Choosing the flowers took less time than I thought it would, mostly because Taylor rushed us through the stalls okaying everything I held up so we could get home to the email she was certain waited for me if I could figure out which account Parker had sent it to. I was less certain and would have been happy taking my time finding the perfect flowers, but she was the boss.
Three hours and six full buckets after getting to the market, we had everything we needed and barely enough space in the car to get it all back to the hotel. It was a cramped but delicious-smelling ride.
The parking lot was nowhere near our room, of course, so we each carried three buckets in so we wouldn’t have to waste time trekking back to the car. I hung a bucket in the crook of my elbow, did the same with another bucket on my other arm, and then picked up the last bucket with the tallest flowers.
“I hope we can find our way to the room. We might as well be blindfolded,” I said to Taylor.
“We only have to make it to the bellhop, and then he can put them on his luggage-hauler thingy, and we’ll be golden,” Taylor answered.
Unfortunately there was a line of cars at the door and no bellboy/person (if we want to be PC) available to haul our flowers for us. So we kept walking, slowly. Very slowly. I peeked between the flowers whenever possible to make sure we were headed in the right direction and prayed people wouldn’t want to be trampled by a walking garden, no matter how beautiful, and would get out of our way.
I shuffled through the lobby, walking extra carefully to keep from spilling any water on the marble floors and making my journey even more treacherous. I made the mistake of taking some deep yoga breaths to stay centered and balanced, literally, but only succeeded in breathing in a nose full of pollen. I was in the process of de-pollinating my nostrils with some serious snorting in order to avoid some even more serious sneezing when I heard my name.
“Eliza?” It was Parker’s voice saying my name, but I couldn’t be sure if it was actually him or my imagination.
“Is that you behind there?”
I heard him again, but I still couldn’t see him.
“She’s the other one.” I heard Taylor say in front of me. So either we were both hearing voices, or . . .
“Parker?” I asked through the flowers. “Is that you?”
Suddenly hands wrapped around the bucket in my arms, it was taken away, and there was Parker in front of my face instead of an armful of plumeria.
“What are you doing here?” A lump caught in my throat. I still didn’t know if he was real or if I was in a kind of dream. The really good kind.
He set the bucket down without answering me and then took the other two hanging from my arms and set them down. I glanced at Taylor, who had Weston by her side along with the flowers he must have taken from her arms. I caught the smile creeping up her lips just before Parker wrapped me in his arms.
If I’d had time to think about it, his embrace would have been surprise enough, but then he leaned in, and I knew he hadn’t flown across an ocean for a hug. His lips met mine before my brain had time to process how my world had changed in a matter of seconds.
My body, on the other hand, didn’t have to process anything. Kissing Parker for the first time felt like something I’d done a thousand times before. It was the most natural thing in the world, like every part of us, except our brains, had always known this is where we’d be. Standing in a hotel lobby in Hawaii, surrounded by flowers, locked in each other’s arms and lips.
His kisses were sweet and tender, with a touch of mint. Even if he’d had airplane breath, I still would have kissed him, but the mint? It helped. He broke away before I was ready and put his hands on either side of my face. Our eyes met, and then our lips did once more.
“I got your message,” he said.
“So you came all the way here to answer it?” I’m not going to lie: a tear fell. Maybe out of relief, maybe out of joy from the kisses—they were that good—but whatever the reason, my eyes were wet.
“Well, no. I emailed you—” He let his hands drop to his side.
“My work email?”
“No, not your work email, your lizabellesurfs one. Why would I pour out my heart to your work address?” Parker stepped back and asked, as though he hadn’t spent most of his life as Mr. Practical. Who knew he had a romantic side?
“I told you!” Taylor blared through the lobby loudly enough for people to turn and look at us. Not that we didn’t have an audience already. People kissing in the middle of a lobby will draw a crowd, apparently.
Parker tipped his head toward Taylor in agreement. “It was more of a love letter, not a flower order. I wanted to be sure you heard all the things I’ve wanted to say. When you didn’t answer, I went home, but you’d already left for San Francisco. I didn’t have any other choice than to get on an airplane to tell you in person how I feel.”
I put my hands on either side of his face. “Then I’m glad I’m not so old school to check my email every day.” I raised up on tiptoe and kissed him. “Now, tell me what you came to say.”
“I thought I already had.” He kissed me again, but not so tenderly.
“Hmm.” I broke away, closed my eyes, and smiled while I regained my bearings. When the room stopped spinning, I looked at him again. “I still want to hear it in words.”
His mouth twitched in the familiar way it always did when he was about to tease me. I waited for it, but then his eyes softened. “I love you.” He shrugged. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t. Like a sister when you were little, then as a friend, and now . . .” He sighed and laced his fingers in mine. “Now I love you for the kind, intelligent, beautiful woman you are. I love you for helping me see my faults and making me want to be better.”
“I do that?” I asked. “I thought you just did that for me.”
