Chapter
One
Business at Little Shop of Florals was bustling this morning. Too bad I was a little too hungover to enjoy it. The instigator, my friend Moira, hummed happily as she sorted through the newest batch of baby’s breath, carefully choosing the best specimens and setting them off to one side. We had a large order due this afternoon for one of our best customers, a rich woman named Hattie, who had a standing weekly order for fresh, seasonally appropriate flowers. Since she paid extra to secure the freshest blooms, we did our best to ensure we never disappointed her.
I snipped spent heads from batches of roses and peonies, carefully adding the best to a purple vase filled with water and plant food.
Moira’s lips twitched when she spotted me glaring at her every few seconds. “Oh, now,” she said with a click of her tongue. “I told you to take it easy on that stuff.”
“It takes a truckload of booze to get me wasted,” I hissed. “What the hell was in that stuff?” I had an insane metabolism thanks to my muddled heritage, my DNA a mix of my mother, my father, and some from an event five years ago I still hadn’t come to terms with. Because of my messy DNA, I rarely evenfelt a buzz from alcohol, much less had a hangover twelve hours later.
Moira grinned, her too-sharp incisors gleaming in the warm lights. She was a ninety-year-old vampire who looked to be in her mid-twenties, and a terrible influence on my liver. Though this was the first time she’d ever succeeded in getting me white girl wasted, it was certainly not for lack of trying.
“That would be courtesy of our favorite witch, Hazel,” Moira said. “I asked her for something with a little more kick, and she mailed me a bottle straight from Scotland.” She sighed wistfully. “Home of the best whiskey and the hottest men on the planet.”
I grunted. While Moira wasn’t wrong, I had very mixed feelings about Scotland. “Enchanted whiskey, then?”
Hazel and I had a strange relationship. The witch had saved my life some years ago, and we’d stayed in touch. In many ways, Hazel was responsible for my new life here in Joy Springs and for the friends I’d made, among other things. I cared about Hazel, and she cared about me, but we weren’t exactly friends.
Moira shrugged. “No idea, but it certainly put some hair on my chest.”
I tossed a spent bloom at her. “Next time, give a girl some warning, would you?”
“Mmm. Can’t promise anything. Wasted Evie is the best Evie.” She winked and pushed the baby’s breath toward me. “Take those. I’ll save the rest for the shop bouquets.”
I slid them closer, giving them all an unnecessarily critical eye. Moira might be a vampire, but she had an eye and nose for the best blooms and could slap together a stunning bouquet in less than a minute flat.
Hattie was our oldest and most discerning customer. I wasn’t sure I’d ever met a human older than that woman. Her wrinkles gave birth to more wrinkles, and I could barely see her eyes when I made her deliveries because of the lines and deep folds inher face. When I saw her, I couldn’t help but think of a Shar Pei, which always made me feel guilty.
Hattie was rich and sharp as a tack, and even though her eyes seemed concealed under all that extra skin, she missed nothing.
Plus, I liked crabby old people, and she more than fit the bill.
Tess, our resident banshee and current store intern, stood behind the register, ringing up a customer who’d purchased one of our spring bouquets. When she’d slid the change across the desk, the customer chirped a cheery goodbye. Tess stared at the customer until the woman’s friendly smile slid from her face, and she took her purchase and hurried out the door.
“Tess,” I said with a sigh. “When someone says goodbye, all you have to do is say something like ‘Have a nice day,’ or ‘Take care!’ Staring at them and staying silent makes it weird.”
The banshee turned her strange, pale eyes to me. “But that would be a lie. We’re all walking piles of bones anyway, so who cares if the day is nice or not?”
Moira snorted and reached for the peonies. “She’s got you there.”
I pegged the vampire in the head with a clipped stem. “We may all be walking piles of bones, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be courteous.”
I walked over to the register and tapped on the laminated cue sheet I’d made for Tess a few months ago. “Remember. Just look at this if you can’t figure out what to do.”
“Now that thing makes it weird,” Moira murmured under her breath.
I sighed. “It’s not weird. Some people need more guidance. Especially if they haven’t worked in customer service before.”
I skimmed the sheet and found where I’d written, “customer says goodbye” under the Action column and tapped. “See, Tess?”
Then I moved my finger over to the Reaction column next to it, where it said, “Say goodbye or have a nice day.” And the banshee’s favorite, “Offer a smile.”
Tess did that weird banshee moan that sounded like that magic academy toilet ghost from those popular books. “I’ll try.”
“Try really hard, okay?” I encouraged.
Tess moaned again.
