I freeze like a deer in the headlights, because on a normal day I meet exactly zero rich guys.
That number plunges even lower for rich guys with wavy black hair tamed into a haircut that screams money. Add amber eyes... and yes, amber is the word that pops into my mind just like that.
So, add amber eyes and it's minus infinity times per day that I run into guys like that.
Don't blame me, blame the eyes. They stand out against his tanned skin and make the fake baroque gold on the altar worthless. No way, no way one can call that color light brown.
"We must have carnations," my demigod says, checking his Swiss watch. Its chain glitters against the unrelieved black shirt, forcing my eyes to glue to it. Well, it's an interesting object. Could have NASA supercomputer inside or something.
Plus, staring at the watch is miles better than gazing into his amber orbs like I was born in eighteen-hundred-something-or-other and smitten.
Also, I wish I could stop thinking amber, amber, amber.
"Father loved white carnations. That's why I ordered them." His clarification rings of cold finality. It compels me and Sheila and possibly the seagulls screaming over the cemetery to scamper and get the carnations.
Instead of snapping to attention, I nearly swallow my gum.
Father? Shit, Tangorello men finish late. The guy before me can't be more than thirty. And the guy in the coffin is ninety if he is a day. Was... I peeked.
"Mr. Tangorello." The gum in my mouth makes a smooching sound at the end of his name and I don't need a mirror to know that I flush to the roots of my hair. "Mr. Tangorello, if you just let me squeeze by you, I'm going to get your floral arrangement."
Is it too much to ask that a perfectly legit request doesn't come out sleazy? Hope not...
"It's Scali, not Tangorello," he says, leaning back back to read the Floribunda sign on the side of my minivan, the one that also says LA on it. "My mother had never married the old bastard. Something about him being an old bastard or so she said."
A crease between his luxurious brows comes and goes as he figures out that no way, no how, the carnations could be rushed here in time for funeral, even if he is blissfully unaware that the arrangement has to be set up and fixed up upon delivery.
It's 2 hours 53 min before the funeral of the mob boss Rosario Tangorello.
Mr. Scali-not-Tangorello points out a bright orange car.
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