Red Lily

you know what I mean? What made me think Iwanted to hook up with the artistic, broody type?”
    “I—”
    “So I shook him and the sand out of my shoes, and here I am.”
    Inside, she turned and slid her hands in the back pockets of his jeans. An old habit of hers that brought on another memory flash. “I really have missed the hell right out of you. You’re glad to see me, aren’t you, Harper?”
    “Sure. Sure, I am. The thing is, Dory, I’m seeing somebody.”
    “Oh.” Her full bottom lip pouted. “Some serious somebody?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Oh well.” She left her hands in his pockets another moment, then drew them out. Gave his ass a little pat. “I guess I figured it would take a lot of luck on my part for you to be flying solo. How long have you been seeing her?”
    “Depends. What I mean is, I’ve known her awhile, but we’ve only started . . . we’ve only been involved recently.”
    “Looks like I should’ve gotten here sooner. We’re still friends, right? Good friends.”
    “We always were.”
    “That’s what I remembered, and I guess what I missed with Justin, the photographer. We never managed to be friends, and we sure as hell weren’t anything close to friends when it fell apart. You, on the other hand. I was telling another friend of mine not long ago how I’ve never been dumped as sweetly as I was with you.”
    She laughed, rose on her toes to kiss him lightly. “You’re a rare one, Harper.”
    She stepped back, and seconds later, Hayley came through the glass doors. “I’m sorry, am I interrupting? Is there something I can help you with?”
    “No, thanks. Harper’s giving me a hand.” Dory pattedhers on his arm. “I’m clueless about plants, so I came to the expert.”
    “Hayley, this is Dory. We went to college together.”
    “Is that right?” She smiled, widely. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.”
    “I haven’t been, for a long time. I’ve just moved back from Miami. New job, fresh start, you know how it goes.”
    “Don’t I just,” Hayley purred with that wide smile still in place.
    “I decided I’d come see Harper, and catch up, and get a few plants to liven up my new apartment. Wait till you see it, Harper, it’s a big step up from the hole I rented off-campus back in the day.”
    “Anything would be. I hope you got rid of that futon.”
    “I burned it. Harper hated that thing,” she said to Hayley. “Even offered to buy me a bed, but all I had was this tiny little place—just one room. If I had three people over, we were so crammed together we were halfway to an orgy.”
    “Those were the days,” Harper said, and made Dory laugh.
    “Weren’t they? Well, you’d better show me what I’m going to need, or I’ll keep you talking the rest of the day.”
    “I’ll just leave y’all alone.” Hayley backed out the doors.
    She got back to work, but made certain she wasn’t on checkout duty when Dory was ready to pay for the plants Harper selected for her. But she could hear Dory laugh—a particularly grating laugh, in her opinion—as she stocked shelves across the room.
    Harper leaned on the counter through the process, she noted out of the corner of her eye. And just look how he wore that lazy smile of his while they talked about mutual friends and the good old days.
    And damn if that Dory didn’t keep touching him. Little pats and pokes in between her hair flips. The steam beganto rise from her belly up to her throat as Harper pulled the cart of potted plants out to Dory’s car.
    Hayley decided she really needed to check the stock of the shelves by the window. And if a person happened to look out while they were working, it wasn’t spying. It was glancing.
    Enough of a glance that she saw Harper lean down and exchange a liplock with his college buddy.
    Bastard.
    Then he waved her off before strolling around the side of the building like he wasn’t a low-life cheating scum. Worse, the sort that did his low-life cheating right in front of her face.
    You’d think he’d have the courtesy, the good breeding, to at least do it behind her back.
    Well, that was just fine. She wasn’t going to let it matter. She wasn’t going to give a single wrinkled, balled-up damn.
    And she wasn’t going outside to kick him in his two-timing balls either. She was just going out to see if any customers needed her assistance.
    That’s what she got paid for. Not for flirting, not for spending half the day reminiscing. And certainly not