We continued for another hour, fine-tuning concepts, quantities, contingencies. Much of it wasn’t new—I’d already been working on the Montana order, already looped my family in, already walked through the realities of scale and timing back on Wadmalaw. This wasn’t the beginning.
But it felt like one.
Because now there was Micah.
And with him, the work carried weight it hadn’t before. The same numbers. The same flowers. The same careful planning I’d always thrived on. Yet everything felt subtly altered, as if the job had shifted from something I was executing to something I was being drawn into.
By the time we finished, my head was spinning—not just with logistics, but with the quiet, unsettling sense that I’d stepped into something far larger than flowers.
Something rooted.
Something personal.
When I stood to leave, Portia met my gaze directly.
“You’re very good at what you do,” she said. “But more than that—you notice things.”
“I don’t always mean to.”
“That’s all right,” she replied. “Just be mindful of which conclusions you reach out loud.”
I nodded, understanding perfectly.
Not as a warning—but as an acknowledgment of the world I was standing in now. One where information was currency, silence was leverage, and seeing clearly didn’t always mean speaking freely.
I’d built my life on observation. On reading rooms, seasons, people. It was how I’d learned when to cut a stem shorter, whento let something open on its own, when to intervene and when to trust the process.
But this felt different.
Okay.
I called my parents on the drive home, more out of habit than necessity.
Momma answered on the second ring. “Joy, honey.”
“Hey,” I said, smiling despite myself. “I just finished another meeting about Montana.”
“Perfect timing,” she said warmly. “Your daddy was asking if we’d heard anything new.”
I gave her the broad strokes—updated quantities, tighter timelines, a few tweaks to what would need to be cut closer to shipping. Nothing surprising. Nothing alarming. Just the steady forward motion of a job we’d already committed to together.
“And,” I added, then hesitated, “I’ll probably need to come out to the farm again soon. Just to walk it all through in person.”
“That’s fine,” she said easily. “You always do better when you’ve seen everything with your own eyes.”
I smiled. “I know.”
There was a pause—comfortable, familiar—and then, without quite meaning to, I said, “There’s … someone I’ve been seeing.”
The words felt strange out loud. New. Like trying on a shape I wasn’t used to yet.
Momma didn’t gasp or pry. She never did. She just let the silence breathe for a second longer than usual.
“Oh,” she said gently. “All right.”
Not surprised. Not alarmed. Just present.
“It’s nothing I need help with,” I added quickly, embarrassment creeping up my neck. “He’s just—been supportive.”
