“I will!” I huffed before speeding off, leaving him to eat my trail of attitude. I was done with him. Thanks to my makeover, Beau Tucker was no longer a greasy, greedy rig pig anymore. He was a hunky and cocky jerk! Which made it even more important for me to win.
nine
Clover
Graycloudsrolledin,but I didn’t give them a second look as I powerwalked the path in the park, scouting for the perfect spot to spend the night. It only took me a little over an hour to trudge the five miles out here. I could have found a closer park, but the one nearest my apartment was right in the center of town and had a lot of noisy traffic. This park was right on the edge of the lake with regular campsites that were a peaceful place to spend the night under the stars.
Walking had felt good; it helped me to blow off some of my pent-up frustrations with Beau. I couldn’t believe he was being such a jerk over this. He obviously knew my entire business was founded on creating a greener planet, and since all I did was work, that meant my entire identity was wrapped in this mission. I mean, my business card says, “The Green Queen.” That wasn’t just a slogan,it was my life!
It was frustrating because he had complied with all the tasks, I had asked of him, and I had started to think maybe he did want to change. Now, I was sure all the progress we made was fake and he did it to save face. Which only infuriated me more. There are lots of fake people in the world, but I had started to think he was sincere.
Or maybe I had started to like him—
Whoa!Where did that come from?
I startled and checked around me, expecting someone to be standing there inserting random terrible ideas into my head.
I mean,come on!
I swept my hair to the side, pulling it over my shoulder. Clearly, I was overtired. This week had been far too stressful. A night alone, to recharge was exactly what I needed. This was going to be fun. Stopping in front of a giant tree, I decided this looked like a nice place to rest my back against, and I dropped my backpack and sat down next to it.
While I unzipped my bag, and dug through its overstuffed contents, I mused about how easy and great this was going to be. I had brought books to read, but— Looking around, I realized even though there was a lamp post not too far away, it wasn’t bright enough for me to be able to read actual paper pages with tiny print.
Clearingthatidea from my head, I dug back into my bag, pulling out a deck of cards. “Ah,” I sighed to myself satisfactorily. “Nothing like a good old fashion game of Solitaire.” I shuffled the deck three times, and started to deal my cards, but then I noticed the wind had gotten a little strong, and my cards weren’t staying in a line.
“Okay,” I said out loud. “New plan. I’m going to have a snack”—I pulled out my bag of dried bananas and a notebook— “and plan Poppy’s center.” I took my pen out and wrote:
Things I have done:
1.Found a building.
2.Applied for funding.
3.Applied for grants.
4.Applied for a business license.
Things I need to do:
1.Get approved for my loan.
2.Ask Beau if he ate his apple—
“Ah!” My body jolted, and I dropped my book like I had found a spider on my page.“Why would I write that?”I asked out loud, then slammed my book shut, and stuffed it back into my backpack like I was trying to conceal crime scene evidence.
Relax, I breathed.
I wrote it, because Poppygaveit to him, and I was thinking aboutPoppy.
Because I WASN’T thinking about Beau!
Because why would I be thinking about Beau?
Because Poppy gave him an apple because Beau rescued her.
Yeah, my eyes dropped to the side as I recalled the memory. He looked HOT when he did that.
What!
