Me:Okay. Ask him.
Lenny:You’re welcome.
Me:Thanks. Gotta get to work now.
Lenny:Some of us have already been at work…
Lenny:Kisses
I sighed again and set my phone into my back pocket as my eyes went back to the two flowers sitting in the jar, just… taunting me.
* * *
Lenny had textedme last night and said that Grandpa Gus had told her that she was right: Rip wouldn’t have said that kind of thing unless he meant it, and that Len was right again. He wouldn’t be buying me flowers if he felt guilty either.
But…
What if that wasn’t the case?
What if he changed his mind?
* * *
A week wentby and the flowers kept showing up on my desk every morning. Different shades of pink, red, orange, yellow, lilac, purple… All of them short-stemmed and without thorns, waiting for me.
And if that wasn’t enough, my cup of coffee was there every morning too. Sitting beside the coffee maker one day, beside the little jar of flowers on another day, and on three other occasions on whatever tool chest was right beside him. And when I’d go to get it, he would shoot me a smile and ask if I liked the flower he’d left.
I wasn’t even going to think about how every afternoon there was a container in the refrigerator with my name on it.
Much less how I ate it instead of the lunch I brought myself, which wasn’t a tenth as good as what he made.
If none of that was enough, when I got to work one random morning, I found that my Ball jar had been replaced. In its place was a pretty globe-shaped vase with an icy blue and white lace ribbon wrapped around the fluted end. Pretty, it was so freaking pretty, I had almost been scared to touch it.
Rip didn’t go easy. It was like he set a bar he needed to go above and beyond.
He started coming over to my room for no reason. He came in every morning around ten without fault, and in the afternoon too, and would look at me through the window if I was in the booth, or just fart around looking at things he’d seen a dozen times in my room.
But he watched me, even when I purposely avoided looking at him.
He watched me, and he was patient.
He kept that warm smile, or pretty close to it, on his face every time I looked at him, like he was purposely giving me time and space to… I wasn’t sure what.
I really wasn’t sure.
Every time I called him “Mr. Ripley,” he corrected me and then moved on with our conversation, even if it was mostly me responding in one-word answers and trying to be professional.
One week turned into two, and the next thing I knew, there were two vases on my desk, filled with the most beautiful, perfect roses. When one started to wilt, he took it out before I’d even gotten to work, but a new one was always sitting on my desk like he wanted me to see it and appreciate it.
Lenny:He’s trying. You’ve gotta give it to him.
Me:He doesn’t need to be trying. I don’t want him to try.
Lenny:Liar.
Lenny:You love it, and that’s okay.
Me:That’s what scares me. I’m tired of loving people who decide they’re done with me.
