Exactly What I've Been Waiting For

Chapter 3

The next morning, Jade woke up with her head pounding. She heard rattling coming from her kitchen. She reached for the clock on her nightstand and groaned - 8:30 a.m. "Go away!" she muttered.

"Morning, Sunshine!" Leigh smiled when she saw Jade trot down the stairs in a robe. "Aww," she cooed. "Late night?"

"I need my key back. No one is allowed in here until past ten o'clock." Jade made herself a mug of coffee and took a seat at the table with Leigh.

"Where'd you go last night?"

Jade immediately felt a lie form in. "Nowhere."

"Oh, 'cause I called and no one picked up. I called the shop and blank. I even called Camila and said something about a party." Leigh raised her eyebrow in suspicion.

"Yeah. There was a lame party. Remember Lizzy and Kevin? They invited. Well, Dani invited me, but it didn't work out." She hid her face as she took a long gulp of her hot coffee.

"Is Dani the hot accountant who helped you a month ago?" Leigh asked, handing over a box of pastries she picked up on the way.

Jade shook her head, "That's Monica. Dani is the one I told about who was this close to stalking me." She held up a pinch gesture of her fingers showing Leigh the almost non visible gap between them.

Leigh nodded. "Isn't Perrie their architect? I think it was André who introduced them."

Jade choked on the liquid coffee. "Perrie? Why would you even mention her name?"

Laughter escaped Leigh's lips. "Why are you so defensive? I was just asking if she was there."

"Yeah," she squeaked. "I think I saw her somewhere in the crowd." Lying was not one of her strong suits. "Her car was in the driveway." Which wasn't a complete lie, she did see her car. "Look, I hate to be the see 'em and leave 'em type of girl; it being my own house and all, but I need to get to work. I have so much things to do and two and a half days to do it."

***

Jade heard her front door close when she reentered her bedroom, and the first thing that caught her eye was the blonde's parka. She slowly walked over and lifted it from its resting spot. She held it up against her nose and smelt her. "What am I doing?" she murmured. Putting it back in the chair and heading towards her shower.

***

"Camz, where are my statice and hypericums?!" she called out from the backroom.

"Was that even English?"

Jade needed to bite her bottom lip to keep herself from smiling. "Hey, what are you doing here?" She adjusted some of the stems and took her heavy duty clippers to trim some of them.

"I need my parka."

"Right. Sorry. I forgot to give it to you last night. It's in the closet to your right."

The blonde followed her pointer finger and drew it over her arm. "It's alright. I have a consult just across the street so I decided to drop by." She glanced around the room and draped her parka over the brunette's chair. "Is that garlic bread I see? I skipped out on breakfast, and look at the time," she flashed her watch towards her. "About my lunch break."

The brunette chuckled. "Help yourself. As much as I hated Leigh raiding my house at 8 o'clock in the morning, she did leave some goodies from that Italian place we love. There's also pasta in the container in the refrigerator, and a microwave behind you." Jade pushed the unfinished arrangement to the side before leaving the room to yell at Camila who hadn't answered her.

When the brunette came back, she found Perrie sitting down on her computer chair, her feet up on the desk and eating directly from her container. "Don't worry, Pez. Make yourself at home while I slave around doing my job."

Jade's hands were full of purple and white flowers. That's what they were to the blonde, flowers. Things that bloomed in the spring, and peaked in the summer, dying in fall and completely buried in winter.

"Sorry," Perrie said with her mouth full. "What are you going to eat? This is amazing by the way."

"How do you think I keep this killer bod?" She teased as she rested a hand on her sticking out hip.

It sure is a killer bod, Perrie thought. Wait, stop thinking about her body, she flinched. "So what are you working on now?" she asked getting up and going to stand by her.

"It's the centrepiece for a wedding. They want an abundant of colors so that's what I'm giving them. So far, the bride is my favorite. She's also a florist, but doesn't want the pressure on her wedding day, so she is very detailed in the sketches. And the groom is extremely simple. White rose with baby breaths and some accents of red and green."

Perrie put a forkful of pasta in front of Jade's face and she took it in. "Okay, I got to go. I have ten minutes to digest and drive to a fifteen minute consultation with a rather fussy client who has no idea what she wants." She closed the container and place back in the fridge. "Oh, I meant to ask you about the car."

"Remember Lauren? Back in college? She gave me a number for a mechanic and it was brought in this morning. I have released the prisoner," Jade joked, placing the final stems into the arrangement.

Perrie nodded. "Good. Thanks for the food," her hands rested on the middle of the brunette's back and leaned in for a quick peck on the cheek. "I'll see you Saturday."

"Bye." Jade waved goodbye.

As Perrie walked back to her car, she could picture the older Geordie getting back to the flowers, drowning in their intoxicating scent. She could see her cleaning the stems and clearing out the thorns from them, strategically placing them in radiant bundles.

As the blonde thought about her, she thought - briefly, but actively - about leaning down the last two inches and taking that mouth with hers. Jade was a fun person, Perrie could've played it off as a joke and shared a laugh with her. She'd probably get a kick out of it.

Perrie shut her door and rubbed her face with her hands. "Stop it," she mused. "This is Jade you're talking about. You're supposed to think of her as your sister, not a girl you want to kiss."

Perrie laughed at her reflection in the mirror. "Look at you, you're talking to yourself in the mirror. Stop!" she pointed.

She put her car into drive and drove that fifteen minutes to her consultation when she realized... "Dammit! Shit! Stupid! Stupid!"

This was now ridiculous. She was like one of those idiots who deliberately left something at a woman's place so that they had an excuse to go back and try to score. And duh, that wasn't it.

Was it?

Maybe it was.