He smiled so huge it took my breath away. I smiled back.
We stood in the sunflower field grinning at each other for a while like idiots before I absolutely couldn’t go another moment without asking one question. “Rowan, is this a date?”
“Do you want it to be?”
Did I? I mean, yeah, there was no denying my feelings for this guy had evolved lately. Like night and day evolved. Like a complete one-eighty. He’d brought me this picnic in this amazing place, and he held my hand when the night sky was freaking me out, and he gave me his pencil crayons and a light for my drafting table and told me that being single-minded didn’t mean I deserved to be treated like shit. Maybe all those things meant this could be the beginning of something amazing. And maybe I shouldn’t be so afraid of that.
Matteo and I hadjustbroken up, but this didn’t feel anything at all like with Matteo. I couldn’t even put my finger on why, but now, and all the other times Rowan and I were alone, I was completely myself. The real me.
The problem was, this me wasn’t the same me I was a month ago, and that freaked me out a bit.
When I didn’t say anything, he took my hand and pulled me down to sit on the blanket. “Let’s just call it a picnic right now. We can figure the rest out later.”
I unwrapped my sandwich. “Okay, but let me ask you...why did you buy this food before you knew who won the bet? If you won, we’d be staying in town and going for ice cream.”
He shrugged. “I figured you’d win. Your designs are always amazing. My strength is more the execution. Anyway, if I won, I was still going to ask you to come here after the ice cream.”
The caprese sandwich with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil was delicious. The fancy sparkling lemonade was delightful. But the viewwas better than both of them, so I could only get through half my meal before I stopped eating to take pictures. Close-ups of sunflowers, a wide shot of the whole field. Rowan sitting on the grass, huge yellow blooms surrounding him. The pictures would just be for me—I wouldn’t post them on my Instagram.
“I find it hilarious that now you’re so into plants,” Rowan said, grinning. “I still remember the look on your face the day we met, when I told you people come out to Wynter’s to take pictures of flowers. Now look at you...”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m young. I’m allowed to change my mind. Honestly, before this summer, I had no idea...” I sat back down next to him. “Surrounded by so muchlife. It’s such a cliché, but the colors, the shapes...I admit it. I get why you’re such a Plant-Boy. I get why you want to make a career out of this stuff.”
He gazed out into the field. “I know it’s weird.” He chuckled. “I feel at peace when I’m surrounded by...”
“Nature?”
“Yeah, but like...natural beauty that I can cultivate, you know? I feel like I have some superpower to know how to make this happen. To understand how to make flowers grow. To know their secrets. I mean, flowers are everywhere—in art, in design—”
“In fashion.”
“Exactly. Green spaces, too...they inspire people. People feel at peace...they feel a connection to the natural world. I want to be the one who creates the places that make people so happy.” He paused. “What about you? Why fashion?”
I thought for a moment before answering. “People express themselves in what they choose to wear,” I finally said. “But clothes, mass-produced clothes especially, are created for mass tastes. Different kinds of people designing means more choices, and hopefully more people who aren’t like everyone else will find stuff that speaks to theirtrue selves. That’s what I want—to make the things that people use to express themselves.”
He lightly fingered the hem of the shirt he was wearing. “This shirt...I wouldn’t have picked for myself ...,” he said.
“Because there’s no plant pun on it?”
He laughed. “Let me finish. I wouldn’t have picked this for myself, but I like it. It makes me feel...”
“Normal? Grown up? Mature?”
“Hey,” he said, laughing. “I thought you liked my shirts.”
“I do. I totally do. Sorry...it makes you feel...”
He smiled. “Different, but still me. I feel like the me I am, the person I don’t normally express...sorry, that sounds cheesy.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t sound cheesy at all.” I grinned. “I like you in something I made.”
“I like me in something you made, too.”
“I’m not sure you would have said that about me a few weeks ago.”
“I know. I was wrong.” His gaze was fixed on me. “I apologized before, and I’ll say it again. I was such a dick when we met. I was in a terrible mood that day, and you touched a nerve, but that’s no excuse. I’m sorry.”
I tilted my head. “You’re forgiven. Totally. I wasn’t exactly my best self that day, either. I didn’t want to move to Bakewell, and I judged you and everything here too quickly. I should’ve given this place, and the people in it, a chance.”
