Page 12 of Fighting Fate
“Oh.” Quincy ogles me with wide, prying eyes. “Since when do you go for sportsmen?”
“I don’t,” I reply quickly. “It’s nothing.”
“Looks like nothing.”
“It really is,” I snap at Beth, grabbing my phone from my lap and texting Frank again as I ask Beth to send me the link to the article on her phone.
Willow: Make this go away.
After a silent beat of reading my text, I send another.
Willow: Please.
The last thing I want is to become the centre of attention for the press. It’ll end in disaster for everyone involved and others around us.
Frank: Leave it with me.
His reply settles the anxiety in my gut somewhat, but while Quincy and Beth interrogate me about that one photo, I realise that it’s not just the press I’m worried about. It’s not me or my career. Part of my worry is that the last few months I’ve been trying to bury will come back to haunt me, and no one will look at me the same way again.
My friends will judge me. My family will be disappointed. Rory may think I’m worth chasing now, but if he knew the truth, he’d soon change his mind. And anyway, I really am over men. I’m over the pining. The trusting. Everything.
After Peter, I swore, this was it. I’m happy just being me…on my own.
* * *
The doorbell ringsas I step out of the shower. It’s Monday morning, and I’m barely with it. My head is still stuck on yesterday. It feels like Friday was already yonks away, but everything from the night is following me around. At least, Frank got the photo of Rory and me taken down with a trade of gossip that another of his clients wants to share.
Holding my towel to my chest, I answer the second ring, barely paying attention to what the delivery guy is saying as I tell him, “Please leave it on the first step.” I’ll grab whatever it is on my way out to meet the director of this new show.
By the time I’m ready, the taxi I booked this morning is already waiting for me. The message from the service app keeps buzzing me as I lock up my flat before heading downstairs, and I almost trip over my feet as I come to a sudden stop.
“What the fuck is this?”
The steps are stacked with flowers, powder-blue hydrangeas that make my heart skip a beat while I stand at the top of the bottom flight of the stairs. My favourite flowers in my favourite colour.
“Sorry, you said to leave them on the bottom step.”
“You didn’t say it was an entire field of flowers!”
“Not my fault you weren’t listening, love,” he replies with a shrug before putting down another vase and heading out of the door. “You want it closed or open?”
“I want you to take them back.” I’m trying to search for a path down the steps, but he’s literally left no room to manoeuvre. “I reject the delivery.”
With a scoff, he eyes me from head to toe. “Too late for that, but seeing your boyfriend has messed up badly enough to warrant all of this, why don’t I help you down?”
It takes me a moment to realise that he’s not moving the flowers to get to me. And when it dawns on me that he has no intention of clearing them up, annoyance bubbles in my stomach.
“No. No…” I shake my head at him when he reaches for me. “Don’t you da—” My words cut off when he pulls me over his shoulder and hops down the steps.
“That’s my good deed done for the day,” he remarks when he sets me on my feet.
“Who’re they from?”
“Well, I don’t know!” he tells me, nodding down at the cluttered steps. “There’s a card somewhere in there.”
“I don’t have time to look for a card. Surely, it’s on your delivery note?”
The vibration of my phone lets me know that the taxi app is messaging me again.