I’ve been in love. Twice, actually. Both times with the same person. And both times, I ran. In between, I married a man I didn’t love enough—chose him specifically because he was safe, because he didn’t make me feel too much—and that fell apart too. Three chances at love, and I’ve wrecked every single one.
That’s the real reason I understand my customers so well—the nervous boys with their crumpled twenties, the women agonizing over whether to send peonies or tulips, the brides who cry when they see their bouquets for the first time. I know what it feels like to stand at the edge of a cliff with your heart in your hands and not know if you’re about to fly or fall. The difference is, they’re brave enough to jump. I just help them pick the right flowers for the leap.
But that’s a box I keep locked and buried, and we are not opening it on a Tuesday morning over lukewarm coffee.
“Coastal romantic,” I decide. “But with some wildflower accents to keep it from being too formal. You want elegant, but you’re not a stiff person.The flowers should feel like you—warm and a little chaotic.”
“I’m not chaotic.”
Mads and I exchange looks.
“I’m enthusiastically spontaneous,” Jo amends.
“Sure.” I pull my notepad closer and start sketching, my pencil moving almost on its own. Hydrangeas as the base—they’re lush and full, perfect for that coastal elegance without feeling uptight. Roses for romance, obviously, but garden roses, not the stiff long-stemmed kind. The ones that look like they’ve been blooming in a grandmother’s backyard for fifty years. Eucalyptus for texture, because every arrangement needs something unexpected to keep the eye moving.
I add ranunculus to the sketch—those delicate layered petals that look like tissue paper and always make brides cry. Maybe some sweet peas, too. They’re softer, more whimsical. The kind of flower that doesn’t try too hard.
The arrangement takes shape under my pencil. Loose, romantic, a little wild at the edges. Like a bride wandered through a garden and it just happened.
That’s the trickwith wedding flowers. They should look effortless, even though nothing about them is.
“Yes.” Jo clutches the sketch like it’s a treasure map. “That. Exactly that. This is why I come to you and not the internet.”
“The internet doesn’t judge your napkin fold meltdowns.”
“Neither do you. Out loud.”
I grin. “What about the wedding party?”
“Small. Mads is my maid of honor, obviously.” Jo gestures at Mads, who does a little bow from the workbench stool. “Savannah is a bridesmaid—Dean’s daughter, have you met her? She’s precious. And Asher’s walking Rex down the aisle, which is going to be a disaster but I don’t care. And Dean’s got his guys. His brother is best man?—”
“Jo.” I hold up my hand. “Can we back up to Rex walking down the aisle?”
“He’s wearing a bow tie. It’s going to be adorable.”
“It’s going to be chaos. Last week you brought me a sourdough starter and it exploded in my fridge. There was dough on the ceiling. Your judgment on what’s ‘adorable’ is questionable.”
“That means it was healthy,” Jo says without anounce of remorse. “Anyway. Dean’s guys. His brother is best man?—”
The bell chimes.
I look up automatically, and my customer service smile freezes on my face.
Dean walks in first—tall, broad, looking like he’d been dragged here at gunpoint. Which, knowing Jo, he probably was.
Behind him is another man. Baseball cap pulled low, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders hunched like he’s trying to disappear into the background of his own life.
He looks up.
Levi Beckett.
Or, as the rest of the world knows him, Levi Cole. Country music’s golden boy. Three platinum albums. A voice that fills stadiums and breaks hearts and has been on every radio station in America for the past five years.
But to me, he’s just Levi Beckett. Dean’s younger brother. The boy who kissed me on the pier when I was seventeen, tasting like salt water taffy and summer and the kind of reckless hope that only exists when you’re too young to know better. The man who broke my heart at twenty-seven—or maybe I broke his. The truth is tangled up in between,knotted with my mother’s opinions and my own talent for running away from good things.
He writes songs that sound like they’re about me. Because some of them are. I checked. More than once. His third album has a song called “Petals” that made me cry in a Trader Joe’s parking lot in Charlotte. I sat there with my groceries melting in the back seat, listening to a man I left sing about a woman who smelled like flowers and never stayed.
Our eyes meet.
