The Art of Grieving

Chapter 1

Grieving comes in many ways and forms. Some people will cry for days and others only need one day to be sad. Some people will eat 10 tubs of ice cream and some will eat nothing at all. 

I've seen my share of grieving people working at Lots of Care. Lots of Care is a business that specializes in bringing grieving people flowers or a muffin basket. Usually family members will order from our specialty website and we hand deliver to the person's house. I was the lucky one that got to hand deliver these packages. I was the one that saw first hand what death can do to a person. 

Now, it isn't always sad, sometimes the people I deliver to could care less about the person that died. I know the worst one of I've ever been to was a lady that found out her great uncle died and didn't even have a funeral. Just ordered a fruit basket for herself and cremated the poor bastard. 

The saddest ones are always the widow that husband died out of no where or children losing their parent. However, seeing their face when we hand them a bouquet of flowers somehow makes the job worth it. 

The job was a tiring thing do to since I had to drive all over town and was the only driver, but the pay was excellent. Plus, the owner, Betty, was the sweetest lady I had ever met. She always let me eat the muffins she makes and gives me days off when I have a huge exam the next day. 

I was taking some classes at the local community college even though I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I still lived in the same town that I grew up in and sometimes went to my parent's house whenever I couldn't afford food. Which was a lot of the time. 

Today I only had one order left to do and then I was going out drinking with my friends. Friday night drinking was sort of our tradition where we could binge-drink and complain about our lives. The only one out of all of us that actually is doing something with her life is Ella. She is a lawyer with her own private firm and just got married last spring. Josie and Jessica are twins that still live in the same apartment with each other and have the same job. Waitresses at the local diner. Even though the two look exactly alike and do the same things, they couldn't be anymore different. Josie was quiet and didn't like to create a lot of attention onto herself where her sister loves to be the center of attention. 

I checked the sheet one more time to make sure I had the right house. The Argento family. I remember a couple of Argento boys from high school, but never once talked to any of them. I preferred to stay by myself in high school and not branch out, something I regret now. 

I grabbed the muffin basket and walked up the front door. It was a beautiful, white house with huge pillars in the front. I walked up the porch steps and rang the doorbell. No one answered the door for a few minutes and I figured no one was probably home. I was about to turn and go, but the door swung open quickly. 

I was confronted with a very tall man that had a huge frown on his face. He was well-built and had brown, floppy hair that almost fell into his eyes before he pushed it back. His piercing eyes looked brown at first, but then almost had a somewhat gray tone to them. 

The guy cleared his throat and I realized I was totally staring at him. 

"Um, sorry, I'm here to deliver a present to Marie Argento," I finally said. 

The guy looked down at the basket that was in my hand and then back up to me. 

"She isn't here right now," He grumbled out. His voice was so smooth and sexy. 

I started to fidget around and he noticed right away. His eyebrows shot up and a small smirk arose on his lips. 

"Uh, can I just give these to you then?" I asked him. His smirk widened. 

"Just give them to me? Aren't you supposed to be like warming to a person that just lost a loved one?"

My eyes widened when I realized how rude I probably sounded like. 

"I'm so sorry for your loss! That's not what I meant at all," I quickly babbled out. I was about to say more, but laughter stopped me. 

The guy was completely laughing at me. I felt my cheeks turn red with anger and I blew out a deep breath so I wouldn't yell at the guy. 

"That's funny to you?" I gritted out. 

He pretended to wipe a tear from his eye and started to stop laughing. 

"Yeah it's pretty fucking funny to me," He finally said to me. 

I narrowed my eyes at him and thrust the basket at him. I grabbed my notepad from my back pocket so I could write down his name to give back to Betty. We needed to do this to make sure everything was delivered. 

The bad thing was I had no clue what his name was and I definitely should have. I graduated with the guy. 

I pursed my lips and tried to think. Brad? No. Owen? No way. 

The guy tilted his head to the side and peered at my notepad. 

"You don't know what my name is do you?" He asked me. 

"Not really no," I admitted. 

He rolled his eyes at me. "Figures."

I put a hand on my hip. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Miss High and Mighty wouldn't bother to learn a peasant's name."

I swore my jaw as going to break at how hard I was gritting my teeth. 

"Just give me the name and I can go," I told him. 

"It's Andrew."

Andrew! Duh! I should've remembered that. I wrote down the name and started to walk away. 

"Have a good night, bella," Andrew yelled out. 

I yelled back as I opened my car door, "My name is Clarese, not Bella!" 

All Andrew did was laugh as he closed the door to the house. 

I looked at the time and realized I only had less than an hour to get ready before going out with my friends. This bastard took up more time than I thought. 

I quickly drove to my apartment building and quickly ran upstairs. The elevator hasn't worked for the last 6 months and no one seems to want to fix it. 

I threw my keys onto the counter and started to rip off my clothes so I could take a quick shower. I scrubbed my body and tried to avoid getting my hair wet because I knew if it was wet my friends would know I was late. Like I usually was. 

I got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around my body. I brushed out my hair and swiped some mascara on. I threw on a pair of black jeans and a halter top that hugged to my body. I grabbed my purse and ran down to my car. It was my turn to sober cab so I had to go pick up Ella. 

Ella lived just a couple of miles away from me, perks of living in a small town. I honked my horn and she opened the door and rolled her eyes at me. 

"Thomas was taking a nap, you know. He had to work an all nighter," Ella scolded me as she got into my car. 

I waved my hand dismissively at her. "He'll be fine."

Thomas was her husband. They met in college and moved back to here when Ella's mom got sick. Her mom was still pretty sick and was always in the hospital. I always felt so bad for Ella because I knew this was killing her. 

"Did you hear who's back in town?" Ella asked me. 

"Andrew Argento," I mumbled. 

Ella gave me a confused look. "How'd you know that?"

"I had to drop off a muffin basket at this house today and he was the one that answered the door."

"Well, I heard that his grandfather just died and he's staying with his grandma now to help her out. Isn't that just cute?" Ella gushed. 

"Adorable," I muttered under my breath.

We drove up the bar and I could see that Josie's car was already there. Ella and I walked into the bar and my eyes were immediately drawn to a man sitting at the bar. 

"Oh for fuck's sake."