Any Blooming Thing: Contemporary Second Chance Romance Novella (Clean Romantic Comedy) (Flower Shop Romance Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Any Blooming Thing

  Excerpt -- Wherever Love Takes Me

  Bonus Book 1 -- Time For You

  Bonus Book 2 -- My Makeover

  Bonus Book 3 --Dream About You

  Bonus Book 4 -- My Chance

  Bonus Book 5 -- Tessa's Spring

  Excerpt: Tessa's Summer

  Bonus Book 6 -- A Single Year

  Any Blooming Thing

  A Sweet Contemporary Romance Novella

  Flower Shop Romance Book One

  MARISA LOGAN

  Flower Shop Romance Series:

  1: Any Blooming Thing

  2: Wherever Love Takes Me

  3: Crazy Sweet Love

  4: Trusting Your Heart

  These are all standalone stories with no cliffhangers, you can read in order or individually.

  ***

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  Copyright © 2016 by Marisa Logan

  All rights reserved, worldwide.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or electronic form.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Book Description

  Jessica and Chleo own a flower shop in the city. They met in high school and now, almost 15 years later, the best friends have created their perfect jobs working together at Any Blooming Thing.

  One day Jessica and Chleo notice a tall blonde man outside walk past the store window. Although they only see him from behind, something about him seems very familiar. Is it possible that they know him from the past?

  This is a clean romantic short story suitable for young adults and older.

  Chapter 1

  “How much for a dozen red carnations?” the man was short, and he had a habit of rubbing the bridge of his nose, whether his glasses were falling off or not. He’d been to this flower shop twice in this last week and hadn’t bought anything. He was probably trying to impress a date. Maybe weighing the pros and cons of getting the person flowers or a box of chocolate.

  Chleo saw him walk into the store, shook her head, and disappeared into the back. So it was up to Jessica to help this awkward and creepy gentleman.

  This city was full of characters. ‘The nice ones are always nuts,’ Chleo had said, ‘and the ones who look like basket cases are always telling you to love yourself’.

  “Carnations?” Jessica frowned. He might as well have told his date that he was a sleaze ball. Jessica’s frown made the short man frown too.

  “I don’t know anything about flowers,” he admitted with an awkward smile. He touched the bridge of his nose, checking to see if his glasses were still intact, and looked around the shop.

  “What do you have that would be nice for a date?”

  Of course it was for a date. Jessica wanted to know why it took three trips to Any Blooming Thing for him to finally decide on flowers.

  “Roses are nice. Not a dozen though. A dozen is more for apologies when you’ve been caught cheating, and really special occasions,” Jessica laughed.

  The man laughed nervously.

  “I’m gonna go ahead and guess that this is the first date?”

  The man nodded.

  Jessica had owned this business long enough to figure out whatever reason people needed flowers for. He seemed sweet albeit lost. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that a bouquet of flowers on the first date was a bit played out since the 90s. That and she was running a business after all.

  “If you ask me, get her one flower. Not a bouquet,” Jessica said.

  “Uh huh, uh huh, I see,” the man said darting his eyes around the store. He looked like he was going to be dizzy in a minute. He was overwhelmed. He must really like the woman he’s trying to impress.

  “What do you know about her? I mean, what are some things she enjoys and how did you guys meet?”

  “Oh, I met her at a school fair. Our schools were competing in different subjects. There were, I think, 9 schools there. She’s an art teacher, and I’m a science teacher a few districts away. We both teach middle schoolers. She’s so wild and beautiful. She has pink streaks in her hair, and women like that always fascinated me. Like you and your tattoo. You’re all so bold, and I guess I wanted to get to know her because of that. It kind of shocked me that she took an interest in me too.”

  The man was practically tripping over his words. It was adorable how nervous he was just thinking about what to get the art teacher on their first date.

  “I know just the one,” Jessica said with a smile. Her bright smile revealed the tiny brown freckles that she had spackled across her nose.

  “You do?”

  “Yeah,” Jessica walked down an aisle of the little shop. She knew where every flower was. She had arranged them herself. She climbed two levels up a step ladder and brought down a bright pink flower with freckles that looked like hers.

  “A stargazer,” Jessica said. “You teach science, she teaches art and has pink in her hair. This flower represents both of you.”

  The man with the glasses grinned a genuine grin and took the flower from her.

  “This…this is perfect.”

  He thanked her so many times as he paid, and he promised to come back any time he needed flowers for anyone. Jessica wished that everyone were this grateful for her work. She told him to come back any time.

  “Is he gone?” Jessica could hear Chleo whisper from the back room. The door was open just a crack, and Jessica could see Chleo’s big brown eyes. That made her laugh.

  “He’s gone. He was actually really sweet. Just totally nervous about a first date,” Jessica said.

  Chleo emerged from the back room and eyed Jessica.

  “Yeah, I heard. If he comes back again this week, I’ll know for sure that he’s crazy.”

