Pretty Predator

Chapter 18: Meadow

I was in my room, researching about the kind of flowers I wanted in my shop when my brothers came in.

“We have to talk, Meadow.” Christopher said.

“I am listening, brother, so please proceed,” I replied.

“What is happening between you and that boy?”

“Nothing is happening between us,” I said, letting my eyes wander around them.

“I do not believe you,” Suki said.

“Well, I do not know what else you want me to say because I have already said everything downstairs. I am Michael’s protector, nothing else.”

“Is he the reason you came here?” Fillan asked.

“Yes.” I replied with a lowered voice. I was too ashamed to look at them because I had revealed we were here because of a boy. A boy I did not even know.

“I do not understand how this could have happened.” Christopher mumbled.

“Brother, stop speaking through your teeth and explain to us what you mean.” Faesy said. Faesy and Fillan were usually the easygoing ones, and funny as well, but at this moment, they looked agitated, and I was to blame for that.

“Meadow is a princess. We have never had a royal become a protector before.” Christopher said.

“So, what you are trying to say is that non royal fae’s can become protectors but not royals?” Faesy asked for clarity.

“That is exactly what I am saying.” Christopher confirmed. I did not know what that meant, but it made me feel uneasy somehow. 'Was I not royalty or was something else wrong with me.'

All these questions kept ringing in my mind.

“Stop overthinking, Meadow. I will communicate with Father about this matter. For now, you should just focus on your business. The first delivery for your flower shop is tomorrow.”

Christopher said, but it was easier said than done. I was probably going to ponder about these thoughts the whole night, but I did not want to worry them, so I said,

“Thank you, brother. We were only missing the flowers, but if they are delivered early, we can open the shop tomorrow and start working.” I said with a little smile.

“That is good. Good night.” He said, and he tried to usher all my brothers out of my room.

“I want to stay with Meadow so you guys can go,” Jayden said, and the others left.

“He is not a mother’s boy but a sister’s boy.” We heard Faesy say, and I laughed. When Jayden looked at me, I acted serious.

“What?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“What he said was not funny, so why are you laughing?” He asked while sitting on my bed. He looked so serious as if expecting a reply, so I indulged him.

“It was funny to me, so if you did not find it funny, then it is your problem,” I told him. He looked at my laptop.

“What were you doing before we came into your room?” He asked.

“I was looking at the types of flowers for the shop's next delivery,” I told him, but he was going through my laptop and did not say anything.

“Do you have something to say to me, Jayden?” I asked him.

“I know, Michael.” He blurted it out.

“I know. He once told me that he had met someone similar to me, and you are the only one who looks like me, so I figured it out.” I told him, and he stared at me.

“I understand why you did not tell our brothers what was happening, but what prevented you from coming to me?” I could tell he was hurt, but I did what I thought was right at the time.

“I thought I could handle it on my own, and if I had told you, I knew that you would have insisted on helping me so that I could be safe.” He groaned.

“Of course, I would have. You are my twin sister, my other half and I would do anything to protect you so from now on I want you to tell me everything that happens, and while you are protecting Michael, I will protect you.” He said, staring straight into my eyes.

“Yes, brother,” I said.

“Good, now listen to your doctor and go to bed.” He kissed my forehead and then left my room. I smiled. He liked acting like my big brother, but I liked it because even though he reprimanded me he always protected me and did not reveal anything that would get me into trouble like the party that I went to before we came to the human world, he kept it secret from everyone and I appreciated that. I closed my laptop and went to bed. This week started on a bad note, but tomorrow was another day, and hopefully, it was going to be a good day.

The next day, when we got to Pretty Fragrances, the name Mondea and I decided to give to our flower shop, everything was well set up. The interior design was beautiful and the name of our flower shop was put outside our building in big letters and decorated with different kinds of flowers to indicate that it was a flower shop.

“I love it.” I gushed.

“Me too,” Mondea said, looking all around us.

“The only thing we are missing are flowers.” She continued, and that is when the suppliers arrived with our flowers.

“Thank you for coming early.” I said, going to meet the man who looked like he was in charge.

