I gathered up the dogs, waved goodbye to Mags, walked back out into the cold bright morning. The snow was already starting to melt, sun warm despite the chill.
Brandy was right about one thing: Holden wasn't Landon. He'd never made me feel like too much. He'd never gone cold when I wanted something.
He just didn't know how to ask for what he wanted. And maybe I'd been so busy protecting myself that I hadn't given him room to try.
Marceline tugged at her leash, ready to move. Bubblegum waited beside her with that patient expression she always wore.
Oh, Bubblegum.
Then I laughed, the sound startling a bird from a nearby branch. That was Holden, wasn't it? Patient and serious, alwaysat the ready but not quite brave enough to enter the space first. Bubblegum needed her Marceline to scout ahead and make sure the room was safe.
I could keep waiting for Holden to say something first. Or I could decide that this time, with this man, the risk was worth it.
I wasn't sure which scared me more.
Chapter Eight
Jamie
The first half of the Valentine’s week passed in a blur of roses and ringing phones.
Monday and Tuesday, I kept to our arrangement—mornings at the shop, afternoons at the coworking space. Holden and I moved around each other with the ease we'd built over the past weeks, handing off tasks with warmth, but not much discussion. The Valentine's orders kept stacking up, the whiteboard behind the counter filling with names and dates until there wasn't an inch of space left. Then he pulled out a second one labeled ‘Redding Wedding’ at the top.
We didn't talk about last Saturday. We didn't talk about much of anything, not really. Just worked, touched when we passedeach other, spent our nights tangled together in whoever's bed was closest.
By Wednesday morning, I couldn't make myself leave.
“I can stay longer,” I said, when noon came and went and I was still restocking the greeting card section near the store entrance. “If you need me.”
Holden looked up from the arrangement he was building—peonies and garden roses, soft pink fading to cream at the edges. An anniversary order, I was pretty sure.Happy marriage flowers. “You don't have to. That wasn't part of the arrangement.”
The word landed wrong.Arrangement.Like that's all this was. Like the past month had been nothing but a transaction with terms and an expiration date.
“I know it wasn't.” I kept my voice light. Kept sorting cards. “But you're slammed, and I'm caught up with my clients. Unless you want me to go.”
He was quiet long enough that I looked up. His expression shifted, there and gone before I could name it.
“Stay,” he said. “If you want.”
I wanted.
So I stayed all day on Wednesday and Thursday, and now it was Friday morning—Valentine's Eve, one day left—and I was bundling long-stem red roses into dozens while the dogs dozed in their corner. Red for the traditionalists, yellow for the ones who wanted something different, cream and blush for the couples who'd been together long enough to know that romance didn't have to shout.
The shop smelled like roses and carnations, buckets of them soaking in water as they opened up. Not the cloying sweetness of cheap perfume, but the real thing, green stems and velvet petals and that particular brightness only fresh flowers had. I'd learnedto tell the difference over the past weeks. Learned a lot of things I hadn't expected to.
The workbench in the back was buried under ribbon scraps and cellophane, snippets of greenery scattered across the worn wood like confetti. The coolers were packed so tight you had to play Tetris to pull anything out. Every surface held something in progress—half-wrapped bouquets, spools of twine. Beautiful chaos.
I was just getting off the phone with the Jolie, event coordinator from Hawkin's Ridge Ski Lodge, where Sunday's wedding was being held, when I heard Holden call my name. I stepped into the doorway to the back so he could see me holding up a finger to let him know I was almost done.
“Yes, what time did you want the delivery to be made? Eleven, that sounds perfect. We'll see you then.”
I got off the phone with her and headed toward the back. “Tell me again what you were thinking, agreeing to a wedding the day after Valentine's Day?”
Holden let out a deep breath, shoulders falling as we both turned toward the coolers, now filled to the brim with both Valentine's roses, ready to be tied into bundles of a dozen, and the flowers he'd ordered for the Redding wedding. Thousands of dollars in stems, buckets marked with painter's tape so we didn't accidentally pull them by mistake. “Mrs. Redding was close to my grandma. I couldn't say no.”
“Ya big softie.”
He snorted. “What did the wedding planner say?”
