“I’m going to do it after work today.”
“Whenever you want,” she says softly. “It’s totally up to you. You might want to…”
Her voice trails off as she glances out the window. “Oh, that is aman. You should forget Matt and go for that guy.”
“What?” I turn around, then stop, because at the door stands a gorgeous man dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans. “Rafe?”
We all stand there for a moment, and then Ana clears her throat. “Uh, welcome.”
“Oh. Ana, this is Rafe. Rafe, Ana.”
“Hi? Nice to meet you.” She gives me a look.
He nods to show he heard her. I haven’t moved because I know there’s no way I want to text Matt or any other man. Rafe has always been mine.
Ana waits but senses I don’t know what to do. “Why don’t you show Rafe the garden?” she finally suggests, like a chaperone looking for an acceptable activity. “Or go for a walk?”
“Ah, excuse me?” a woman’s voice comes from behind Rafe. “Are you going in?”
That breaks the spell, and he mumbles an excuse as he steps aside, eyes not leaving me. Two women come in and head straight for the Pulse Points display. Ana gives me a little shove, and I know I can’t avoid this talk anymore.
I don’t want to. Avoidance hasn’t worked out so well for me after all. As I approach him, the smell of tobacco and bergamot draws me in. “It came in the mail,” he says.
He follows me out to the garden, where Jayne has added a little bench that’s become a beacon for social media influencers. Ana and I don’t mind, although it would be great if more of them bought something from us instead of using it to document hauls from other shops. On this cool afternoon, it’s only Rafe and me.
“My mother said you were in Vancouver,” he says.
“I was.” We sit down and I don’t wait. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Our fight was my fault. I was angry, and I took it out on you. I was a complete asshole. I got a whole lot of things in my head, and everything rolled into this tsunami of wrongness. I was wrong about everything.”
“Do you still think I had some nefarious deal with your mother?”
I do my best not to cringe. “I do not—although to be clear, I thought she was using you and you had no idea.”
“Lucy. That’s not much better.”
“I know, and I am sorry that I completely, totally got in my own head and severely overreacted. It was not my best moment.”
He leans forward and breaks off some rosemary. The herbaceous smell rises from where he rolls the slender green leaves in his hands. “I wasn’t at my best either,” he said. “You were hurting, and I added to it instead of listening. I apologize too.”
We sit in silence. “Good talk,” I say to try to break the tension.
Rafe’s lips quirk up in a little smile. “I’ve been thinking about how we never decided the path we wanted to pursue. You and I, friends or more.”
“Okay.” Here it comes again, the sting of rejection that seems to be the calling card of any talk with Rafe.
“I should have said what I wanted at the beginning,” he said. “To me, we were never only friends. I was in love with you long before you were doing your magical perfumes. From that first day we went to the beach, it’s been all you and me, but I didn’t understand.”
I take some lavender for myself. “Can you tell me what you’re saying, exactly? What do you want from me?”
“We’re making the same mistake we did before,” he says.
“How so?” I add some tarragon to the mix, the licorice scent mixing with the floral of the lavender. A group of women walk by, laughing at the shirt one of them has bought, which is covered with cowgirls wearing bikini tops.
“We weren’t honest with each other from the beginning, and that’s why neither of us fully trusted the other. We said we were friends, best friends.” He clenches his hands. “The thing is, I always wanted more.”
“Always?”
“Yes.” He releases the rosemary and runs his hands over his thighs. “I was worried you were going to find a boyfriend. Do you remember Logan?”
