She taught him how to love...

Part 5: Blackmailing

Rionna woke up with a headache the next morning. It was comforting to know that Carrie also suffered a head ache.

Nevertheless, she showered and slipped into a soft white sweater that had little blue teddy bears printed on it and paired it with a navy blue skirt and black high-heeled ankle boots. She was in a good mood today so she put on some cherry colored lip gloss too.

'Hurry up and eat these eggs! Don't start complaining to me when they're all cold!'

Yay, a normal breakfast in the morning! Sigh. She was reminded of why she liked to sleep over at Carrie's so much. She always seemed to run out of time to make a proper breakfast.

'Coming!' 

Rionna had a really strange dream last night... It was the same man in the elevator, who stared right into her with his cold grey eyes. But he wasn't cold at all in her dream. She felt comforted, cherished and graceful in front of him. She could vaguely remember candles, a flowy cream silk gown and the man... the man was...hurt? She couldn't remember much and it hurt her head the more she thought about it. 

Oh my god! I told him I was going to buy him flowers today! How could I have been so stupid that day? It was like the brain packed its bags and took a vacay, leaving her traitorous body to make its own stupid decisions. Today she was going to just quickly drop the flowers off at the reception desk and hurry her ass out before she made a fool of herself again.

'Hurry up! Only two kinds of people can eat in my house. The quick and the hungry.'

Rionna quickly dashed to the kitchen, 'Well lucky me 'cause I'm both.' 

Carrie deadpanned. 'You say that and you barely eat anything to keep a mouse alive.'

Rionna winced internally, because she'd started eating less and less since Nathan had told her she needed to lose some weight.

So this time she dug into her breakfast in a way that would make her cantankerous Uncle Joe shed a tear and give her a pat on the back. 

Carrie stared at Rionna as if she was doing gymnastic moves worthy of a gold medal. It was fine, until she began feeling creeped out and had to tell Carrie to eat her breakfast as well.

They reached R&C Flower Paradise  on time and tended to all their flowers. The petunias looked somehow pissed off with her so she gave them more water today than usual. 

'Now, this can't be an everyday thing. Don't think I'm that easy' she lightly scolded them. Satisfied by keeping them in their line, Rionna moved on to the other flowers that were begging for attention and let Carrie man the counter.

People went in and out of the shop, rushing to buy a bouquet for a loved one at the last minute, or to talk about how a certain Martha had recently grown some orchids in her patio, and now she needed to have some too. So Carrie showed the customer to some eagerly growing orchids in order to keep world peace.

They day dragged on like that and Rionna tried convincing herself that there was a lot to organize today, which is why she hadn't chosen flowers to give to Elevator Man and just get it over with. But afternoon came quick and she had to get this done... except she didn't have to, because she could just avoid this altogether and let it become a thing of the past.

It had been nagging at her in the back of her mind all day that she didn't need to do this, but that she actually wanted to. She wanted to see the him again. She felt a magnetic pull towards him that she knew she shouldn't want to explore. It had barely been a whole day since she got out of a 2 year relationship. 

As it was, Rionna always followed her heart, no matter how many times she got into trouble because of it, which led her in front of Mercant Digitals with a carefully selected assortment of Snowdrops in her hands. While she tried to decide whether to go inside the building or not, she was reminded of her mom, which usually happened whenever Rionna thought of giving flowers to someone. She was reminded of the meanings behind each flower which her mom used to tell her about when she was younger, and she would watch in fascination as her mom tended the flowers in their garden. Rionna then thought about the symbolism of Snowdrops and almost went back to her apartment to give up the whole idea.