“It’s no problem, I’m just doing my job. Please sign this for me.” He handed me the form, and I signed it to confirm that pretty fragrances received their supplies. After they finished bringing in everything, Mondea and I got to work arranging the flowers and then placing them properly in their designated spots.

“Should we open now?” Mondea asked, heading for the door.

“Yes.” I said excitedly. It was now in the late afternoon and we had been open for hours but business was not going as well as we wanted so I researched on how to market our business and then I started a t****k page where I could market pretty fragrances. I went downstairs with my camera.

“ What are you doing?” Mondea asked, standing behind the counter.

“ I want to take pictures of the flower shop to post on Tik Tok.” I told her, but she furrowed her brows, and I laughed at how confused she looked.

“What is Tik Tok, and why would you do that?” She asked me.

“It is a social media where people make videos of themselves while having fun or marketing their business. When I post about pretty fragrances on this platform, many people will see it, and that is how we will gain more customers. Well, that is what Google said.” I told her.

“Wow that is a great idea, so humans are on there?” She asked.

“Yes, they also use i********:, f*******:, Twitter, and YouTube.”

“So, will you post on the others as well?” She asked.

“Yes, on i********: and f*******: as well,” I told her, then I took the pictures. I worked on the pages. I named them Pretty Fragrances and specified that they were business pages. It looked like I had to post regularly to keep people engaged, so I scrolled through t****k to see what other people were doing.

“Mondea look at this?” I showed her the video I was watching, and she laughed. Humans were funny, and t****k was filled with people dancing, acting, singing, modeling, or even eating, which I found hilarious because why would someone film themselves eating?

“Should we do that?” I looked at her with wide eyes.

“What?” I asked even though I knew what she was referring to.

“Take a video of ourselves with the flowers. We are good-looking people and maybe that will attract people more.” I took a good minute to think about her idea, and I smiled.

“That is a good idea, but I do not think we should expose ourselves like that. Let us talk to brother first and see what he says about it, okay?” I suggested.

“Okay. It is getting dark now, so should we close and go home.” She said.

“Let us do it. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.” I packed up my things, and after we put the flowers safe and locked the door, we went home.

***

“Brother, Mondea and I wanted to know if we could expose ourselves on social media?” I asked Christopher as soon as we sat down to eat dinner.

“I do not see the problem with that. My agent told me I had to be on social media because of my line of work.” He said.

“Why are you asking him about that?” Suki asked.

“We know it's only the first day but we have to find a way to put our business out there and make it known and since Pretty Fragrances is not doing well, we decided to promote it on social media, but I do not think people will like to look at flowers only so we wanted to make a video of ourselves with the flowers.” Suki looked at Mondea, and I looked back and forth between them. They were acting strange.

“What are Pretty Fragrances?” Fillan asked.

“The name of our flower shop,” I said with a smile, forgetting about Mondea and Suki.

“How original,” Faesy said sarcastically and laughed.

“I do not know who said you were funny, but they lied to you, brother,” I smirked when he scowled at me. We finished eating dinner silently and then I went to wash the dishes since it was my turn. I wondered how Michael was doing and wished I had his phone number. After I finished washing the dishes and heading up to my room, I remembered Jayden could help me, so I went to his room.

“Jayden,” I called out to him.

“It is open.” He said, and I entered his room. He was lying in bed and playing on his phone.

“Can I have Michael’s number?” I blurted it out.

“Why?” He asked.

“I want to check up on him. He looked shaken up yesterday.” I honestly told him.

“Mm, you are very suspicious, my sister, but I will let it slide.” He said, then got busy on his phone again while I stared at him.

“You can leave now. I sent the number to your phone.” He said, and I kissed his cheek.

“You are the best brother, thank you,” I said with a smile.

“You are excited for his number, and I wonder why that is.” He said, putting his attention back to me.

“Stop overthinking, brother. It is nothing.” I told him as I left his room. I was not excited; why would I be excited to talk to Michael? He is nothing interesting. I scoffed, and when I got to my room, I went to bed first before holding my phone. I had his number on my screen, and I was contemplating whether to call him or not. It was already late, and he was probably sleeping, so I went for the safer option and messaged him.

