Gods Forbid

Chapter Three

Leila Meyer

I trimmed flower stems, getting them ready to put in the arrangements. Fifteen orders still had to go out, and I had to finish a wedding order.

I placed the last rose in the Love's in Bloom bouquet, and tied a ribbon around the top. I wiped my hands on my jean shorts and tucked a hand into my back pocket, stepping back to take a look at it.

"Beautiful, just like you."

I jumped and turned to see Aren standing on the other side of the counter dressed like a guy from Ambercrombie, with the added shirt. He leaned on the counter, looking at my chest and I awkwardly put my arms up to cover myself.

"So you are Leila. That would have been extremely embarrassing if you weren't."

I relaxed slightly realizing he'd been looking at my nametag. Aren had one of those lazy grins, one that looked effortless but I'd had to practice for hours to nail.

"I'm sorry if I startled you," he said raising one eyebrow.

I realized that I hadn't said a single word. "It-it's fine." I wiped my hands on my jean shorts again.

"You look nothing like your ... other self," he said looking me over. While I didn't mind his looking, it made me want to cover up again.

"And you're much more confident this morning," I shot back. "How did you find me?"

"You told me where you worked, don't you remember?" He held a hand over his heart, his face twisting in mock hurt.

I kicked myself. I'd said a lot of things the night before I wouldn't normally have said. I never told anyone who I really was when I was in drag. I never told them my name, where I worked, anything, they never wanted to know. There had just been something about the guy. And even with him exuding confidence and clearly flirting, there was still that something about him. It was like he wasn't of this world, like there was more to him.

He honestly felt like an adventure, and Lord knew I could use an adventure in my monotonous life. But I knew nothing about him, and he just showed up at my work.

"Okay, so what are you doing here?" I picked up the flowers and began trimming. There was no way I could get behind, not for anything.

"I thought paying a visit in person would be far better than a call or text."

"What would it be better for?" I put the trimmed flowers into the crystal vase, arranging them as I snipped and added more.

"Asking you on a date."

I nearly cut my finger with the scissors. He certainly was straight forward. I recovered from the shock and put the last flower into the vase and looked around the empty shop.

"You want to go on a date with a drag king?"

Aren slid his hands into the pockets of his tight jeans. I sure did love a man who knew how to wear jeans.

"You say this as if the fact that you have a male alter ego is supposed to chase me away. You already said you were into guys, and I told you I swing both ways. It doesn't matter whether you're male, female, somewhere in between. I don't really see a problem unless you're not into bisexuals."

"That's not it. It's just that sometimes guys are put off when they find out I dress in drag." It had probably been the number one reason for every breakup I'd ever had. At least they had all been good for the purpose of learning how to act like a guy.