  Chleo adjusted the white headband that she wore. Her hair was thick and curly, and if she didn’t tie it back, it would be flowing freely about her face and shoulders. Sometimes she did keep it out, but to her, it was a hassle having to keep brushing it back so that it didn’t get in the way.

  “You think everyone’s crazy huh?” Jessica asked. She was almost Chleo’s exact opposite physically. It hadn’t always been that way. When the two met in high school, they were both medium height, and a bit thick with long curly hair. They were known as the yin yang sisters because Jessica was pale, and Chleo was dark, and they rarely were seen without the other one by their side.

  Now, after almost 15 years, Jessica looked completely different. She was a very late bloomer. She grew several inches taller than Chleo and lost a bit of weight. She straightened and dyed her frizzy ginger hair a kind of soft black, which made her icy blue eyes stand out.

  Chleo stayed pleasantly plump and had a beautiful personality to match her beautiful face. She was always making everyone laugh and she had dimples in both of her cheeks. They were still as close as sisters after all this time, and they opened Any Blooming Thing together when they were 26. Chleo had moved to the city to be closer to Jessica, and everything turned out perfectly.

  “Hell yeah I think everyone’s crazy. Do you kn
ow the city we live in?”

  “I feel like if you had a gun you’d be the shoot first and ask questions never type.”

  “See that’s not fair. You’re only saying that because you know me.”

  Jessica doubled over with laughter. Chleo was a trip.

  “I bet you I can find one decent man in this city,” Jessica said when she finally stopped laughing.

  “Ok, and when you find him, ask him if he has a brother or a friend,” Chleo giggled.

  “Yeah, but I don’t even know where to look.”

  Chleo looked outside the window of the store. The majority of the front wall was a window, and a red dutch door that had a large foggy glass pane on the top half of it.

  Just then, a tall blonde man walked by. His face was toward the street, but there was something vaguely familiar about him. Jessica leaned forward, like that would get him to turn his face around. She was sure that she knew him from somewhere. Just seeing the back of his head made her entire body tingle with curiosity.

  “Hmm,” Chloe said thoughtfully. “What about…him?”

  Chapter 2

  Jessica noticed the tall blonde again the next afternoon. He was on his phone so his hand was covering the majority of his face, but there was definitely something about him. She felt drawn to him for some reason. Something seemed very familiar; like Jessica may have known him. Was it possible that she could have met him before? It was a huge city after all, and there were a lot of tall men with butter blonde hair walking around.

  The blonde stranger’s hair was short, but long enough to gel and style the front tip. He was wearing the same black jacket that he had worn the day before, and a pair of faded jeans. Jessica only saw him for a second when he walked by, but she felt such a strong pull. Her heartbeat sped up when she saw him, and she shrank into her chair. She was avoiding someone she didn’t even know.

  For someone who was as bold and open as she was, going up to meet someone and maybe ask for a date was practically unheard of. Since she was a late bloomer, it had taken her a bit of time to get used to the attention and the stares and compliments. She still had an issue with her esteem, but having Chleo around helped. She and Chleo could laugh off any situation, and Chleo had always told Jessica that she was beautiful.

  Jessica needed her best friend in this big city. She wouldn’t be able to navigate through the city or know how to run her business without Chleo being there with her.

  “I’m heading out to lunch,” Chleo said. It was a slow day at Any Blooming Thing. There were some people who window shopped, or came in to peruse, but it was a slow time of year. No one was really in the mood to buy flowers save for strange science teachers going on first dates.

  “Would you bring me back something?” Jessica asked. She was sitting at the computer checking through emails, and ordering some flowers for the next week. Chleo nodded, and wrapped a silver scarf around her neck. It wasn’t cold, but Chleo always liked to look fabulous, and she always did.

  “I think I want pizza. Or maybe some pasta. I don’t even know. I’m starving and I want sauce and cheese,” Jessica said, almost salivating. She didn’t have a big breakfast that morning. She was running late for work and she’d only had a coffee and half of a bagel with some cream cheese on it.

  “Sbarros it is,” Chleo said. Jessica’s eyes were back on the computer, but she signaled Chleo with a thumbs up to let her now that that was ok.

  Chleo stepped out of the store and headed down the street. Knowing her, she’d be gone for an hour and a half looking for shoes as she ate. Jessica didn’t mind. She liked that it was quiet right now. She could keep track of her work, and not think about the mysterious butter blonde who kept walking by the store.

  Did he work close by? Would he ever come into the store? Jessica let out a sigh of exasperation and leaned back in her office chair. She didn’t have time to ponder about a guy whose face she hadn’t even seen. She had work to do, and she knew she would be too nervous to just go out and ask him out if he ever walked by the store again.

  Now she wished she had been the one to go out. She had a lot on her mind, but at the same time there was nothing on her mind. She didn’t know what that meant, but a walk would have been a nice way to sort out her thoughts.

