The louder-than-usual clanging of the wind chimes at my shop door should have warned me change was coming, but I was too engrossed in my flowers to notice. I had light-pink peonies and seeded eucalyptus laced through my fingers, and with a few twists of my wrist and a quick wrap of tape, the separate stems of flora and fauna would be transformed into one beautiful bouquet of living art.
Is that overly dramatic?
Probably. I don’t care. That’s how I feel when an arrangement I’m creating comes together. Total zen. I capture the flowers at the peak of their beauty, and then I get to share that moment with someone else. In this case, that someone else was my sister, and the arrangement would be her bridal bouquet.
But in the seconds before the flowers became the work of art I intended, Parker Knightley’s voice caused me to lose my concentration.
“Little Liza Belle has her own business?” he called out just loud enough to make me jump. His teasing had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember, but I hadn’t seen him in three years. In my surprise, the peonies slipped through my fingers, hit the table, and showered the floor with delicate pink petals. I would have cried if it had been anyone besides Parker standing in the entrance of my flower shop.
“Parker!” I squealed and ran the twenty feet from my workspace to the front of the store and had my arms wrapped around his neck before he had the door shut behind him.
He circled his arms around my waist, squeezing tight. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too,” I said, and he squeezed tighter. “Except I can’t breathe.”
I tried to break away, but before I could I felt his fingers creeping toward a certain spot under my rib cage.
“Don’t do it!” I ordered, but it was too late. He’d found my most ticklish spot and had already started his torture tactics. I broke away, but he grabbed my wrist before I could escape and dug his fingers into my side, pulling me close again.
“What do you say?” His grin spread wide, and the light reflecting off his glasses couldn’t hide the blue of his eyes or the way I knew they were dancing with laughter at me.
“Please!” I pushed against his chest, but there was no getting away, especially once he started wiggling his fingers up my spine and then toward my armpit.
“I’m waaaaaaiting.” He drew the word out, proof he could outlast me.
“Okay!” Tears streamed down my face. I gasped for air, unable to stop laughing but also painfully aware of how close his hands were to places we’d both be embarrassed by if he accidentally touched them. “PARKER IS THE KING!”
He let me go but kept his hands on my waist, staring down at me with a smile playing on his lips that shouldn’t have made me notice them in a way I never had before. The gold undertone of his glasses complemented the shades of blond in his short-cropped, wavy hair. Hair so close in color to mine that people sometimes thought we were brother and sister.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it, Miss Liza Belle?”
“You are as bad as ever.” I pushed his hands away and smacked his chest, unintentionally taking note of its firmness. The seven-year gap between us wasn’t as notable in our sizes anymore—he only had four inches on me now instead of a whole foot—but he was obviously still strong enough to tickle torture me the way he had when I was six and he was thirteen.
“And no one calls me Liza Belle anymore. It’s just Eliza.”
Parker stepped back and pointed his gaze and his finger upward in the general direction of the sign that hung outside my shop. “But that’s the name right up there. Liza Belle. In a swirly font and everything.”
He glanced down at me, his smile no longer playful. In fact, it was full on making me think things about him that, as his “faux baby sister,” were totally inappropriate. Especially now that Preston—Parker’s younger brother—was marrying my sister Caroline. In two days Parker and I would be more sister and brother than ever before.
“Well, it’s a good name for a shop, but not for a grown-up.” I smoothed my skirt and readjusted my T-shirt. I’d spent most of my childhood trying to catch up to my sister and the Knightley brothers, aka the Three Musketeers. But I wasn’t six years old anymore.
Parker picked up a soy candle and smelled it before turning it over to look at the price. His eyebrows went up and his gaze bounced from me back to the candle. “You sell many of these?”
I took it out of his hands and set it back where it belonged, making sure he knew I was running a legit business, not playing pretend. “I grossed ten thousand dollars last month, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Technically that total included payment for an event Caroline and I had planned, and my net pay was lower. Much lower. Possibly in the negative range.
