“Of course it was. You’re a narcissist.”
“I’m a man who was told by the woman he’s obsessed with that his annoyed grunt is, and I quote, ‘weirdly hot.’”
“I’m going to kill Fin. Going to go back in time and kill the dog version of you.”
“You can’t kill something you named after me.”
“I named you after you and I didn’t even know it. That’s the most embarrassing part.”
His chest shook under my cheek with a quiet laugh, real and low. I pressed my face into his shirt, smiled against the fabric. I loved his laugh. Didn’t hear it often enough, and every time I did my chest went tight with wanting to hear it again.
I put my head back down and closed my eyes, his arm tightening around me. For now, right now, the silence and the phone calls and the tension I kept catching in his face could wait. I was here, he was here, his heart was beating against my ear, and I was going to hold this without gripping and see what happened.
18
— • —
Andrea
I walked onto the floor and stopped.
My desk was covered in pink peonies. Dozens of them, pink and white blooms spilling over my keyboard and my file tray, petals on my chair, the whole surface buried under flowers like someone had emptied a garden onto it. The smell hit me before I reached the desk and my feet just stopped moving because it smelled like my mother’s garden. It smelled like the fence row in Whitebrook where she grew them in long uneven lines and I used to pick them and stick them in water glasses because we never had enough vases.
I stood there. I didn’t tell him it was my birthday. Didn’t tell anyone at the office. I’d mentioned it once, on the porch, to Fin, years ago, talking about how I stopped celebrating after my parents died. I’d said, offhand, that peonies were my favorite.That my mom grew them. A throwaway sentence at midnight to a dog I thought couldn’t understand me.
Through the glass, he was at his desk reading something on his screen. Didn’t look up. Didn’t acknowledge the flowers. Didn’t wait for a reaction.
I sat down and touched a petal. It was soft under my finger, impossibly soft, and my chest hurt in a way I wasn’t prepared for. I picked up one of the blooms, held it to my nose, breathed in. My eyes burned. I had to blink hard and fast before I could open my laptop because I was not going to cry at work over goddamn flowers. I was not.
My phone buzzed. A text from Maryjane.
happy birthday babe!! come by the shelter later, peter made you a cake and it’s ugly but he tried
I texted back:my desk is covered in flowers
Mary:from who??
who do you think
OH MY GOD
what kind
peonies. pink ones.
are you crying
no
you’re crying
shut up
andrea grey if you don’t lock that man down I will personally drive to your office and do it for you
I put my phone face down and pressed my fingers against my eyes. Through the glass he was still at his desk, still reading, still pretending he hadn’t buried my workspace under flowers that smelled like my dead mother’s garden.
I got up. Walked into his office without knocking. He looked up and I must have looked like a mess because his expression shifted, softened, and he stood.
