❀ chapter nine | the mess we made ❀

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"What the heck happened here?"

Long story short, I was screwed. Talia, hands filled with baskets of flowers from our latest shipment, stared in horror at the mess Jack and I had made last Friday. The pink walls looked great despite our amateur paint skills, but pink paint covered the floor in huge, angry smears, the rollers we'd been sword fighting with left crusty on their trays. A forensic crime scene investigator could probably analyze all the splatters and trace the trajectory of our fight down to the fated moment I'd first dabbed Jack's cheek pink.

"He spilled some paint," I said.

"He?" Talia demanded, face contorted in a cartoonish expression of rage so unlike her I almost burst out laughing.

"Jack, of course."

"And why didn't you clean it up? Why didn't you tell me, Romy?"

I shrugged. "Thought I'd use it as evidence for why Jack should be fired. You wouldn't have believed me otherwise."

"And here I was thinking you'd matured." She shook her head, shooting daggers at me with her eyes. "How could you?"

I pointed at the black-haired woman standing in the doorway of the shop and replied, "More like how could you accept her money without telling me first. All those years you and Dad told me I wouldn't have to see her again. Now just because she's loaded she's suddenly part of the family? Sounds pretty sociopathic to me."

Grace cleared her throat. "Danielle told me about what happened. Jack wasn't the only one responsible. You two were... wrestling in the paint."

I gave her a death glare. "Oh, now you're friends with Danielle, too?"

Talia joined me in the glare and asked her, "Why wouldn't you tell me what happened?"

Grace surveyed the empty shop. "I thought it would be better if you saw it for yourself."

"You're really bad at setting an example for your daughter, aren't you?" Talia spat, pointing a finger at her. "And then you wonder why she's turned out just like you."

Grace's expression remained unchanged, but I gritted my teeth and said, "Don't even try to pull that card, Talia."

"We literally have a shipment coming in!" she exclaimed. "We can't afford this. We left the shop closed for a few days so the paint could dry, so we're already off schedule, and now we have a new batch we need to sell this week except we're nowhere close to ready for our re-opening!"

"Get Grace to make up for the losses," I suggested as I stared her down. "Don't tell me Tetsuo left me no money. Since you took it all, I'm sure you can afford to pay."

Grace sat herself down on a foldable chair she'd brought for whatever reason. "In the mean time, you can clean up the mess. If anything I think this deserves a grounding. Especially after you snuck out to go that party on Friday, isn't that right?"

All I wanted to do was pull a Jack and tell her: leave me alone please :)

It was like they released the woman from prison for the sole purpose of pissing me off.

"Call Jack," Talia said. "Tell him to come now."

"But he's not working today," I said.

"I don't care. He's going to help you clean this shop by tonight or else I'm going to lose it." She looked at Grace. "And you? You need to leave."

"Technically, it is my shop now, too," Grace declared. "I have every right to be here."

"I don't think so. It's called Greta's Flores for a reason." 

Talia and I exchanged looks. This is your fault, I wanted to tell her, though it wasn't, really. I felt my front pocket for my keys. The other day, Talia got me a little can of pepper spray for my key chain after reading a news story about a mugging that took place not far from here. And now? I was seriously considering taking the thing out and spraying it down Grace's big, fat mouth.

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If there was ever a time I least wanted Jack at the shop, it was now. But unfortunately, he decided to be responsible for once and showed up on time. After seeing Grace sitting on her chair, casually flipping through a floral magazine, he raised an eyebrow at me as if to ask, why is she here?

"She's here to babysit me, I guess," I said, loud enough so she'd hear. "Talia left to go to the warehouse and try to delay our flower shipment. They're pissed about the mess."

Jack rubbed the back of his neck.

I sighed. "Too bad it wasn't enough to fire you."

Removing the dried paint off the floor proved to be a challenge. I armed myself with stem cutters to scrape off the smaller bits and a rag soaked with rubbing alcohol to wipe away the giant smears.

Grace, on the other hand, simply sat there, and the more her presence poisoned the air, the angrier I felt. Anger cutting through the chronic boredom, anger like a burning shot of vodka straight into my gut. And it was almost like a chain reaction. Because the angrier I felt, even without saying anything, the tenser Jack seemed to get. At some point, he pulled out a literal rock from his pocket and started scraping off the paint with it.

"What is that?" I asked. "Is that a piece of quartz?"

His posture stiffened like a statue. What the hell was his problem? Was everyone out for my blood today or what?

I blew a fleck of paint onto him. "Why do you carry that around?"

He didn't respond, didn't meet my eyes once, and his silence almost grated on me more than Grace's. I wanted him to insult me, tell me off, tell me why he was so mad, curse at me in German or whatever language he knew.

