The Rose

In the interests of straightening out some of the chronological skipping around I've been doing with this whole Aiden adventure, I'm going to take a moment now to go back a few days and catch up before moving on. I can't honestly remember whether it was Saturday or Sunday that this occurred, because he and I worked the same combination of shifts on both days, but it's irrelevant anyway. Let's say it was Sunday. Actually, now that I've put the thought into it, it was definitely Sunday.

I worked the day shift, beginning at eleven o'clock in the morning and finishing whenever my customers left as the night shift was coming in. Kevin dropped me off and told me to call him when I was done so he could pick me up again. That's unusual - I'm independent to a fault and much prefer to drive myself, but I had agreed to let him borrow my car for something. Would that it had been any other day that I did so.

Day shift was peaceful, but I started getting jumpy around mid-afternoon, knowing that Aiden would be coming in soon to work the dinner shift. He showed up just a couple of minutes late and gave me a quick wave as he ran to clock in. It was a few minutes before I actually got to say hello, as it was reasonably busy.

"Blue," he said, eventually catching me up. I don't know why he started calling me by my last name, but I kind of like it.

"Hey, what's up?"

"I got you a present," he said with a mischievious grin. "I left it on my windshield cause I couldn't find your car. Go look when you get out."

"Uh oh," I said, grinning back. "You're not causing trouble again, are you?"

"I couldn't resist."

It was a while before I got done with all my work, but as I was going out the door, he caught me again. "Blue, come back and tell me what you think," he said.

"Can I hide it in here?" I asked, waving my little apron full of change and straws.

"Play dumb," he said with a smile.

I raised an eyebrow and headed outdoors into what had become a snowy, slushy mess of a parking lot. Pulling out my phone, I considered calling Kevin, then decided it would be better to wait and see what I was dealing with from Aiden first. I stuffed it back in my pocket and slogged the length of the parking lot, drenching the ankles of my pants in semi-frozen dirty water. Upon finding his car, I stopped. There was a single red rose under one of the windshield wipers, wrapped in plastic and partially frozen to the glass. I put my hand over my mouth, hesitated, then pulled it out.

Unsure what to do, I walked in circles for a couple of minutes, then stopped under a tree, thinking. There was no possible way I could play dumb; Kevin knows I'm not stupid, and there's only one person at work he would pinpoint for giving me such a thing. I would just have to hide it, but where?

Finally I walked into the department store next door to the diner and wandered up and down the aisles, looking for something I might need to buy. My mind wasn't cooperating very well, but finally I decided that a couple of boxes of frozen waffles would do the trick, and I grabbed them and headed for the checkout. Once again I pulled out my phone, then decided to wait and make sure the rose fit in the bag. The phone went back in my pocket.

I thanked the cashier and stopped before I reached the door, adjusting the boxes of waffles in the plastic bag to make as large a space as possible. The rose, however, was far too long; I turned it upside-down and stuffed it in head-first, figuring I could just hide the top of the bag with my arm, and headed outside. I stood by a trash can in the sleet and snow and finally made my call.

"I'm already halfway there," Kevin told me. "I figured you'd be out soon, so I went ahead and left. See you in two minutes." I gulped. That had been a much closer call than I'd thought.

Leaning against the wall of the building, I decided that trying to hide the rose wasn't worth the risk of him possibly seeing it, so I finally gave up and stuffed it in a trash can on the sidewalk. I felt bad doing it, but couldn't think of another possible option.

"Who's the rose for?" asked a voice next to me. It was Kaely, another one of the waitresses, also just getting off shift.

"From," I corrected her.

"Oh, from who?"

I looked around. "Don't pass this on, but...Aiden."

"Ohhh," she said with a knowing smile. "Yeah, everyone's been wondering what's going on."

I had figured that, as we hadn't been trying to hide it. "Well," I hedged, "He's married and I live with my boyfriend..."

"I know he's married," she said. "So how do you feel about that, that he gave you a rose? You don't think it's a little inappropriate?"

I shrugged, unsure what to say. I was thrilled, actually, but didn't feel like sharing that. "If he's going to cause trouble, it's gonna happen." Halfway through that sentence I realized it wasn't going anywhere, and she looked as confused as I felt.

"So what are you going to tell your boyfriend about the rose?"

"Oh, I threw it away," I said, feeling guilty.

"Really? I would've told him, 'Here, I got you this! Present!'" That hadn't occurred to me in my slightly panicked state.

"Hm," I said. "You think faster than I do."

It occurred to me later, though, that I had probably done the right thing after all. I don't think they actually sell roses at that deparment store, and Kevin would've known that and asked about it. He really is obnoxious about details sometimes.

I already mentioned that the next day we went out to lunch after I finished my shift. As we were standing in the parking lot, Aiden smoking a cigarrette, he said, "So, because I got you a rose, I had to get my wife one too. But you were the driving impetous."

I smiled, lacking words for that one.

"How does it feel to be the reason a married man buys his wife a rose?"

"Nowhere I haven't been before," I said. "Though slightly less honest."

I did tell him that it was sweet of him and I was charmed. I didn't tell him I threw it away, though. I told him the plan about the shopping bag and let him assume it had worked. When he threatened the next day to leave waffles on my car as an inside joke, I cackled out loud in front of all my customers.