He had practiced in front of the mirror for hours hoping there was some way to apologize for what he had said on their "speed date". It's not that he didn't think she was pretty, no; she was beautiful, not just "pretty". The way he had said it, though was spiteful and had probably sent the wrong message. So now here he was showing up at he doorstep with a tiger- lily in his hand, he remembered during one of their frequent car rides they were here favorite flower, ringing the doorbell. When she opened the door, he saw the obvious look of surprise on her face.
"Carlton?" She asked looking behind him "Is something wrong?" He went through his speech in his mind before taking a deep breath, and speaking.
"Ummmmm….I was in the neighborhood and I…" He trailed off, forgetting what he had meant to say. That seemed to happen a lot when Juliet was around. She looked skeptical,
"You were in the neighborhood at Three O'clock in the morning…" Was it really that early! He checked his clock and decided that now would be a good time to get the hell out of here.
"Hello…Carlton. Anyone in there?" She was staring at him as he recovered and responded,
"Uh…well, what I'm trying to say is that I…I mean…I want to…apologize." His nervous habit began to surface as he started to starch the back of his head. She just looked at him and then smiled, even giggled a little.
"What for?" He luckily found the words,
"For refusing to… you now…acknowledge that you're an….attractive woman and…" He was reverting back to the sixteen-year-old boy who was trying to ask his ex-wife out.
"Oh. Well, I definitely accept your apology, Carlton," she looked at the flower, "Is that for me?" she asked. Lassiter looked at the flower, which he had momentarily forgotten and handed it to her,
"Yeah, I remembered…" he trailed off again as she smiled, " I'm just going to go now." He started down the stairs but turned back around.
"O'Hara." Juliet leaned against the door, "you're not "pretty"; you're beautiful." He turned around to hide his lush and walked back to his car, quite satisfied with himself. Juliet looked after him until he was out of her sight and went off, smiling the flower, to find a vase.