Elly in Love (The Elly Series) (36 page)

“Dennis! Dennis!”
Elly began checking each closet. “Dennis!” She ran down the hall to his room. Everything was gone. His backpack, his stinking pile of laundry, his nerdy books. Her hands shaking, Elly touched the eject button on the computer hard drive. It opened, and showed
World of MageCraft
still safe in its pocket.
Oh no.
She spun around and saw the neat stack of papers by the pillow. Her eyes grew wide as she looked down at the papers for the DNA test that she had ordered. When they came in the mail, she had shoved them under her bed, telling herself that she would think about that after the wedding. Dennis had found them.
No wonder he had left
. She looked around the empty room and a tear fell down her cheek.
Oh Dennis.
She read his note again.

A new fear rose inside of her. It was unfamiliar, perhaps stronger than any other feeling before it. It was protective, overbearing, and paranoid. She had a sudden longing to wrap Dennis in her arms and take all the ills of his world away. His face was beautiful in her memory, a perfect reflection of her own. She ached for him with a fierceness that surprised her, and her heart began to clutch fearfully in her chest. Elly Jordan was suddenly more afraid than she had ever been in her life.
She had to find Dennis. She had to find him now.

Snarky Teenager burst through the door. “What is happening? We have to figure out the flowers.”

Elly looked up from the note. “I have to go find Dennis.”

“He’s probably at the video-game rental store.”

“No. He left.” She handed Snarky Teenager the note.

As she read the note, her eyes grew misty. “Oh God. Do you think he would …?”

Elly’s mind whirled with wild fear. “Yes. And I didn’t help with that. Ah, I’m so stupid!”

“You aren’t. You did all you could.”

“No. I didn’t.”

Snarky Teenager shook her head. “Elly, I care about Dennis too, but this wedding….”

Elly stood up and began taking off her overalls and apron. She quickly pulled on jeans and a long-sleeved maroon shirt. “You can handle it.”

Snarky Teenager’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Take care of it.”

“But …,” she sputtered, “we have no flowers. The wedding is tomorrow night. Elly, it’s
BlissBride
!”

“You can do the interview.”

“But….” For once, her perfectly aligned features looked absolutely sincere. “Elly, this is your big moment. The one you’ve been waiting for.”

Elly pulled her wet hair back into a bun and began shoving clothes into an overnight bag. “I don’t care. Dennis is …,” she paused as a hot tear rolled down her cheek. “I denied Dennis the privilege of being my family. And he’s my only family. I’m not sure what else is worth living for. I don’t want to let Lola down, and I trust that you won’t. Go to Baisch and Skinner. Hit up Florist Row with our checkbook. Call the wholesalers. Have them hold everything for us that is pink, white, champagne, and any and all shades of blue. Have Anthony go to the farmers’ market and buy them out of dahlias. You will have to adapt the contract to what you can buy. We’re going from elegant flowers to a more native, wild look.”

Snarky Teenager stared at her with huge eyes. “Elly. I can’t do this. I can’t. I’m only in high school. What about Lola’s bouquet?”

Elly reached out and patted her cheek, trying to calm them both. Elly’s heart was racing, threatening to burst out of her chest. Her panic over the dead flowers was nothing compared to this; that was a drop in the ocean. Over and over again in her head, she saw Dennis’s blue eyes, so broken and trusting during their fight. The way he slouched over when he walked or sat, the very posture of someone that life had disappointed.
He was her brother and she had let him down. WHY had she ordered that test? Dennis. Dennis. Dennis.
His name played over and over in her mind. She looked up into Snarky Teenager’s eyes. “Make Lola’s bouquet last. But if you have to do it, I’m not worried about it. You are an incredible designer.”

Then she hugged her, and to her surprise, she felt her tiny body hug back, with a surprising fondness. “I will. I will do this for you.”

Elly smiled at her. “I believe in you. I always have. Use Anthony. Use Kim. Use every one of the extra hands. Delegate.”

“I don’t even know what that word means.”

“You will.” Elly shoved a pair of sandals onto her feet and zipped up her bag. She flipped open her phone and began dialing.

“You can’t report someone missing for twenty-four hours, I think. Don’t you watch TV?”

Elly looked up from the phone. “I’m not calling the police. I’m calling someone better.”

“Who?”

Elly felt herself grip the phone. “I’m calling Keith.”

“But you don’t even know where Dennis is.”

