“Help?”
“Yeah. Help.” I shrug. “I can move tables. Arrange chairs. Whatever you need.”
She blinks at me, and I can see her trying to figure out if I’m serious. “You want to help me set up for the fundraiser?”
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Because you’re…” She gestures vaguely at me. “You’re Grant Parker. You don’t do event setup.”
“Says who?”
She opens her mouth, then closes it again, clearly at a loss for words.
“Look,” I say, taking a step closer but keeping my voice low enough that April can’t hear from where she’s now admiring herself in the mirror across the room. “I want to be there. With you. Even if it’s just moving furniture around.”
Something shifts in her expression, and for a moment I think she might argue. But then she nods, a small smile tugging at her lips.
“Okay,” she says softly. “You can come help.”
“Good.”
We stand there for another moment, and the air feels thick with everything we can’t say in front of April. Then Heather takes a breath and turns away.
“April, grab your jacket. Grant, do you want to ride with us, or are you taking your truck?”
“We can all take my truck if you want. That way you can double-check things and make last-minute calls if you need to while I drive.”
“Perfect. You’re a saint. Let’s do this.”
As we head out to the truck with April chattering excitedly about the event and Heather quietly running through her checklist, I take a second to get another look at the woman I’ve fallen so completely head over heels for.
Tonight might technically be about the fundraiser and about supporting a cause that matters to her.
But for me, it’s about something else entirely.
It’s about being there for her. About showing up and making sure she knows that when she needs someone, I’m that someone.
We all pile into my truck—with April more than happy to sit in the backseat so she can see out both windows—and head toward the venue. The venue is in a part of Denver I don’t visit often, an area with older buildings that have been converted into event spaces and galleries.
“Is it going to have flowers?” April asks. “Mom said it’s at a conservatory. That means flowers, right?”
“It’s a greenhouse,” Heather explains, glancing back at her daughter. “So yes, there will be plants and flowers. But also rooms where we can have the dinner.”
“Cool! Can I take pictures?”
“As long as you’re not in the way while people are working, sure.”
April launches into a detailed description of all the different types of flowers she knows, which somehow transitions into a story about something she learned in science class, which then becomes a question about whether I’ve ever seen a carnivorous plant.
“I have, actually,” I tell her. “When I was a kid, the hospital I went to had a small conservatory where patients could sit and get some sun. They had a few Venus flytraps in there.”
“Did you feed them bugs?”
“Once or twice.” I glance at her in the rearview mirror. “The nurses said it would help me feel better, being able to take care of something.”
“Did it work?”
I consider that for a moment. “Yeah. I think it did.”
