“Levi—”
But he’s already gone, the bell singing his exit in two notes that sound almost sad. I watch his silhouette pass the front window, head ducked, hands back in his pockets. Disappearing into Twin Waves like he never left.
I stand there for a long time, surrounded by flowers and the ghost of his cologne—warm and woody with a hint of cedar, and it definitely costs more than it did when he was playing open mics at the Twin Waves pier. My hands are shaking. I press them flat against the counter and breathe.
In. Out. Like the ocean. Like the tide.
The shop settles around me. Water drips in the back room. A car passes outside. Down the boardwalk, a woman laughs. The world is still turning, stillgoing about its business, completely indifferent to the fact that Levi Beckett just stood five feet away from me and saidmake sure you were realand I let him walk out without saying any of the thousand things I’ve rehearsed in my head over the past decade.
I could have saidI’m sorry.I could have saidI heard “Petals” and I cried.I could have saidI left because I loved you too much to watch you stay small for me.
Instead, I said “I’m real.” Like that was enough. Like that was anything.
My phone buzzes on the counter. A text from Jo.
Jo:So on a scale of one to ten, how much trouble is Dean in right now?
I type back:Eleven.
Jo:Fair. Also—are you okay?
I stare at the screen. Am I okay? That’s a complicated question. I’m standing behind my counter, surrounded by eucalyptus and gardenias and whatever expensive cologne Levi Beckett wears now, and my hands haven’t stopped shaking, and there’s a very real possibility I’m going to have to see this man on a regular basis because I’m doing the flowers for his brother’s wedding.
Me:We’ll talkat book club.
Jo:Book club isn’t for three days. I can’t wait three days. I have so many questions.
Mads:She’s already making a list. I can hear her typing.
Jo:It’s not a list. It’s a prioritized inquiry framework.
Mads:It’s a list.
I put the phone face-down on the counter. They’ll survive.
I’m less sure about me.
I’ve been building a new life here. Brick by brick, bloom by bloom. A shop I love, friends who feel like family, a town that’s starting to feel like home.
I’ve had a lot of fresh starts. More than most people get, and definitely more than I deserve. Most ended with me packing boxes and running. An apartment in Raleigh after college that I left when the job felt too small. A house in Asheville with a husband I chose because he was safe and predictable and nothing like the boy who used to make my heart race on the Twin Waves pier. A condo in Charlotte where I told myself starting over alone was brave and not terrifying, where I spent too many nights eating takeout and pretending I wasn’t listening to Levi Cole songs on repeat.
Every time, I told myselfthiswas the real freshstart. The one that would stick. And every time, my restless feet started itching to move, to leave, to start over in a new city where my mistakes couldn’t find me.
Twin Waves felt different. I remember one of my first nights here, walking the beach after dark, trying to believe it. Someone had been playing guitar down by the pier—a man’s voice, low and rough, singing something I almost recognized. I’d walked toward the music without thinking, drawn to it. But by the time I got close, the singing had stopped and it was just a stranger sitting in the dark. I’d turned around and gone home.
Funny, the things that stick with you.
And now Levi Beckett is back, and everything I thought I’d tucked away is blooming right back up. Every feeling I buried, every memory I locked in a box labeleddo not open—they’re pushing through the dirt like spring bulbs, and I can’t stop them. That’s the thing about feelings you bury. You think you’re planting them deep enough to die, but you’re really just giving them roots.
I look around the shop—my mother’s cooler, my mother’s counter, my mother’s bell that sings for every person who walks through the door. I chose this place to start over. To finallystop running.
And now the one person I’ve been running from is here.
The cactus mug catches my eye. The one in sunglasses. Looking Sharp.
“I’m trying,” I tell it.
I have a wedding to plan, a business to run, and apparently a rock star ex-boyfriend to survive until the last petal is placed.