Elly pressed her lips together and looked at the letter on the bed. “Actually, I think I do.”

Two hours later, Elly and Keith sat silently on a plane with an empty middle seat between them, a purchase that Elly thought well worth the two hundred dollars. They both stared straight ahead in their seats, Elly praying that Keith had not seen her epic struggle with the world’s tiniest seatbelt.

An overly tan flight attendant leaned over Elly with a lethargic smile. “Do you need any help? A seatbelt extender?”

Elly stiffened in her seat, feeling her face turn bright red. “No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

Keith narrowed his eyes at the flight attendant. “We’re fine. I’ll take a Guinness and she’ll have a glass of Riesling.”

The flight attendant nodded and Elly looked away from Keith. “You didn’t need to do that. I’m perfectly content.”

“Elly, you hate flying.”

She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Keith leaned over the seat and reached for her hand. Elly pulled hers away, an action that felt about as natural as flying. Her phone buzzed and Elly wrestled it out of her pocket. It was Snarky Teenager. “Hello! Yes, hi. Tell me what you’ve got.” In the background, she could hear the loud sounds of Florist Row: carts, men yelling, the rustling of plastic.

“Okay! I was able to secure about forty bunches of roses in different shades of pink and champagne. I bought out the pink Victoria water-lilies, all the delphinium, and every white, cream, and pink dahlia that I could find.”

“That sounds great.” Elly cringed. While those flowers were gorgeous, they were most definitely common flowers, run-of-the-mill for every florist. Definitely not celebrity wedding flowers. “Tell me that you got some peonies.”

There was a long pause. “There were only eight bunches. And they are small.”

“And the nerine lilies?”

“None.”

The plane stirred under Elly and her heart began pounding in her chest. “Tell me something good.”

“One of the Baisch and Skinner checkout guys has amazing hair.”

Elly breathed out loudly.

“I can hear your rolling your eyes from here. Okay, some good news: Anthony was able to get a ton of white- and pink-striped cymbidium orchids from the tropical shipment that came in this morning. Also, we were able to get most of the greenery we need. Bad news: the ranunculus is tiny, and we were only able to get about sixteen bunches of it.”

Elly rubbed her forehead as the safety demonstration began. The flight attendant leaned over their row. “Ma’am? I’m going to need to you turn off your phone. Now, please.”

“I just need a minute, please, just a minute.”

“Ma’am. There are no special rules for special people. You will have to hang up this phone right now. Ma’am
.
”
If she calls me ma’am again, I will strangle her with her lanyard,
thought Elly meanly. She turned her head. “Lola Plumb is getting married tomorrow night in St. Louis, and I’m doing her wedding flowers. If you let me finish this phone conversation, I will have someone get you in the door.”

The flight attendant widened her big green eyes. “Yes!” she whispered before leaving their row. “But hurry up!”

Elly turned back to the phone, where Snarky Teenager was telling Elly to say things to the flight attendant that Elly would never say to another human being. “Okay. Do you have a pen? No? You never have a pen. Okay. Look for coral, in any flower, and black and white anemones. I know, it’s not in the scheme, but trust me. Uh, and see if they have any gray berries. Dust them if you have to. Mmm-hmm…. Okay, talk to you soon.” She snapped the phone shut and took a deep breath. The phone buzzed again with a text message. It was Gemma, yelling at Elly in all caps:
I HEARD FROM GREG THAT ALL THE FLOWERS ARE DEAD. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? DO I NEED TO CALL ANOTHER FLORIST?

Elly simply typed back:
No. We have it under control.
It was such a big lie that she felt instantly guilty. Nothing was under control. The flowers were dead, Dennis was gone, and she was on a plane headed to Ohio instead of designing the biggest wedding of her career.

Her phone beeped again. From Gemma:
I HOPE SO OTHERWISE THE WEDDING WILL BE RUINED AND I WILL GET FIRED AND THEN I WILL DESTROY YOUR LIFE AND YOUR SILLY LITTLE SHOP.
The phone buzzed again.
THAT SOUNDED EXTREME BUT SERIOUSLY I WILL TAKE YOU DOWN WITH ME.

Another text. This one from Lola:
Can’t wait to see my wedding flowers! It’s going to be my favorite thing, aside from Joe in a tux! XXXOO Love, Lola.

Then Gemma again:
OKAY HAD SOME CAFFEINE AND TALKED TO THE PRETTY GIRL IN THE SHOP. CALMER NOW. LOCAL FLOWERS? REALLY?
I GUESS YOU HAVE NO CHOICE.