He let out a low whistle. “Selling candles at that price, I’m not surprised.”
I rolled my eyes and put my hand on top of a larger candle as he reached to pick it up. “When did you get back in town?”
“A few hours ago. Caroline said I should come see your place.” He walked to the brick wall lined with cards, pulled one out, put it back, and then reached for another. I itched to ask him what he thought about my shop but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of thinking his opinion still mattered to me. I wished he’d stop touching things.
“Did she tell you I’m doing all the flowers?” I walked toward the back of the store, and he followed. “That’s mostly what I do . . . weddings. I’ve done some pretty big ones.” I inspected the peony I’d dropped while trying not to look at his reaction. Like any little sister, I’d always had this insane need to impress big-brother Parker, even if he wasn’t really my big brother. His parents were Daddy’s closest friends and had always lived next door until five years ago when they’d decided to cash out and move to a retirement community in Arizona.
I couldn’t remember a holiday or vacation we hadn’t spent together—at least until he’d left for college, followed by law school and an internship in Hong Kong that had led to a job there. The last time I’d seen him was three years before, when he’d been in town for a night. Even with his years of absence, he was still the closest thing I’d ever have to a big brother.
He leaned his elbow on the other side of my high worktable, resting his chin in his hand. “I honestly never thought you’d do anything besides surf and party.”
“Party?” I pushed his elbow off the table, and he lurched forward before catching himself. “I don’t party.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” The corner of his lip twitched, wanting to grin. I squeezed my lips tight to keep them from following his lead. “But you do like parties.” His face broke into a smile. Mine didn’t.
“Laugh all you want.” I brushed the peonies onto the floor already littered with pink petals, dead flowers, and cut stems. The peonies would have been okay for a different wedding, but not my sister’s. “Parties are what bankrolled this place.” That and Daddy. But Parker didn’t need to know that part.
“How do you feel about being out of the party business now?” He pulled up a stool and sat down.
I shrugged and swallowed the lump rising in my throat. “It wouldn’t be the same without Caroline. She’s the one who’s really good at it. I prefer the flowers.”
“Really?” His voice held just enough of an I-don’t-believe-you to remind me how much older and wiser he thought he was.
“Caroline’s the event planner, not me.” I grabbed three new peonies and some eucalyptus from the full bucket in front of me, regretting that I’d ruined my first bouquet just to hug Parker, who was determined to ask questions I didn’t want to answer. “It made sense to shut the business down once we knew she’d be moving.”
“You’re not going to miss it?” His eyes bored into me.
I shrugged again. “I’ll still do little things here and there.”
Of course I would miss planning events with my sister. It had been our dream since I was in high school, and we’d not only made it happen but we’d been pretty successful at it. Then she’d gotten engaged and Preston had matched to a residency in San Francisco. She’d always wanted to live there, so they decided not to wait until he was done with med school before getting married. I was happy for her. It was no use crying over what might have been, especially since I’d been the one to get her and Preston together in the first place.
“Well, if I ever throw a party, I’ll be sure to hire you.”
“Thanks.”
Maybe my face gave away what my heart was feeling, or maybe he regretted his moment of sympathy, but either way Parker changed the subject and went back to joking with me.
“I’m impressed you actually have a job,” he jabbed. Didn’t matter. Teasing was better than needling. “I expected to find you on the waves.”
“Rude. What made you think I wouldn’t be working?”
“Um, you.” He took a rose from the bucket and smelled it. “If I remember right, and I do,”—insert smug grin—“your exact words when I asked you what you planned to do with a degree in fine arts were, ‘I don’t have to work. I’ll take care of Daddy and surf.’”
I remembered saying something like that—maybe even exactly that—but not in the snooty voice he’d used. “Whatever,” I mumbled and rolled my eyes again.
“Don’t be mad.” He laughed and handed me the rose I reached for. “I’m proud of you, Liza Belle. Looks like you’ve got a good thing going here.”
“Thanks. Now tell me about Hong Kong,” I ordered. After law school and his internship, he’d ended up starting a nonprofit law firm to advocate for domestic workers’ rights.