  “This is ridiculous,” Jessica muttered to no one. She distracted herself by scrolling through pages and pages of chrysanthemums. “I can’t be thinking of a faceless guy. That’s insane.”

  Jessica’s eyes widened at the thought and continued to whisper to herself, “Oh my god…this city’s making me insane.”

  She laughed and calmed herself down.

  “The best way to figure out if you’re insane is to talk to yourself and get an answer.”

  She puffed out her cheeks and let out a whoosh of air. She looked up and outside. The street was a little busy. Some people paused to look inside, but they were mostly stopping to use the window as a mirror to fix their hair or reapply lip gloss.

  Jessica stared out a bit longer, wondering what everyone was doing with their day, and what brought them to this side of town at this very moment.

  And then she saw him.

  She recognized the black jacket right away, and the way that his blonde hair caught the sunlight. It was like shining light through translucent gold.

  He was holding a bright green paper coffee cup in one hand, and a donut in the other. Jessica could see that it was from the coffee shop that had recently just opened up the street. His face was turned away, but then he finally looked up and over at the flower shop. He slowed down his walk to peer inside. Then he paused for a moment; squinting his eyes against the glare of the glass that was being illuminated by the rays of the sun.

  And that’s when Jessica’s heart stopped and practically jumped out of her chest. She did know him! That was why he seemed so familiar to her when she first saw him and why she was so drawn to him.

  It was Alfie Reynolds.

  Chapter 3

  “Alfred Reynolds is perfect,” Jessica swooned when she spoke. Her hand was wrapped around a light post, and she twirled and daydreamed about him.

  “So perfect that you have to say his full name, huh?” Chleo shook her head and watched Jessica twirl. They were in their Junior year of high school. Jessica had had a crush on Alfie Reynolds almost as long as her friendship with Chleo. But Jessica was the silly and awkward part of the “weird yin yang duo”. That’s what people called them in school. They were the class clowns, and people liked them, but not liked enough to date or invite to parties unless the person knew them personally or had to invite the entire grade.

  “What makes him extra perfect now?” Chleo asked. She didn’t want to talk about him, but if it would get Jessica to stop dreamily dancing around with a light post then she was willing to do anything.

  Jessica let go of the post she was holding, and they continued to walk down the street towards their homes. Chleo lived a little further out than Jessica, but it was only by a 10 minute walk or so. They lived in a relatively quiet town. It was small enough for people to know of other people living there, but large enough so gossip didn’t spread around like wildfire.

  “We spent all of after school talking,” Jessica said. She had stayed late that day at school to wait for Chleo to finish with her softball practice. Jessica wasn’t really into sports. She liked anything that had to do with visual arts. Chleo seemed to be on a mission to try everything on earth at least once. She was on the debate team, the softball team, the captain of the school math team, and if she had more time in the day, she would be in Chemistry Club and drama. She also managed to be in the top 3 of her class.

  “Don’t you guys kinda talk all the time anyway?” Chleo asked.

  “Yeah,” Jessica said a bit defensively. “But it was different this time!”

  “How?” Chleo said, narrowing her eyes.

  “Well, if you shut up for a sec, I’ll tell you…”

  *

  Jessica was running late. In her mind anyw
ay. She was supposed to meet Alfie in the art room right after school. She walked Chleo out onto the field, and they chatted for a bit. It was only 7 minutes after the bell rang, but to Jessica that meant she was late. This was the first time that she had Alfie all to herself…as a partner for an English project.

  She made it to the empty physics lab that they agreed to meet, but he wasn’t there yet. He didn’t arrive for another 10 minutes. He apologized profusely, but he never explained what it was that was keeping him so long.

  “I’m actually glad we got Macbeth,” Alfie said with a grin. His eyes were the sort of blue that sometimes turned green or turned grey depending on the weather or the color of the shirt that he wore. He wore glasses, because his eyesight was hopeless, and he wasn’t a fan of contacts. For some reason, that made a lot of the girls swoon over him more. He was dreamy, but also seemed like a real person because he had glasses.

  “That’s a curse,” Jessica said with mock shock. Her mouth widened, but she laughed.

  “I mean, I’m glad we got the play about the Scottish King.”

  “Why is that?” Jessica asked. Everyone at school knew that she had a crush on Alfie, she was even sure that Alfie knew. He pretended not to notice, and she didn’t act on her feelings. She treated him like everyone else.

  “Because it’s about a strong female character who is an antagonist…”

  “Yeah, but isn’t it sexist about the power hungry controlling wife who ends up being crazy?”

  “Fair point…but she stuck by her man,” Alfie’s eyebrows raised as if to prove a point. The corners of his mouth curled up into a knowing smile, and he nodded to acknowledge his own strange genius. Jessica shook her head and tried to hide a laugh.

  “She stuck by him and then went nuts.”

  “I mean she lasted as long as she could. They were actually married though. It wasn’t as shallow as Romeo and Juliet,” Alfie argued.

  “What exactly are you saying?”