Awk-Weird (Ice Knights, #2)(30)
However, according to her notifications, the number of followers was increasing exponentially, and it wasn’t because she’d posted about how sunflowers are supervillains of the flower world because they produce a toxic substance that kills other flowers around them. Her counts had increased because Chipsy from the hospital’s information desk had tagged the Ice Knights in his selfie with Cole, and it was getting reposted everywhere after the team had shared it.
Tess clicked on one of the notifications. A pic opened on her phone showing Cole in the same white Forever in Bloom T-shirt she was wearing. He was holding a flower arrangement while standing next to a woman who looked like she was about to dump whoever had sent the pansies in favor of the hockey forward.
Tess couldn’t blame her. Even if she hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing what was under his tee, there was just something about being able to zoom in on his biceps peeking out from under his sleeve. Did that make her a bad person? Or just horny? Both? Well, she couldn’t do anything about it, so it didn’t matter.
They’d had one night and a soon-to-be baby between them. No connection. No relationship. It was just the way she wanted it when it came to Cole Phillips. She wasn’t about to be the woman who’d trapped her man by getting pregnant. She knew firsthand the pain of being that kid. There was nothing like growing up knowing you were only a means to an end even before ever being born.
The bell above the door rang, and an older woman dressed in head-to-toe sunshine yellow with rose-gold hair strolled in. Tess’s sour mood evaporated. It would be next to impossible not to while facing Charla Evans, the matriarch of Mulberry Street. Charla owned one of the buildings two doors down and lived on the top floor—the entire top floor—with at least a dozen tropical fish, enough plants to make her own oxygen supply for a year, and her poet of a husband who wrote monthly odes to her beauty that he posted on the neighborhood message board.
“Mrs. Evans, I wasn’t expecting you this morning.”
“I hope you don’t mind, but when I saw the notification that George—that’s what I’m going to call my newest addition—was here, I had to come right away in hopes of having it delivered today. Now where is my little fella?”
Her “little fella” was actually a Hawaiian dwarf umbrella tree currently hanging out in the inventory sunroom. The plant clocked in at about thirty pounds counting the tray of pebbles, ceramic pot, premium soil, and the actual tree.
“My delivery man will be back in a few minutes, but let me go grab George so you can admire him, and then when Cole gets back, he can carry it to your place.”
“Really, I was hoping to admire both,” the older woman said with a dramatic sigh. “But I can wait to see this Mr. Hockey who keeps popping up on social media.”
“I didn’t realize you were an Ice Knights fan.”
Charla gave her a wink. “I’m not.”
Okay, then. Not wanting to get drawn any deeper down that particular rabbit hole, Tess excused herself and went into the back to get George. The mini-tree that looked more like a bush at the moment and had to be balanced just right or else the water in the humidity bed (which she called “pebble beach” in her head because it was just a tray filled with pebbles and water) would spill out over the edge. Picking it up, she adjusted for the fact that the front, which was closest to her, was heavier because of the placement of the ceramic pot. She’d need to warn Charla about that.
She was about to start walking toward the front when the door leading to the alley parking opened up and Cole walked through. No doubt because his cover had been blown, the grimy baseball cap was gone, allowing his hair to fall down, brushing the tips of his shoulders. Long hair wasn’t usually her thing. But on Thor’s twin? Yeah, it was totally becoming her thing.
Hello, patron saint of single moms. If you could hit me with a lightning bolt of oh-honey-no right about now, that would be great.
“Whatcha got there?” he asked, strutting in and heading straight toward her.
Tess froze. Her brain, the part that ran a business, did complicated math in her head, and remembered almost every random factoid she’d ever heard, went on vacation. “A plant.”
“Here, let me.” He reached to take the oversize bonsai-type tree.
Normally, she would have gladly given it up for him to carry, but in that moment with him so close in the oxygen-rich environment of the mini-hothouse inventory room that reminded her a little too much of the conservatory from their night together, she couldn’t do it. She just knew deep inside her that this man was dangerous. Not that he’d hurt her—well, not on purpose—but that he had access to some secret spot inside her that no one had seen before. It was unsettling.
“No, that’s okay, I got—” And that’s the exact moment when she didn’t anymore.
She tilted the back side higher than the front enough that a stream of water from the tray spilled out, soaking her shirt in a line that went right across her boobs. Of course.
“Oh crap,” he said, taking the dwarf umbrella tree and setting it back down in its original spot. He turned back to her, his gaze dipping down to her chest. “I’m sorry I—”
Whatever else Cole was going to say remained a mystery because he went totally silent. She didn’t have to guess why. White shirt plus water plus thin lacy bralette equals total embarrassment—especially when her nipples had gone into full headlight mode. She’d like to think that had happened because of the splash of cool water. That would be a lie, though. It was all Cole.