Some Like it Hotter

She couldn’t.

And that was why, though she was incredibly impatient to get to his house, to make sure he understood what she was feeling, and how those feelings had driven her actions and decision last time they were together, she was also filled with a sick, doomed certainty that having finally fallen in love with the man of her dreams, their life together until death did them part would stay alive only in her fantasies.

How depressing was that? How could she marry Zac now? She’d been ridiculous even thinking she could settle for less than a wildly passionate and deeply intimate lifelong love affair. She could see now that Zac had mostly been a buffer against her fear that she was unlovable, that this blissful union   other people all over the world seemed to slide into regularly was somehow not going to happen to her.

Well, guess what?

“Hey, Eva.” Fingers snapped in front of her face. “You in there?”

She jerked back to the present. Tom was standing about a foot away from her, looking amused, Natalie draped all over him, as Natalie was pretty much every time she saw him now. It was lovely, thrilling and just a tiny bit nauseating.

He did look incredibly handsome in his new haircut and new cool clothes. There was still something of a beauty and the beast element to their pairing, but that delighted Eva.

“Oops. Sorry.” She stepped over toward him. “I was...thinking about inventory.”

“Uh-huh.” Natalie shook her head sympathetically. She and Eva had been up late talking the night before. Natalie was in that same la-la land as all couples in the early days of their relationship, thinking nothing was simpler than being happy, and all you had to do was find the guy and everything else would fall into place.

As Eva said, a tiny bit nauseating.

“So what can I get you, coffee and...?”

“Coffee, a latte and your company when you get off work.”

Eva grimaced apologetically. “I can get you the first two...but I have somewhere to be.”

“Ooh!” Natalie brightened. “Good! Good for you.”

Eva winked conspiratorially, thinking what an amazing transformation Natalie had undergone since their first meeting, when she’d barely been able to summon a polite word or a thought that didn’t involve herself. She’d simply been unhappy.

Though Tom would definitely have his hands full on occasion. People didn’t change that completely.

“Tom has some news.” She beamed at him. “Tell her.”

“My Importance of Being Earnest musical has some interest.”

Natalie scoffed. “Some interest? Only crazed enthusiasm by one of the biggest Broadway producers in New York, Scott—”

“Shh.” Tom’s hand went gently across her lips. “No counting chickens.”

Natalie rolled her eyes. “Mmgaaffmgrb.”

“You are so right.” He took his hand off and kissed her cheek. “Thanks for being happy for me.”

“Tom!” Eva beamed at them both and handed Tom his coffee. “This is so cool. I will keep my fingers crossed.”

“Thanks.”

Eva turned to the Beast to pull an espresso shot for Natalie’s latte, feeling warm and fuzzy and thrilled for the two of them, and for Tom’s success...and also a little envious, and a little bitter, for which she was immediately ashamed. Why did human emotions have to be so complicated?

She’d just finished pouring the foaming milk into Natalie’s mug when she heard a gasp behind her and turned.

Another gasp, hers this time, and a wild acceleration of her heart.

Jinx had come in, ready to take over for her. Behind him, a giant bouquet of flowers was walking into the shop. Flowers with male legs.

Really nice legs. Not that you could tell since they were in perfectly pressed beige khakis, but she happened to know that about them.

She heard a mumble of admiration around the shop—business had picked up considerably midmorning and midafternoon since she’d made her little changes.

The flowers, a brilliantly rainbow-colored assortment of blooms large and small, multipetaled and single, tall and short, round and oval and spiky and feathery, delicate and substantial, lowered.

The only thing in the room more beautiful and amazing and heart lifting than the flowers was what had been lurking behind them.