The Start Of Something New (WSSME Sequel)

Chapter 26

"What are you doing?" I ask, eyeing Soph as she photographed every nook and cranny of the store.

"We need before pictures," she says excitedly.

"So... your mom agreed to renovate the shop?" I raise my eyebrows, there's no way Mrs. Abebe would allow us to modify a single tile of this antique piece of Phoenix's history, with all its 80s glory, pink tiles and all.

"Uhm, it's a process."

"Well, I think we should start with that, unless you want to find out if gays really do go to hell — I've only seen your mom angry once, and once is enough for me."

"Oh, she wasn't even that angry, you've seen nothing."

"Yeah and I don't want to see it, so we're not doing any renovations until she says we can," I cross my arms. "Do you want us to lose our jobs?"

"Who'd want to work here otherwise, have you seen these?" she says pointing at her pink apron. "Plus it takes a fine and well-practiced hand to deal with flowers, you'd have to be either a lesbian or an ex-hoe."

"Why an ex-hoe specifically? And you're single-handedly insulting your mom and yourself."

"You won't find a hoe that is so desperate that she'd take a job as a florist these days, have you seen how popular OnlyFans is?"

"Oh."

"Where is she finding this kinda talent in this city?"

"I feel like she'd still fire us."

"One hundred percent, we'd more easily open a shop of our own..." she trails off. "That's not a bad idea actually."

"It's not but what about the money?"

"We can figure that out," she smirks.

"I'm sorry, I'm still hooked up on the fact that you called your mom a hoe."

"That was ages ago, Anna, move on," she says, side-eyeing me. "She was hot as a teen, you can't tell me she didn't have it good."

I simply hum, not wanting that kind of mental image in my mind. Mrs. Abebe is a nice overweight lady that bakes nice meat pies, cute ladies are born as cute ladies, period. "Are we really about to plan on becoming your mom's flower rivals? Because she has a solid client base, we'd be crushed."

"Obviously we won't be opening a store next door, we'll succeed out of demand, we must find a place with absolutely no competition, people will have no other option than to come to us."

"Sounds good in theory but most people will still drive the extra mile to go to someone they trust," I sigh. "And before anything, we need the money to invest, we'll have to save up for a good while."

"Ugh, when are you winning the lottery," she groans, letting her face fall on the counter.

"Lottery tickets are expensive, and chances of winning are pretty low. We're better off saving those lottery ticket money if we want to see that shop up and running in our late forties," I mimic her position.

"We both landed hot rich women, we can't be the failure wives."

"I'm sure neither Daniella nor Jenny thinks of us as failures, and I'm not saying Daniella hasn't conquered her own money but both of them were already born rich, it's not a very fair comparison."

"I know that," she sighs. "It's just that... I don't want to feel like I'm not on her level, imagine — Jeniffer Waterson, the greatest and hottest CEO, marrying a minimum-wage florist... Ah, I regret not caring about school, I've always said it didn't matter because I'd be marrying a rich guy but look at me now wanting to be the rich guy to treat a woman instead."