I watch her stick her nose into one of the arrangements on the table and laugh when she pulls away to show me the petal stuck in her nostril. She amazes me every day with how funny and smart she is. She resembles Jenna with her hair and cheekbones, but those blue eyes and pale English skin are all me. I’m not blind to notice that my daughter is beautiful now and will be even more exquisite as an adult. I’m fully prepared to scare away all future assholes that try to weasel their way into her heart.
The vibration of my cell phone tears my attention away from Avery. I lift my phone off the counter to see a text from Robert, Jenna’s assistant and one of her closest friends. I asked him to come over to inspect my handy-work with the flowers, and he reluctantly agreed. He lets me know he’s on his way up to our apartment, prompting me to walk over to the front door to unlock it for him. I respond to his text and tell him to walk right in.
Less than five minutes later, I hear the door open, and in comes Robert, his cheeks red and eyes watery from the cold weather. “She’s on to you, man,” he says while shutting the door behind him.
“What do you mean, she’s on to me?” I ask with a questioning stare and raised eyebrow. No one knows the full extent of my plans for Jenna tonight - not even Robert, who I did enlist to help with some things.
“Every time she sees me looking at my phone, she has this knowing smile on her face and her eyes are screaming ‘I know who you’re talking to’,” he says in a voice that’s supposed to be mimicking Jenna’s when she scolds him.
“Just ignore her and act normal,” I advise, not understanding why he’s being so dramatic about it.
“I can’t just ignore my boss, Cal, especially while we’re working. She’s only questioned me once about who I keep texting and I lied, telling her it was my date for tonight sending me a dick-pic.” He shrugs his shoulder as if sending dick-pics are a normal occurrence.
“Watch it, Robert,” I warn with a growl, my head tilting to where Avery is standing, her back toward us as she continues investigating the flowers. Avery is a sponge right now, soaking up everything we say and do. I can’t have her repeating what she heard today in front of Jenna.
“Oh shit, I didn’t see her. Sorry, Cal,” he whispers with an apologetic look on his face. “I wouldn’t worry about it though; Avery never listens to me.” He looks over at her but does a double-take when he sees all the flowers. His mouth parts slightly in awe as he gazes around the room.
“So, what do you think?” I ask proudly, and I can’t help the smirk that spreads across my face while I puff out my chest in victory over pulling something of this magnitude off. Thanks to Robert, I knew exactly when Jenna needed to arrive for work, so I scheduled the florist to deliver everything ten minutes after she left.
“It’s beautiful-” Robert hesitantly responds while walking through the living room. “-for a funeral.”
My smile fades like he just took a needle and burst my balloon of excitement. I narrow my eyes at him to see if he’s joking, but his face appears to be dead serious. He stares at me for a couple more seconds before bursting out laughing.
“Cal, are you seriously upset right now?” he asks with a look of astonishment. “As much as I love flowers, even this is overwhelming for me. You know Jenna doesn’t like over-the-top kind of gestures.” He waves his arm at the flowers and my stomach sinks at the realization that he’s right.
“I told Avery she can pick out three bouquets and put them in her room. Maybe I can take a couple to Jenna’s mom when I drop Avery off,” I suggest, liking the idea the more I think about it. Jenna’s parents plan on watching Avery for us tonight, so I would only score more brownie points with Pamela Pruitt if I brought her some flowers. Not that I need to work her over - she already considers me her future son-in-law.
“Avery, I think you deserve to have the second-largest flower arrangement in your room,” Robert tells her and grabs the standing open heart-shaped arrangement of pink roses, and carries it with the easel into her bedroom. As Avery grabs the bear made of red roses and follows Robert, I look around to see if there’s one more bouquet for her to take, but everything else is too large for her small room. I find a petite square clear vase with white calla lilies and decide to put that on her dresser.
She directs us on where to put her flowers, and I chuckle at her inheriting Jenna’s sassiness. Once she’s satisfied with their new location, I tell her to get ready for our day together. Robert and I leave her bedroom, and I close her door so she can have privacy.
I grab the three large bags of rose petals off our kitchen counter and hand a bag to Robert. “Help me scatter these around the apartment,” I tell him, and he eyes the bags with skepticism. I point my finger and wave it back and forth, my eyes commanding him to keep his fucking mouth shut. I’m done listening to him tell me this is too much for Jenna.
Nothing is too much for my woman.
I rip open my bag, take a handful of petals, and toss them on the floor. I make a path with them straight from the living room to the bedroom. Once my bag is empty, I turn around and find Robert following me, a look of horror on his face as he surveys my work.
“You’re such a guy,” he says with exasperation and a shake of his head. He puts down his unopened bag, kneels to the ground, and spreads out the pile I tossed right outside the bedroom. “You need to make whimsical trails with the petals and not treat them like your raking up a pile of leaves to throw in a garbage bag!”
I smile in amusement, not understanding what the hell he means. I lean against the bedroom door frame and let him rearrange my petal trails. He’s way better at this shit than I am. Once he’s done, he inspects his work and nods to himself in approval. He looks up at me and I wave him toward my bedroom.
“Work your magic in here, Tinkerbell,” I joke, and he narrows his eyes in disdain at my nickname for him. “And don’t forget to spray some fairy dust all over the bed, please.”
“You know rose petals will stain the sheets, right?”
I look between his smug face and the bed, not realizing that they would. I’ve never celebrated Valentine’s Day before with someone as important as Jenna is to me. I’m flying by the seat of my pants, and quite frankly, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I just want to make Jenna happy.
“Thanks for the tidbit, but maybe Jenna will like her sheets stained as a beautiful reminder of all the naughty things I’ll be doing to her tonight.” I give Robert an evil smile, and he starts to make gagging noise, pretending he’s going to throw-up.
“Stop it with the visuals! You’re hurting my brain.” He squeezes the bridge of his nose
and closes his eyes as if he’s really in pain. “Seriously, Cal. No petals on the bed. Jenna will barely notice anyway since all she’s going to want you to do is suck on her lady bits like it’s an ever-lasting gobstopper.”
“What’s a gobstopper?” Robert screams like a girl as Avery startles him from behind with her question. “And why would mommy want daddy to suck on her?” Her face scrunches up in confusion. “And what are lady bits?”
“Avery Rose Harrington, what has your mother told you about creeping up behind people and listening to their conversations?” Robert scolds her, his hand placed over his erratic beating heart. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing out loud as Avery gives him her most innocent puppy-eyed look.
“I’m sorry, Uncle Robert. I didn’t mean to scare you.” She bats her eyelashes at him and he’s a goner. She has had Robert wrapped around her finger even before she was out of the womb. Robert was here for Jenna when I wasn’t. Sometimes I envy him for the years he’s had with them.