fine for years—though when he had been in the middle of his treatment, he had bruised so easily.

My little brother chattered on as he spun around, kicking his feet.

“I found a nice lady for you on Tinder,” he said, showing me his phone.

“You’re not supposed to be on that app.”

“I’m not. You are.” He stuck his tongue out at me. “The Svenssons helped me make a profile for you. You have a ton of matches! This really nice lady who says she likes pandas matched with you, and you have a date this evening.”

“I can’t,” I said automatically. “I have a three-hour meeting scheduled from six to nine. It’s an emergency discussion about one of our new products.”

My little brother giggled. “It’s a fake meeting. I had the secretary block off the time. She agrees with me. You need to get out more.”

He smiled up at me brightly. “It will be fun!”

Fuck.

* * *

The restaurant wasn’t too crowdedwhen I walked in. Girl Meets Fig was a local place run by Zoe, one of the Svensson brothers’ girlfriends.

She did not suffer fools in her restaurant. No, you could not make changes to the order, though you could barter for a meal.

It was the classic small-town quirkiness that most people were looking for when they moved to Harrogate. Though charming at first, it did have the tendency to wear on one after a while.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just fry these!”

“It’s a health concern,” Zoe said to an older man in a corduroy scarf.

“It’s not a health concern. These zucchini are freshly picked!”

“I know you stole them from the Costco, Art,” Zoe said, pinching the bridge of her nose under her glasses. She signaled to me to pick a table.

“Lies!” Art complained.

“I see the sticker on them!” Zoe said, flabbergasted.

I took a seat at a table in the corner with a view of the restaurant and waited for my date.

It had been years since I had been on a date, let alone had a girlfriend. Part of me was dreading it. What would we talk about?

Alfie had tried to give me a rundown of my blind date, but all I had been able to glean from the chatter was that the girl liked pandas, the color pink, and nail polish.

Was she really the type of person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with?

You’re not about to get married. It’s just a date. It’s barely a date. This isn’t a super-fancy restaurant.

But the woman who pranced in a few moments later was dressed to the nines—five-inch stilettos, a designer mini dress, hair perfectly blown out, and a diamond necklace.

“Sebastian, hi!” she said in a high-pitched baby voice, drawing out the words. She ignored my outstretched hand and wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing my cheek noisily. “It’s so nice to finally meet you!”

“Have you been here before?” I asked her politely.

“I live in Manhattan, actually,” she admitted, “but I’m really thinking of moving to Harrogate.”

“I see,” I said.

“It’s so adorable! Small towns are so cute and a great place to raise a family. I would love to have a wedding here,” she said as I pulled out a seat for her. “I already have my dream wedding planned out. I want a whole wedding weekend with candles everywhere and tons of flowers.”

This date is probably going to feel like an entire weekend,I decided as I stared at the menu while making noncommittal noises as the girl talked sixty miles an hour. I looked around, hoping Zoe would come take drink orders. Unfortunately, there was now a line of people at the cash register because one woman was trying to argue down the bill.

“No discounts,” Zoe said loudly. “You ate the whole fish pie, so it couldn’t have been that bad.”

“I need a drink,” I muttered.

“Oh my god! I love alcohol!” The girl giggled. “I totally want the raspberry vodka. I saw a picture of it on Instagram, and I told my bestie from college—we’re sorority sisters, and we’re graduating together—that she should serve it as her signature cocktail. Actually…” My date gave me a sly look. “You know, you kind of look like her fiancé. What was your last name? Randal?”

“No,” I corrected her, trying not to sound annoyed, “it’s Rawlings.”

“Oh my god!” my date squealed. “You are totally my sorority sister’s fiancé’s son! Oh my god, my best friend is going to be your mother-in-law.”

My date pulled out a phone and stuck it in my face. “Is this your dad?”

Sure enough, there was my father with future bride number three.

Neglectful, smug bastard.

The girl giggled. “No wonder Tatiana keeps saying she might be trading up one day. You’re ten times more handsome and probably, like, a thousand times richer than him. She’s going to be so jelly when I tell her I was on a date with you.”

I felt her bare foot stroke up my leg.

“She says your dad is really good in bed, but I bet you’re ten thousand times better than that too.”

“Hello! Welcome to Girl Meets Fig.”

I was saved by Zoe. Wait, that wasn’t her.

“Unfortunately, we will not be accepting the roadkill you brought in today. We just had a guy come in with a whole deer.”

“You serve roadkill here?” my date screeched.

My shoulders tensed, and I forced myself to look up and meet Amy’s eyes.

“I’m not roadkill,” I growled at her.

“I mean, you are,” Amy said, “but I was referring to that.” She pointed at my date’s purse.

“This is a very expensive Louis Vuitton bag!” my date said haughtily. “Small-town imbecile.”

“It looks like a three-day-old dead possum.” Then Amy leaned over and stage-whispered to me, “Don’t forget to take the condom with you. You don’t want to be stuck to someone like that the rest of your life.” Amy tapped her forehead with her pen.

“The nerve,” my date huffed. “I want a different waitress.”

“She’s not a waitress,” I said irritably. “She’s just over here harassing me.”

“Zoe is a very dear friend of mine,” Amy said, voice as sweet as pie, “and as you can see, it’s a little busy in here.”

The next person in line was demanding extra bread.

“If he gets extra bread, I want extra bread!” one man hollered.

“I want my bread first before he gets any,” I said loudly.

My date gave me a horrified look.

“It’s caramelized onion focaccia,” I tried to explain. “It’s the most delicious thing you’ll ever taste.”

Amy bit back a smirk.

“These small-town guys,” she said to my date, “uneducated, uncouth.”

“I am not tolerating this. I’ve been here for thirty minutes, and we don’t even have drinks,” my date snapped.

“Or bread,” I said loudly.

Zoe huffed over and threw a basket of warm caramelized onion bread onto the table.

“I don’t eat bread,” my date said, wrinkling her nose.

“You should try it,” I coaxed, trying to salvage the date for my brother’s sake.

She took a little nibble.

“I thought dating a billionaire meant going to fancy dinners and charity balls,” my date whined, “not jostling in a crappy small-town restaurant for free bread.”

“That’s too bad,” I said, “because this is the most exciting evening I’ve had since the town hall meeting last month.”

“Drink order?” Amy tapped her notepad.

“Raspberry muddle,” my date said sourly.

“And a scotch. And can I put in an order for extra bread?”

“No one gets extra bread!” Zoe yelled from behind the bar.

“But I’m going to pay for it.”

“There is a limit. You can’t just eat bread,” Amy told me.

“I don’t want to hear any more about the bread!” my date finally yelled. “It’s not even that good!”

The babbling in the restaurant was cut short. The crowd turned collectively to stare murderously at me and my date.

“Out!” Amy demanded, pointing at the door.

“Fine,” my date said, grabbing her bag and stomping out. “I’ve had enough of crazy small towns.”

Amy picked up the piece of bread my date had nibbled on and tore off a piece.

“Yum! I can’t believe she left. This is really good bread.”

My mouth fell open. “I can’t believe you just ate that!”