“No.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I lecture and criticize you. You?” He tucked a rogue curl that had fallen in my eye behind my ear. “You inspire me. I’ve never been happier than when I heard you say you love me. I think I listened to that message a thousand times to make sure I wasn’t imagining it.”
I unwound my fingers from his and ran my hand through his hair. “You can hear me say it in person a thousand times every day.” And I kissed him again.
As much as I would have liked to stand there kissing him all day, obviously we couldn’t. After all, the real reason we were kissing in Hawaii at all was because of Taylor and her wedding. And there was work to be done for it.
Aside from the kissing and the I love yous and the general feeling of bliss, another benefit of having Parker there was that I could put him to work. He and Weston carried the flowers up to the suite Taylor and I were sharing. Within a matter of minutes the room looked more like a flower shop than my little shop at home.
We separated the flowers into the buckets by what they would be used for. I had to do the haku and the bridal bouquet on my own, but I showed everyone else how to do the centerpieces for the few tables and the other decorations. I couldn’t think of a better place to be in that moment than with my best friend, her fiancé, and my boyfriend—could I call him that yet? I decided yes. Yes, I could. And I could kiss him whenever I wanted, so I did.
“We’re never going to get these done if you keep kissing him,” Taylor finally said after she’d had enough of our PDA.
“Fine. You’re right.” I looked at the clock to see just how right. The answer? Way too right for comfort. “I’ll move over here to keep from getting distracted.” I picked up my flowers and the half-finished haku and carried them to the other side of the room.
“You know I can move over there too,” Parker said in a husky voice that wasn’t entirely teasing.
“Not until you’re done clipping those fern thingies,” I answered sternly. “Then I have a reward for you.” I gave him a slow, sultry wink.
“Oh, barf,” Taylor exclaimed and dropped the floral tape I’d motioned for into my lap. “Were Weston and I as bad as you two?”
“Worse,” I said almost before she’d finished her sentence.
“So much worse,” Parker added.
We all joked and teased back and forth for hours while we finished the flowers. It wasn’t exactly the afternoon I’d envisioned with Taylor or that she’d envisioned for herself the day before her wedding, but it was perfect. Parker was perfect. Everything was perfect.
Except for one little thought that kept begging to be scratched like an itch in the middle of my back that couldn’t be reached without some serious contortions. I ignored it with only a little discomfort until the end of the day, after Parker and I had finished the flowers, gone to dinner with Taylor and Weston, and then snuck off by ourselves for some time alone.
We held hands and walked the flower-lined path of the hotel grounds, watching the sun set over the ocean.
“Your dad’s already seen this sunset,” Parker said, and I knew then my question couldn’t wait anymore.
“You’re right. And I forgot to call him.” Worry washed over me, followed quickly by a landslide of guilt.
“It’s been kind of a big day. He’ll understand.”
I stopped walking, and Parker stopped too. My heart beat hard with the question I didn’t want to ask. The question that could make my best day turn to my worst. I looked into his smiling face, not wanting to change the happiness there—the happiness I knew had to be shining in my face too. But I had to do it.
“We have to talk about Los Angeles,” I said slowly. Carefully.
He licked his lips then rubbed them together. “What do you want to know?”
“Are you still moving there? I know it’s not that far, but it’s far enough.” I held my breath and waited for the answer.
“That depends,” he answered, and his smile slipped behind the shadow crossing his face.
“On what?”
“You.”
“What about me?”
He shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t want to leave you. Not now.”
“I don’t want you to go, but you can’t put that on me.” I let go of his hand. Everything I’d hoped for and almost had was vanishing as quickly as the setting sun. “We can try long-distance . . .”
“You wouldn’t want to live there?” he asked then quickly added, “Someday?”
I shook my head. “You know I can’t leave Daddy.”
“I know.” He stared at the ground and chewed his lip then lifted his head and met my eyes. “And I can’t leave you. So I guess that settles it.” He took my hand and tried to walk again, but I stayed planted.
“What do you mean? What’s settled?”
“I’m not moving,” he said as matter-of-factly as if he’d decided not to order dessert.
“What about the commute? I thought you hated it.” I still refused to move, even if he did think his life decision was no more important than a piece of cheesecake. Not that cheesecake isn’t important. I’m pro-cheesecake.
He stopped and took my hand again. “The only reason I wanted to move is because I thought you had a thing for Blake. Even with him out of the picture, I couldn’t watch you fall for another guy.”
“Me and Blake? We were only friends. And why didn’t you think I’d fall for you?”
He looked down at me and raised an eyebrow. “One, you spent a lot of time together. I thought I was going to go crazy, and I didn’t want to go through that again. Two, I didn’t think you thought of me as anything other than an annoying faux brother.”
“So you were going to move?”
“It was that or get my heart broken every time you fell for a new guy.”
“Or you could have just told me how you felt instead of being a wuss!”
A slow smile spread across his face. “In retrospect, that would have been the better choice.”
“Ya think?”
He put my hand to his lips and kissed the knuckle of my middle finger. “The important thing is I’m not going anywhere now.”
“Good.” I pulled my hand away from his mouth and let my lips take its place.