With a sigh, Elly snapped her phone shut. The feeling of being watched came over her and she turned to Keith, who was simply staring at her, his gorgeous dark-blue eyes taking in every inch of her. She pulled at the neck of her maroon shirt. “Why are you staring at me?”

“Because I can’t
not
stare. Why did you have to wear that shirt? You know how I like that shirt?”

“This shirt?
This shirt?
” She looked down at the thin maroon top with a hole in the elbow. “
This shirt
?”

Keith nodded. “That shirt. It makes your hair glow.”

Elly’s heart did a tiny, hopeful leap in her chest, and it was more painful than encouraging. “Thanks, but I look terrible. I was up at four a.m. this morning to process a ton of dead flowers. I haven’t showered, I was soaked through with rain, and then handled thousands of dead flower stems. You don’t have to compliment me just to make me feel better.”

He didn’t flinch. “I see your famous compliment deflector is still intact. But it doesn’t change what I said.” He settled back into his seat with a sigh. “But if it makes you uncomfortable, then I’ll stop. But I’m glad you called.”

Elly felt a shiver climb up her spine. It was almost pleasurable, sitting so close to him now, but then she remembered why she was on this plane. Dennis’s note and the foreboding drum that she was feeling in her heart. She looked out the window. “I just hope Dennis is okay.”

“I hope so, Elly. I really do. I’m worried too, but hopeful. He’s a good kid.”

Elly shook her head. “He’s not a good kid. He’s a sad kid. And we did everything wrong with him.”

“That’s not true. We did everything we could to help him.”

“Everything but truly accept him as family.”

“You don’t even know for sure that he is family.”

“Yes, which is why I let your ridiculous voice piping in my ear convince me to order that
stupid
DNA kit, and now he’s gone and who knows what he’s doing. What if he’s hurting himself? Dennis truly believes that the world is better off without him.”

“He’s wrong.”

“I know. But I see how I made him feel that way. God, I’m so selfish.
We
were selfish. We were too wrapped up in each other to see him.” She felt a sob rising in her throat. “And that’s why it’s better that we aren’t together. It was never meant to be.”

She looked straight at Keith, who looked absolutely devastated by her words. “Do you really believe that?”

Elly shook her head. “Can we please not talk about this right now? I might lose my brother and my career in the same day, and I really just need … not this. Not right now. I’m thankful that you are here with me, but … it’s better if we don’t talk. About us. Or your secrets. Or anything.”

Keith looked at her as he shook his head with disappointment. “Always the great communicator,” he murmured.

“What was that?” asked Elly, her tiredness overcoming her.

“Nothing.” They both settled back into the uncomfortable leather as the plane’s engines roared to life. Elly gripped the armrest. “Oh Jesus….” She closed her eyes and began mumbling out a frantic Lord’s Prayer. The plane pitched to the right during takeoff, and she uttered a little cry, trying not to imagine the plane smashing into a thousand pieces on the runway. What would happen to Dennis then?
No, it couldn’t happen. She could not die here, in this metal bird of fiery death.
A warm hand slid across hers, its thick fingers wrapping around hers and gently rubbing the skin of her palm. Her hand and Keith’s joined together in a dance that they had done so many times, feeling as natural as breathing. Some light turbulence jostled the plane about, and Elly felt her breath catch in her chest, but she couldn’t be sure if it was the adrenaline or the rapture of holding Keith’s hand, so very right. Frayed wires of electricity were traveling up her arm, and Elly felt for a moment the swirling blackness of a faint.
Fear, lack of oxygen, or the presence of Keith?
She opened her mouth to tell him that she loved him, that she needed him.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our cruising altitude.”

His hand pulled away and Elly felt all her hopes fall away like leaves. When she closed her eyes, all she could see was Dennis. Dennis, with his head slouched between his knees. Dennis, staring at his imaginary world all day long, the screen lighting up his world-weary face. Dennis, staring at Snarky Teenager with wide eyes, Elly always mistaking his stare for lust when it was so clearly a hunger for companionship. And human touch. She buried her head in her hands.
Oh, Dennis, please forgive me.
Elly continued to pray, feeling Keith’s eyes burning a hole in her side as the plane continued to glide through the blue sky. The fear that something could happen to Dennis covered her like a weighted blanket and she was unable to shake it.