‘Hi, Michael.’ I said and then sent the message before I could change my mind, but it was stupid of me because how would he know that I was the one messaging him. A few minutes went by before I got a notification.

‘Who is this?’ Should I tell him the truth or not. I wondered if he would be angry to know that it was me messaging him. I decided to tell him the truth.

‘It is Meadow. I am sorry for messaging you so late, I just wanted to know how you were doing.’ Minutes passed without a message, so I thought he would not reply, but I was startled when my phone rang, and the caller id said it was Michael. It was not even a normal call but a video call. Did people do that here? Video call people they barely knew. I quickly went to check myself in the mirror before answering the call.

‘Uuh hello.” I timidly said.

‘Hi, sorry for calling so late, but I just wanted to make sure that I was really speaking with you.’ He quickly said.

‘Yep, it is me. I do not have a clone or anything.’ I laughed at the absurdity of the situation.

‘Well, who knows. Compared to everything that you’ve told me so far, having a clone wouldn’t be far out of reach.’ I laughed. (Would be right up your alley.)

‘You do not have to worry about a thing then. I only have one twin, and it is Jayden.’ I assured him, but he looked shocked.

‘Wait, so Jayden is your twin brother? I didn’t know you had a twin.”

“I never told you, and yes, he is my twin. We have the same eyes, so I thought it was obvious.’ I told him, and he shook his head.

‘It never occurred to me, so I’m probably going to become a shitty lawyer.’ He said.

‘Is that what you do at school?’ I asked him. He intrigued me, and I wanted to know everything about him.

‘Yes, I am studying law, but I think it would be best to talk about our life goals and dreams when we meet again, for now can you please tell me how you got my number which should have been the first thing I asked you.” He said, and I did not blame him because I would freak out when someone messaged me, but I never gave them my phone number.

‘I got it from Jayden. You guys met at the supermarket and exchanged numbers, so I asked him for your number.’ I told him.

‘Okay,’ He dragged it out.

‘So why did you want my number?” He asked with quirked eyebrows.

‘As I said in the message earlier, I wanted to check on how you were doing, so how are you?’ I asked him.

‘I‘m good for now. I’m really trying not to think about everything that happened as I am writing my exams so you should ask me how I’m doing after I’m done writing my exams.’ He said, and I nodded.

‘When will that be?’ I asked.

‘In about a month or so.’ He replied.

‘Okay then, I should let you get back to studying.’ I didn’t know how to say goodbye, so I just hung up the phone before he could say anything, and I hid under the covers. That was idiotic, I should have let him hang up. He was probably thinking I was rude. I kept on thinking about how I hung up on him, so I messaged him goodnight and then went to sleep without waiting for his reply.

The next day at work, Meadow and I made videos and posted them on our Pretty Fragrances social media pages. The day was also slow, but it was better than yesterday, so I helped Meadow at the counter. The people around here were friendly, and I was having so much fun conversing with them while they were buying flowers. There was nothing special about the rest of the day. After a few days had passed, Meadow and I had a routine on how to manage our flower shop and we had garnered a lot of customers thanks to our social media pages, so we decided to post on social media at least once a week. Now I was at the counter, and Meadow was working at the office. A customer came to the store.

“Good morning.” I greeted when he started looking around the flowers.

“Good morning. How is your Saturday morning going?” He asked with a smile.

“It is amazing thus far. The sun is bright and shining outside, so there is no way I will feel gloomy on a beautiful day like this.” I said with a smile.

“You have a way with words. You could become a poet.” He complimented, and I blushed. I swatted my hand while holding the other one to my mouth, which is something that I saw a lot in movies. When we first moved to the human world, I watched a lot of movies so that I can learn the human’s behavior, and their way of speaking and I might have succeeded in the former, but I was still unable to (articulate how they spoke) talk like they did with all that figure of speech they had.

