He laughed, resting his big hands on my hips. “Yeah, let’s.” He leaned in to press a soft kiss on my neck, then urged me off his lap. The garden wasn’t a great make-out spot, considering the windows in Shar’s and his houses.
So we headed into the tiny house, which was proving to be plenty big enough for us. I was pretty sure he wasn’t thinking about anything for the next hour or so except me.
21
FORGET-ME-NOT NIGHT
Rowan drove June, Gia, and me to Leanne’s on Tuesday night, and we all pretended that the awkward conversation from Saturday hadn’t happened. I’d told Gia about it on Sunday, but Rowan and June hadn’t mentioned it at all. Juniper seemed fine in the car. Chatty. Cheerful. Like nothing at all was wrong.
“Hey!” Leanne said as we got out of the car outside the Langston family farmhouse. She was wearing wide-leg jeans and a T-shirt with a picture of a rabbit wearing a floral sun hat. She handed June a small bundle of flowers that June quickly slipped into her bag.
I raised a brow at Juniper. What was that about?
The welding with Leanne’s dad went fine. We then did a test run, filling the structure with flowers that Leanne had brought home. They weren’t the exact varieties we wanted to use for the competition, but the lily looked so amazing filled in. And this time it didn’t fall apart. Everything for the Bloom was coming together.
After we thanked Mr.Langston for his help, Leanne took the four of us over to see her rabbits, who lived in hutches in the Langstons’ barn.
I poked my finger in to touch the cute brown one’s head. “These really are some sweet bunnies.”
Leanne pulled a smaller rabbit out of another hutch. “You want a sweet bunny? Look at this baby I just picked up yesterday. His name’s Strawberry. Some moronic family got him for their kids for Easter and already surrendered him to a shelter. Isn’t he the cutest?”
Strawberry was all white with dark-gray smudging around his eyes.
“This bunny does a better smoky eye than I do,” Gia said, scratching the top of the rabbit’s head.
My eyes started watering, so I took a big step back. Even with the new allergy pills, I couldn’t handle rabbits.
“You okay?” June said, joining me at the back of the barn. Gia was now holding Strawberry.
“Yeah. My eyes are a bit scratchy. Hey, what were those flowers Leanne gave you?”
Juniper’s eyes widened. “You saw that?”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t see what they were.”
“Forget-me-nots.”
I grinned. “I told you she was into you.”
June sighed, shaking her head. “No. She’s just being nice, as always. She feels bad for hurting me and doesn’t want me to forget ourfriendship.”
“She said all that with those flowers?”
June shrugged.
I chuckled. June talked a good talk, but I doubted that’s what the flowers meant. Maybe June was scared Leanne was finally making a move on her so close to the summer’s end? June was going to miss Leanne when she left in a few weeks, but if they finally talked about their feelings, it would only be harder.
No matter what, the end of the summer in Bakewell was going to be hard for a lot of us.
Later, the five of us were sitting on these big boulders that were a couple of yards from the side of the Langstons’ barn watching the sunset. Gia’s phone rang. I was curled up on a boulder with my backagainst Rowan, listening to him and Leanne talk about packing for uni, and their dorms, when Gia said, “Absolutely not. Not happening. No way.” She wasn’t using that cutesy voice she usually used with Cameron.
I looked at her. She rolled her eyes and held the phone out. “T, Matteo isinsistinghe needs to talk to you.”
Matteo. Ugh. Why was he reemerging now? As far as I knew, Gia hadn’t heard from him for weeks. Most days I blissfully forgot he even existed.
Rowan tensed behind me. I put my hand on his knee.
“I’m not interested in speaking to him, G.”
