In Full Bloom (Second Chances 1)

Stumbling through the living room, she heard Cora moan, “Make it stopppppp,” from under her blanket.

Unlocking the door, she looked around to see Evan standing there with two delivery men dragging something massive down the hallway.

“Seriously?” she said. Three sets of eyes quickly shot in her direction. “What in the fuck is so important that you need to drag it down the hallway so loudly at six in the morning on a Saturday?”

The delivery men just stared at her, mouths open, while Evan winced and said, “Sorry. This was the time they had open. I didn’t think it would be this loud. We’ll keep it down.”

“Thanks,” she grumbled, holding a hand against her head to stop the pounding.

“By the way,” he said, his lips twitching, “Nice look you’ve got going on there.”

She realized he was gesturing to her hair. She patted it until she realized the tiara from last night was tangled in her hair

She shot him a withering look and said, “Ugh. Fuck off.”

Backing up into her apartment, she slammed the door. The shuffling and shouting commenced as soon as she closed the door. Moaning, she went to the medicine cabinet and got some aspirin. She took them and then chugged the bottle of water she had taken to bed. Flopping back down on the covers, she put a pillow over her head.

When she finally surfaced, it was nearly noon. Her head felt a bit less like someone was stabbing it with an ice pick, so she got up and wandered into the living room. She saw that Cora was already gone. Picking up the note on her kitchen table, she read.

“Taryn, I didn’t want to wake you. You looked so cute with your tiara still tangled in your hair, sleeping. I had to go to brunch with my parents. I don’t think I’m going to be able to eat though. My head feels like it’s about to split open. How much did I drink last night? Why didn’t you stop me? What the hell was going on in the hallway this morning? Call me. I need details!”

Laughing, she put it down and walked into the bathroom. Flinching at her reflection in the mirror, she saw that her hair was a hot mess. Now she knew why Evan had laughed at her.

Wincing, she realized that she had been kind of a bitch this morning. He’d still been moving things in at midnight when they’d come home. She didn’t imagine that he would have been any happier getting up at six to move whatever the hell he had been moving. She should probably go apologize at some point. Right now, she had to untangle this tiara though.

She had almost given in and gotten the scissors out. She’d finally used some conditioner on her hair and it had broken free. Now she had globs of conditioner on her pajamas. Grimacing, she stripped her clothes off and took a quick shower. By the time she had gotten dressed and brushed her very conditioned hair, she was feeling much more human.

Taryn couldn’t remember the last time she’d had nothing to do. Between her internship, finishing school, studying up for her exams and worrying over the whole job thing, her life had been incredibly busy. Now that she had free time, she wasn’t sure what to do with it.

She looked around her living room at the dumpy sofa and scarred old coffee table. She realized that, for once, money wasn’t going to be an issue for her. She didn’t have student loans to pay back. She’d gone to school entirely on scholarships and grants. When she told people that, they always told her how lucky she was. It wasn’t luck though. She’d worked damn hard.

The part she didn’t share is that when she was eight, her parents had died. Her sister had been three, so she’d been adopted into a loving home. Taryn had been too old for that, though. She’d bounced around from foster home to foster home. There had been no college fund waiting for her.

It had made for a shitty childhood, but looked damn good on college applications. Being such a success story, the state had pretty much paid her to go to college. She still had quite a bit of grant money left over, as she’d lived frugally over the years. Maybe, now that she had a job, she’d replace her sofa. God knows that thing had seen better days.

Once she was more stable, she’d buy a car. Shit. She’d have to learn how to drive. Maybe Cora could show her, she thought. She smiled when she thought about Cora.

After she’d been adopted, Taryn had lost complete touch with her. There hadn’t been any resources to track her back then, so she’d really had no avenues to go down. It had been a pretty incredible thing, though. One day during her junior year of college, she’d gotten a FriendBook request out of the blue. She’d almost deleted it but then she’d looked at the young girl’s eyes. She’d known right then that this was her sister.

She’d taken two buses from the Simi Valley into Encino to meet her sister the next day. They’d taken one look at each other and cried like babies. Taryn hadn’t realized until that moment how much she missed the idea of family.

Cora’s adoptive parents had been really nice. They invited her to holiday meals, but it just reminded her that she didn’t have any real family of her own, outside of Cora. She didn’t begrudge Cora’s happiness for a second. She could only take it in small doses though. Otherwise she just started feeling sorry for herself.

Taryn shook off the sudden dark mood and opened her laptop. Checking her bank balance, she decided it was time. That couch would be leaving her apartment very soon. Possibly the beat-up old coffee table, too. Grinning, she grabbed her purse and keys. Sliding on a pair of shoes, she locked her door and headed downstairs.

Three hours later she stood at the counter of the furniture place near her apartment. She’d found a nice couch and a matching coffee table. The best part is that they had next day delivery and would move the old stuff out for free.

She’d tried almost every love seat in the Glendale area. She was happy with what she’d decided on. It was dark purple, overstuffed, and nothing like the old blue monstrosity in her apartment. She couldn’t wait to have it delivered.

When the clerk approached her, an idea struck. Petty as it was, she handed him the ticket for her items and asked, “How early can you deliver this?”

“We start delivering at 8:00 a.m. on Sundays. We may be able to make arrangements if you need something earlier though.”

She realizing that she’d need to be awake, too, and said, “No. That’s perfect.”

Twenty minutes later, she was on the bus back to her apartment. Her stomach no longer lurched when she thought about eating, so she made a quick trip to the grocery store. Feeling a new wave of energy, she decided she would make carbonara for dinner.

When she made her way up the stairs to her apartment she noticed an odd light at the end of the hallway. Realizing that the door to the roof must be open, she decided whatever it was that he was having delivered must be up there. The sheer size of that thing, she didn’t see how it could fit inside his apartment.