"Alright," Grace said, interrupting the silence. "I think I can leave you two unsupervised for now."

"What, did you get bored of not doing any work?" I mocked. "Why don't you come and help us out, mommy?"

Her eyes narrowed, and I relished every bit of her discomfort. 

"I will go finish the final deliveries," she said. 

"Is that all you're going to do? Aren't you, I don't know, going to get a real job? Oh wait, most places don't hire felons. Should've thought about that before you sabotaged your six-figure career."

Grace slung her designer-brand purse over her shoulder. "You are truly an insufferable little girl."

When she left, something snapped in me. I dropped the cutters I was using and shot up, punching the air. "That bitch."

Jack looked up in slight alarm.

"If anyone is the sociopath here, it's her," I snapped at no one in particular, at the gaping Grace-shaped hole she'd left behind. "We're here trying to run a small business because guess what, we actually like flowers, but all Grace wants is leverage. Control. She doesn't give a shit if she loses her money. And then Talia has the audacity to go and say I'm just like her? Really?" I jerked my head in Jack's direction. "Do you think I'm just like her?"

He shrugged, but I saw an intensity in his eyes as he watched me. 

"What about your dad?" I asked. "Why isn't he around?"

Jack hesitated. Like he was waging an inner battle between his nosiness and his anger for whatever I'd done to upset him. He pulled out his phone, stared at the screen, and then took another minute to slowly type out a text.

From Jackass:

i'll tell you if you tell me why you're still with those assholes you call friends

I scoffed. "What do my friends have to do with this?"

He gave me a look.

"Oh, that's why you're mad. Not about the paint. Or the journal. You're mad I'm still friends with Seth?"

He shook his head.

"So you're mad I just stood around while he pushed you, then."

He turned away.

I sighed softly. "What else would you expect from a sociopath?"

His next text came quicker this time.

From Jackass:

that's not an excuse

"Just like being mute isn't an excuse not to do your job," I said.

He glared and motioned to his pink-stained rag as if to say, I am.

"That's not your job. You're just cleaning up the mess you made."

His eyes widened in outrage.

"Fine, our mess."

My phone buzzed.

From Jackass:

will you answer my question?

"You're really nosy, aren't you?" I asked.

From Jackass:

and you're a useless bystander

"Why don't you stand up for yourself for once? You're really telling me you need a girl to do it for you? Am I supposed to be the brave knight to your helpless prince?"

He stood. Somehow, his anger matched mine. I didn't think what I said was that offensive, but it probably hit him where it hurt. Good.

He stepped closer. I stood, backing up against the pink wall.

"Go ahead," I said, reaching into my pocket. "Do something other than glare at me."

I waited. Two, three, four seconds... and nothing.

I raised my chin at him. "You're boring me, mute boy."

He stepped closer. Leaned down as his gaze burned into mine. Then... 

"Go to hell."

My breath caught at the sound of his voice. Then he turned his back on me.

"That's it?" I laughed after the initial shock wore off. It hadn't even been enough for me to pin-point his accent. "Go to hell? Wow! Mute boy Jack has finally spoken. He has just asserted his dominance over the flower shop, and he did it with just three words! The power of Jack's voice, ladies and gentlemen. Did I hurt your fragile ego, Jack? Is that the secret to getting you to speak?"

He ignored me. His boldness faded as he hunched over and scraped paint off the floor with his rock. I remained standing, my arms crossed, and watched him for several minutes.

"You know," I began, "you could have told Seth and his friends to go to hell any time, but you didn't. Instead you told me. Why?"

No response.

"Why do you never look this angry when you're around them?" I asked.

Finally, my phone buzzed, and I couldn't help but feel disappointed it wasn't his voice instead.

From Jackass:

because you're worse

"Oh am I? Why don't you say it to my face?" I sat down in front of him. "Say it to me in German."

If ignoring me was an Olympic sport, he'd be getting the gold medal. When I looked out the window, I noticed night had fallen. And more than that, I noticed someone crossing the street. Actually, five someones. The first came closer than the rest, and in the dim streetlight, I saw his face.

Seth.

The tall, buff guys behind him were definitely not Eli or Megan. These must be his frat boy friends from the university, which unfortunately happened to be close by. They laughed, staggering across the street, probably stoned on a Monday night. They noticed the shop, brightly lit in the night, and started hooting at us. Seth let out an obnoxious laugh as he approached the front door.

Well. This would be fun.

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A/N: This was one of my favorite chapters to write. What did you think?  

❀ rocks mentioned in this chapter ❀

✿ clear quartz ✿


This chapter is dedicated to minty_julietta for supporting this story over the years 💚 and for the witty comments of course 😅 Thank you! 

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