“There’s too much to tell. You should have visited me. Tell me about Caroline and Preston.” He unwound some floral tape and rolled it into a ball.
“Stop playing with that, and wrap it around these stems.” I held the flowers and indicated where to wrap the tape around the stems. He didn’t know anything about flowers, but my bestie, Taylor, still hadn’t shown up to help, so Parker was my only option. “Daddy won’t travel anymore, otherwise I would have visited—”
“Not at all?”
I shook my head. “What do you want to know about Caroline and Preston? How I got them together?” I’d much rather talk about them than how much worse Daddy’s quirks had become in the last three years.
I called them “little quirks”—we all did—because it kept us from having to use the words “mental illness.” Someone with a little quirk checked the clock three times before leaving the house, but he still left the house. Someone with mental illness needed medication and therapy, maybe even hospitalization. Daddy didn’t believe in any of that. He believed he was sick all the time, but he wouldn’t set foot in a hospital, let alone a psychiatrist’s office.
I handed Parker the bouquet, placing his hands above the green floral tape but not so close to the peony heads that he might accidentally touch them and risk their turning brown before they reached full bloom. Peonies were particular.
“You got them together?” he asked, looking around the bouquet at me. “That’s interesting, considering they’ve known each other since they were four.”
“Knowing someone is not the same as dating someone. It would have taken your brother another twenty-five years of ‘knowing’ Caroline before he asked her out if I hadn’t stepped in.” I bent under the table and pulled a vase from the boxes stacked there and then exchanged it for a different one, taking my time more to irritate him than out of necessity.
“So, you bailing on your sister and convincing Preston to take her to the charity thing—”
“Christmas for Kids in Foster Care. It’s a really great event. One we helped plan.”
“And that you bailed on—”
“I was sick.” I stood up and set the vase on the table.
“That’s my point. There wasn’t any matchmaking involved—just bad luck on your part.” Parker rocked his head side to side, stretching his neck.
“Hold still.” I wound floral tape around the stems then put my hands over his and moved them and the flowers close to my face until his fingertips grazed my cheeks. I put the tape between my teeth and tore it off. I could have taken the flowers from him and done it. I don’t know why I didn’t.
“How much longer do I have to do this?” he asked as I let go of his hands. The tips of his ears were red. “My fingers are starting to cramp.”
“Just until you admit that without my matchmaking skills your brother would not be marrying my sister the day after tomorrow.” I blew one of my curls out of my eye, but it fell right back where it had been. I’d given up long ago trying to get my curly hair to do anything it didn’t want to do.
“Fine. Whatever. Can we please be done now?”
I stuck the arrangement into the vase, and he breathed a sigh of relief. A sigh of relief cut short when I held his hand up, spread his fingers wide and reached for more flowers.
“How do you do this when you’re here alone?” His eyes narrowed with suspicion. He was on to me, but I was saved by the bell. Literally. My wind bells at the door jingled, carrying my BFF’s voice with them, before I could answer Parker.
“Eliza? Are you in back?” Taylor called.
“Yep, and I’ve got a surprise,” I said over my shoulder before I stuck a rose between Parker’s fingers.
“Parker!” Taylor said seconds later when she walked into the back room.
“Don’t touch him until we’re done,” I ordered, stopping her and her hug in their tracks.
“When did you get here?” she asked him, her arms dropping. Normally she would have been all over him. We’d been best friends since the sixth grade, and she’d had a crush on Parker for just as long. If she hadn’t been in a serious relationship—with a guy I set her up with, thank you very much—nothing could have kept her from Parker.
“This morning.”
“And she’s already suckered you into this? Dude.” Taylor shook her head. “Has she given you the speech yet?”
Parker looked from Taylor to me and back again before slowly shaking his head.
“‘Flowers are a metaphor for life. You have to be present to see them in full bloom, or you’ll miss it.’” Taylor waved her hands and swayed like a drunk yogi, imitating my words in a soft, husky voice that sounded nothing like me. At least, I hoped not.