“Ooh stop it, and thank you for the compliment,” I was grateful, and he nodded. “How can I help you on this beautiful day?” I asked him.

“I want to buy flowers for my wife, so can you please recommend me some?” He asked, and I went to the flowers with him following behind. I pointed at the flowers I was recommending.

“Roses for starters, nobody can say no to roses, and they symbolize love, beauty and perfection, and I am certain your wife is all of that seeing how you are such a charmer,” He smiled. “Dahlia which symbolizes beauty, kindness, and eternal love. Tulips are just perfect and for this beautiful day I would recommend sunflowers, while they are my favorites because they are all about positivity and happiness, your wife might appreciate them on this beautiful sunny day, they also bring cheerfulness and good health.” I continued while giving explanations on why I was recommending him those flowers.

“I will take those then. My wife was admitted to the hospital, and she just gave birth to our first child, so I would like to show her that I appreciate her and to make her happy.” I smiled at that. He was a wonderful and caring man.

“Congratulations, sir. You are going to make a wonderful father.” I got him his sunflowers and lilies.

“The lilies are for your little one. They symbolize purity and innocence. Please accept them as my congratulations gift.” I gave him the flowers.

“Thank you.” He paid for the flowers and then left. At this moment I was happy that we chose to open a flower shop because seeing people happy also made me happy and I loved talking to the humans about their lives and why they were buying flowers and for who. The best part was when they asked for recommendations, I totally loved this job, and I would not mind doing it forever. I went to the office to talk with Meadow for a while when I heard someone calling out. I went downstairs and I saw the most gorgeous man standing in front of the flowers. I wanted to know what species he was since he was not human. He was dressed up in black pants and a white shirt. He looked good.

“Michael?” He stood up taller, but it took him a minute to turn and look at me. His gaze wandered all over my body, and I was starting to feel all hot and embarrassed. “I know that I look good, but can you please stop staring.” I continued while smiling in mortification.

“Ooh yes, I’m sorry for being rude.” He apologized immediately, which I liked.

“How can I help you today?” I asked him while going to stand behind the counter to keep some distance between us.

“I want to buy flowers for my friend.” He said and I could not help the clenching of my stomach, it was like angry butterflies were flying all over my stomach, but it was not my place to ask him which friend, so I tried to ignore that.

“Which flowers would you like?” I asked him while looking everywhere but him.

“I don’t know anything about flowers. I did something I wanted to apologise for, so can you please make a recommendation for me.” He said, and I nodded. I was not going to be so nosy, but I could not help it.

“It depends on the kind of friend she is. Do you guys have a platonic relationship, or is it a relationship between a man and woman who are in love?” I asked, and he looked at me with amusement.

“She is my best friend. We’ve known each other since we were kids, she is like a sister to me, so you don’t have to worry about a thing.” I looked at him startled.

“Who said I was worried? Do not be absurd. Why would I be worried about that?” I rambled and quickly made my way to the flowers to hide my mortification. I think I was blushing. I should not have asked that; it was so stupid. “Chrysanthemum symbolize friendship, happiness, and well-being, while sunflowers are also a good option because they symbolize positivity, happiness, cheerfulness, and good health, nothing about being in love.” I let the last part slip out, and I mentally slapped myself. How much more was I going to embarrass myself in front of the guy. I was acting like a girl with a crush, which was ridiculous. When I peeked at Michael, I saw him smiling.

“I will take the sunflowers then because I don’t want to give my best friend the idea that I’m in love with her.” He said and winked while taking the flowers.

“Then you should not have dressed so well.” I bit my tongue, but it was a little too late because Michael straight out laughed. I went to the counter.

“I apologise. That was out of place.” I said, and he just waved it off.

“That’s okay,” He paid then when he was at the door, he looked back and said,

“See you later, beautiful.” Then he left, and I was there staring at the door with my eyes wide open until Mondea cleared her throat. She gave me a look as if she was amused and knew something that I did not know, and then she went back to the office. Why did she even bother coming down here. I wanted to go and ask her why she looked at me like that, but customers came to the shop at that moment, so I left it for later.