“What sort of bouquet do you need?” she asked.
“You said you were closed,” Max stated.
“For you I’ll make an exception. What do you need?”
“I don’t really know. Music is my forte, not flowers.”
Bo nodded. “Okay. Well, who are they for then? I can probably help pick something if I know who they’re for.”
Max paused, as though weighing up what to say next, and Bo felt trepidation run through her.Why does he need to think?Why, unless they’re for . . .
“They’re for my girlfriend,” he said flatly, and Bo’s stomach sank, while her chest physically hurt.So that’s why he never messaged me; because it was too late. He’s already met somebody else. He’s already moved on.
“Oh.” She exhaled hard. “Oh, well . . .”
“Bo—”
“No, it’s fine.” She refused to let him talk, refused to let him placate her, or God forbid,consoleher. “Okay, umm, so, what sort of flowers does she like?”
Max looked sheepish. “I don’t really know.”
“It’s, umm, new? Your relationship?”
“Kind of.”
Raphaella,Bo’s mind instantly realized.He’s back with Raphaella.
The name bloomed in Bo’s mind like poison ivy, spreading fast and stinging everywhere it spread. Of course he would be back with her. Raphaella was clever, educated, glossy and effortlessly chic. She was everything Bo wasn’t. Everything Bo would never be. Raphaella was the kind of woman Max would go back to, whereas she . . .
“Right, well, I’ll just put something together for you. Something pretty, don’t worry. Maybe roses? Or lilies? Or maybe gerberas, everyone likes gerberas.” Bo realized she was babbling, and stopped herself. She forced herself to take a deep breath and slow down, just as she forced herself to look up into Max’s eyes. “I promise I’m good at this.”
He returned her gaze with eyes that were soft, even warm. “I know you are.”
“So, gerberas then?”
Max’s eyes didn’t leave hers. “I like daisies,” he said slowly. “Can you put some daisies in there?”
It was the first veiled reference he’d made to the bouquet she’d sent him, and Bo’s hands stilled.
“Gerberas are a kind of daisy,” she replied, but she knew her cheeks were turning pink, and she looked down and away from the intensity of Max’s gaze.
“Bo, look—”
“Gerberas then,” she flustered, turning away from the till to walk to her stock room. Ostensibly, she was going to get the flowers, but in reality she just needed a minute. A minute away from Max and his eyes and the heartbreaking knowledge that he was now, once again, forever denied to her. Infuriatingly though,Max followed her, leaning against the doorway as she busied herself collecting stems.
“You’ve been okay then?” he asked, looking around the stock room, and Bo shrugged.
“Yes.”
It wasn’t a lie. If sleeping with Max’s purple shirt just once a week and no longer crying herself to sleep counted as okay, then she was doing just fine.
“And are you, uh, seeing anyone?”
She looked up at that. Max’s face was bland, but she heard the waver in his voice and tried to decipher it. For a moment, she was tempted to say ‘yes’, if only to even the score between them. If he could have a girlfriend, she could have a boyfriend, right?
She didn’t want to lie to him though. She’d never lied to him, not once, and she didn’t want to start now. So, instead she smiled, shaking her head.
“No. I’m not seeing anyone.”
