Chapter 1
Low music played from Hyacinth’s phone as her alarm woke her for another day. Rolling over in bed, her eyes cracked open to look at the semi-darkness of her room. Another day, another dollar. Well, not quite a dollar, but it was pretty damn close. Living in beautiful Santa Barbara had its perks, but it also came with some crazy challenges. One being how expensive it was to live in the area.
Hyacinth glanced over at her phone, noticing the time. She groaned before flipping her bed cover to the side so she could free her legs. When she climbed out of bed to shower, she smelled the distinctive scent of bacon frying. “Yummy. Thanks Brie.”
Her roommate Brie was a free spirit with lots of money from her parents and could be spoiled as shit sometimes. But one benefit of having her as a roommate was that Brie could cook her ass off. Maybe it was all those days hanging out with the cooks and maids while her parents traveled the globe.
Unfortunately, cooking was one thing Hyacinth never quite mastered. If the apocalypse began tomorrow, she would have no problem living on canned beans and corn for the rest of her life.
Torn between food and shower, she chose the shower. It would take thirty minutes to get to her Plucking Ladies Garden Club meeting, and she didn’t want to be late. A smile came over her face as she thought about the ladies in the club. Since she found them a year ago, they’d been her saving grace. It was a mixed group of women. Young and old. From all types of backgrounds and situations. Black. White. Asian. Latina. Those ladies had taught her more about keeping her small garden green, colorful, and flourishing than she ever could have done on her own.
Not that she had a huge garden like some of them did. But Hyacinth was proud of her little slice of heaven, and that’s all that mattered.
Finished with her shower and other morning care, the temptation to grab some of that good smelling bacon took over. As she exited her room and walked down to the kitchen, she promised herself she would only grab a slice… okay, maybe two, then she would get dressed and head out.
“Brie, that bacon smells so good. You know the way to my heart.” Turning into the kitchen, she froze. Her body went stiff. Her mind started going through different scenarios. Stranger danger. Run. Hide. Knife. Police. “What the fuck?”
“Oh, hey. You must be Flower?”
“Who the fuck is Flower, and why are you in my kitchen?” If Hyacinth had taken a moment to think about the situation, she may not have been so confrontational. There was a strange man in her kitchen, after all. At his look of confusion, her anger riled up, but at least she was smart enough to take a step back.
“Aren’t you Flower?” Looking over his shoulder, he lifted one arm and motioned upstairs. “Brie’s still sleeping. She told me her roommate’s name was Flower. Aren’t you the roommate?”
Well, fuck. “No,” she snapped. “My name is not Flower.”
“Hmmmm, well, you certainly look like a beautiful rose.” His eyes traveled up and down her body. With a dawning realization, Hyacinth remembered she was dressed in only panties and a bra.
“Motherfucker,” she cursed before turning around and running back up the stairs. Once back in her room, she threw on a robe and stormed over to her roommate’s door. Not caring if Brie was asleep, Hyacinth banged on the door. “Open up, Brie. Get your ass out of bed.”
It wasn’t that Brie couldn’t bring men home. They were both adults. As grown women, they had needs that had to be fulfilled. But they had an agreement. If they brought someone home, that person wasn’t allowed to roam their house without first being introduced to the other person who lived there. Hell, if either of them wanted a sneaky link who came to break them off a little something, it was no big deal. But the person sure as shit wasn’t supposed to be hanging out in their kitchen cooking breakfast the next morning.
Her fist banged on the door again. “If you don’t open up, I’m coming in. You have five seconds.”
As she waited for Brie, some of her anger disappeared. In all fairness, she was the one who walked into the kitchen in her bra and panties. But why should she have to police how she dressed in her own home? She and Brie didn’t have any issues seeing each other in various stages of undress. It would have been no big thing. Except for the strange man who had no qualms about staring her up and down.
Brie finally opened her bedroom door. “What, Hy? Damn, I was asleep. Do you know how long I was out last night?”
“Don’t really care. Who is the strange man in our kitchen?”
Her eyes darted back to the empty bed before her head dropped. “Shit. That’s Eddie. I told him to wake me up before he left.”
“Well, he didn’t leave. Apparently, he’s making breakfast.”
She smiled. “I thought I smelled bacon. So, were you nice?”
Hyacinth shook her head at the clueless question. “Are you serious? Brie, we had an agreement. Listen, you need to take care of your guest. I need to get dressed and go to my garden club meeting.”
Her roommate leaned against the door as if she had no care in the world. “Why do you go to those meetings all the time? Aren’t there a bunch of old women just hanging around with shears and funny looking hats talking about their rose bushes? That’s just dumb. You should come out with me and just have a good time.”
The urge to roll her eyes came over Hyacinth. “Nope. I’m good. I like my garden club, which I’m going to be late for if I keep standing here talking to you. Listen, Brie, just remember we had a deal. I don’t care who you bring home, but you have another person who lives here. I walked out there in my panties and bra. That man saw more of me than anyone has in the past two years.”
“Whose fault is that?” Brie mumbled.
“What was that?
Her roommate shook her head. “Nothing. Okay, I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’ll go grab him.”
Stepping away, Hyacinth nodded. “You’ve said that before, but this time I need you to stick with it. I’m going to get dressed and head out. I’ll be back this afternoon around two o’clock. Have fun while I’m gone.”