You’d think running a floral shop would be all fun and games, cutting stems and making bouquets, but that’d beentirelyincorrect and too good to be true.
And we had a store to open.
Two messy globs of frizzy hair and exhausted independence sank onto the floor of the shop behind the desk—after we went back and locked the greenhouse. Despite going to battle approximately thirty seconds ago, Maggie looked like the sunshine main character of every story. Her curls were naturally beautiful and alluring, while mine were frayed and resembled a lion’s mane on a bad day—at least they did at that moment. Her eyes were pools of liquid brown like honey, mine were… seaweed green.
Her dresses were pastels and creams, mine were the darker shades. She wore pointed flats with straps, I lived in my leather boots and embroidered socks. Even in that moment, Maggie wore an orange dress tied in a loose bow across her chest. I wore my mauve one with a brown corset embroidered with flowers. Cute, yes, but two different people. If someone came in searching for a lost princess, I’d believe them if they told Maggie it was her.
Maggie, my best friend of three years, never seemed out of place, because she never was. This might’ve beenourflower shop, but at its heart stood Maggie. Her strands of hair hanging loose appeared as though she’d put them there. Her chaos was… peaceful. Maggie knew exactly who she was, what she wanted, how to get it, and where she belonged.
Whereas I was more the type of person who never knew what I wanted, who I was, or where I belonged.
I thought I did, once upon a time. As a child, I saw it clearly, my future at the sanctuary with my family. Then when my mother passed, that future crumbled along with everything else. But I still had home, I still had Honey Brooke—until I didn’t. Not after the incident. Which led me here, clueless and sweating on the floor of a magical flower shop.
A flower shop where I’d built a new life for myself, one I truly loved and adored, yet still felt something missing. I still felt lost.
We sat there for the entire two minutes we had to spare, straightened our dresses, and opened the doors to the line of customers waiting outside.
Rusty brick walls trapped the early morning sun from outside, casting a pink and orange hue over the beige tiled floors. Because Maggie believed strongly in aromatherapy, scents of lavender and eucalyptus were woven heavily through the air. Our wall of hanging glass vases drew plenty of attention, as always. Tin buckets on the ground poured out with shades of orange, yellow, pink, and white. Dancing lilies waved in the window, welcoming the sun and customers. Above them, wind chimes and suncatchers hung. Tables were filled with hydrangeas, orchids, marigolds, and tulips—our stock of nonmagical flowers. A small room in the back displayed our selection of gardening tools, gloves, aprons, and seeds.
I couldn’t ever have decorated our shop as beautifully as Maggie did. Considering my favorite colors were green and yellow, it would’ve come out looking like our bathroom on a rough night after bottomless margaritas at Louie’s downtown. As we opened, people came in and people went out, hands full of petals and greenery. It’s the same every Mother’s Day. Fathers with their children, young adults, employees kissing ass to their female bosses. Women buying themselves flowers because they could. Behind my smile, my chest tightened. Despite not celebrating the holiday in fourteen years, the pain remained. Maggie handled the preorders, taking the majority of our business, and I wrangled the last-minute stragglers—probably because that’s where I’d be, too.
Sometimes their eyes would catch on me, trying to figure out if I worked there or not. Whether it be the leather boots, frilly ghost socks, typically crooked apron, or cluelessnessabout anything they asked me that made them question, I’d grown used to it. Don’t get me wrong, I knew how to do my job as well as the next guy. It just didn’t come as naturally.
Maggie would stay working in the shop all hours of the day, ass crack of dawn to the haunted hours of the night. I, on the other hand, had already thought about what book I’d read when we locked up. Maybe one of my romance novels, a light and fluffy one making me forget how much love hurts. With that reminder, I debated one to make me cry. Or perhaps a thriller to make my skin crawl and keep me awake all night; that way I could blame the book and ignore my anxiety a little longer.Oh, I remembered: I’d started an enemies-to-lovers, and the slow-burn had finally startedburning. Not a bad-ow-I-regret-this burn, but a good burn. Like the burn that roasts your marshmallows for s’mores kind of burn. Except… not. Or simply add in a bantering, bickering couple. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best comparison.
Either way, I dreaded reading any further, because once the characters stopped being enemies, the fun would die and I’d lose interest. What that said about me, I chose not to analyze.
Standing behind our small desk, overly crowded by sticky notes, I came back to reality and began to write up this man’s ticket. He seemed decent, probably close to my age, though the thick cologne made me second-guess. Dark hair, close shave, and strong jaw. I cringed as he tried to force a conversation. I hated small talk.
“So do you have any Mother’s Day traditions?”
“Yeah,” I started without sparing him a look. I’d messed up the two on his receipt and felt like screaming. I didn’t, though. “Every year I dig up my mother’s grave and—” When I finally did pull my gaze up, my attention was immediately drawn to the dark-blond, broad-shouldered man entering our shop. The bell above the door rang. My hands clenched. My fingers cramped and I dropped my pencil. I couldn’t breathe as my stomach contorted as if trying to rip apart my heart, and I forgot the man speaking to me.
But the blond turned, and it wasn’t who I’d thought it was. Who I’d wanted it to be? Who I’d feared it to be? I wasn’t sure which fit more accurately. It wasn’thim.
It’d been three years since I’d seen Laken Augustus, so why did I look for him in every crowd? In every dark-blond, broad-shouldered man?
I shook the thought from my head, recovering my place in the conversation. “I’m sorry, what was I saying?”
The man, bug-eyed and frowning, said, “You were at the part about digging up your mother’s grave.” He swallowed.
Oh.“Oh, yeah, it’s a grand time.” I smiled and handed him his bouquet. He might as well have run away with his tail tucked.
Small talk might not have been my expertise, but I didn’t mind the flower shop. It was a good career. Dirty Hoes was technically owned by Maggie alone. I just comanaged it. I’d been there since opening, but ownership wasn’t something I felt ready to take on. We made good money, and I worked alongside my best friend every day. What more could one askfor? It wasn’t as if Iwantedto finally feel like I’d found my place in the world. I’d adapted to being the odd one out, the messy chaotic one running behind with half a shoe on, the one who never knew where she’d left off in her books. I’d be fine.
Laken Augustus may not have walked in… but the bell rang again and someone else I recognized did. Alaric Parrington—the business commissioner from my hometown, Honey Brooke. I’d recognize his deadpan stare anywhere, his cold gray eyes, his slicked-back peppered hair. The glasses he wore for appearances. Across his black pants, he carried a brown satchel. New and sharp edged. And in his hands—a letter.
My gut dropped into whatever hell lay below.
I knew what that letter would say.
It’d say it was time for me to return home. To Honey Brooke. To my past. To my father’s sanctuary for magical creatures. To everything I’d left behind me.
And I wasn’t ready for that.
CHAPTER TWO
My father never tried to be a consistent man, rarely a stable figure in my life. But two things never changed: he loved his work more than anything, and he planned to leave for an adventure to find somethingmore. Why? I had no clue, and I didn’t care.