Parker laughed. “It sounds like what she used to say about surfing.”
I glared at him. “Shut up.” I examined the peonies stacked in the bucket in front of me. “You’re just jealous that I’m younger and wiser than you both.” I found my perfect peony, pulled it from the bucket, and gently slid it between Parker’s pinkie and ring fingers. “Tomorrow, when these flowers are in full bloom, we’ll all be there together to experience a moment in time when nature and humanity are brought together. But it takes the wiser ones among us”—I swept my hands to my chest so they’d know exactly who I meant—“to bring others—”
“Into awareness,” Taylor finished with me as her phone dinged. She pulled it out of her pocket. “I know, I know,” she said while reading her text. “Ride the wave, enjoy the journey, yada, yada, yada. You need to give all the zen yoga, om-lightenment crap a rest.”
“Om-powerment. Which has nothing to do with flower arranging—that’s ikebana.” I grabbed Taylor’s cellphone-free hand and held it up. She spread her fingers wide, knowing they were about to be filled with flowers. She’d been to my shop enough to know what to expect.
“Om whatever.” Her phone dinged again, and she voice texted a message back. “Come by tomorrow.”
“What are you talking about?” Parker asked Taylor as he took the flowers out of his hand and passed them to her. “You’re not entrapping the human rights crusader into any more slave labor,” he said to me and stuck his hands in his pockets. He was catching on quickly to my employee recruitment tactics.
“It’s this yoga class she’s been going to that promises enlightenment for the low, low cost of two hundred and fifty dollars a month,” Taylor answered Parker in a perfect infomercial voice.
“Sounds like there’s some definite enlightening of your wallet going on.” Parker smirked and looked to Taylor for backup, which she readily gave by putting out her fist for him to pound. Which he readily did.
“You two are hilarious.” I rearranged Parker’s flowers between Taylor’s fingers. “We planned an event for the owner—Elton—so he gave me a few months free. The name may be hokey, but he does have some good meditation techniques if you can get around the other stuff he’s trying to sell. Mostly I go to the other instructor’s class—Mary. She’s great.”
“Yeah, but how much of the stuff have you bought?” Taylor asked and arched her eyebrow.
“I think what you meant to ask,” Parker said to Taylor with a playful grin before he turned to me, “is ‘how financially enlightened have you become?’”
Taylor burst out laughing, and I told them both to shut up.
“Don’t be mad. We’re only teasing.” Parker wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “I’ve gotta run.”
“Are you going to come over for dinner tonight?” I leaned into the semi-hug he offered. He smelled nice, like sage with a touch of cedar—probably from the candle he’d picked up and not because he usually smelled that good. It had to be the candle. “I want to see as much of you as possible before you head back to the other side of the world.”
“You’ll probably be seeing more of me than you want for a while. I’m not going back to Hong Kong.” He pecked the top of my head like he hadn’t just dropped a bombshell.
“You’re not?” I tried squirming out of his arm before he could do what he always did next, but I wasn’t fast enough.
“Nope. In fact . . .” He dug his knuckles into the top of my head and rubbed before I could get away. “We’re going to be neighbors. Your dad’s letting me crash out back.”
“I haven’t missed that.” I pushed his hand away and glared at him. “You’re staying in the garage apartment? Why didn’t he tell me?” The detached garage out back had a nice apartment above it that Daddy usually rented out, but over the past few years, he’d refused to rent to anyone he didn’t know.
“Because he offered it to me right before I came here,” he said and hugged Taylor goodbye. “What time is dinner?”
“Whenever you get there. I’ve got food I’ll pop into the oven. Caroline and Preston are going out with some friends.” I kept the smile off my face until he walked out the door. We hadn’t talked much over the past three years, so I couldn’t explain the drumming in my chest that had started when Parker said that not only was he not going back to Hong Kong but also that he’d be living in the apartment above our garage. It would be nice to have him back, and in close proximity. Even with the inevitable teasing I knew it meant.