“Fine. He’s extremely attractive.” That was a total understatement. He was one of those men who, even if he weren’t on a runway, you would stop in your tracks for. You’d stop just to admire how he moved through the world. He screamed capable. “And when he’s with Opal…” I stopped myself, pressing my lips together. “He’s so attentive and focused on her. He’s impressive.”
I picked up the scraps from the table and was about to say something else, but Lila was watching me closely. Instead, I waved the shears I was holding in a circle, hoping it would convey the rest since I wasn’t sure that the words were coming to me.
“The whole package?” Lila supplied
“Yeah. He’s a bit too big.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Really? Like everywhere?” She waggled her eyebrows up and down.
I pointed at the door. "Don't you have cinnamon rolls to make?"
“No. They're in the oven. Phiny's watching them." She drew her knee up, settling in with the relaxing presence of a woman who wasn’t planning to leave. "I just want to say one thing, and then I'll stop."
"You've never said just one thing in your life."
“If he makes you want to jump him, you should do it.”
I was still working on a response—something dry and witty that could push me back to the realm of ‘that’d never happen’—when the door swung open. A deliveryman entered, holding a bouquet in his arms, and my stomach sank.
"Sage Holt?" he asked.
"That's me."
He held it out with impersonal efficiency rather than the friendly manner my regular delivery driver used. This guy was going through the motions and had no feelings about it. Or maybe he’s just having a bad day, Sage, I chided myself.
There was no space on the table, and I felt frozen. Lila glanced from the flowers to me and stepped forward to take them. It was brown paper wrapped in twine, the same style as last time, and confusion was written all over her face.
“Geez, this is huge. It’s beautiful, though.”
"Sender?" I asked.
"None listed."
My heart was nearly beating out of my chest as I cleared a spot for them. Lila and I looked down at the flowers for a minute, the brown paper still tied, the shape of the flowers pressing gently against the wrapping.
“This is the second one," she said quietly. “Right?”
Technically, it was the third, because I was counting the other one that was left in here, even if it was half dead. Pulling thetwine loose, I folded back the paper, and a breath escaped from me despite myself because whoever had done this had an eye. It was an extraordinary and unsettling eye. It was still a miniature reflection of a style I might have created on a day when I had no orders to fill and no customers coming in.
Dahlias in a deep copper that went almost brown at the petal edges, the exact shade that showed up on my journal pages, pressed between the September and October entries.
I’d posted a photograph of them once when I'd received a small personal order of them from my specialty grower, the caption something corny about autumn arriving early—and threaded among them, sweet autumn clematis with its tiny star-shaped blooms, and at the base where the stems met the paper, a sprig of rosemary that made my throat close without warning, because rosemary was for remembrance. I had written that in a caption once, too.
Lila found the card and held it out without reading it, which was one of the many reasons she was my best friend. It was the same cream-colored stock as the last one, but this one had handwriting on it. Just on one side, it said:
I’m going to keep you.
"Sage," Lila said, her voice full of concern. “What the actual fuck.”
"I know."
"That's not?—"
"I know." I placed the card face down on the workbench and looked at the flowers, which were objectively beautiful and had done nothing wrong. I tried to pinpoint the feeling. When I’dworked with my therapist when I was younger, I was encouraged to be specific.
“Find the emotion, Sage,” she’d say, leaning close to me and peering at me. I could still remember her office and how I’d gone with East leaning on one side, all sturdy and tall. We’d all taken turns there. Levi and Maggie had made sure that we went as long as we needed, but it was something I’d really connected with. We’d always gone for ice cream after, and East would hold my hand.
There was a word that would go into my journal later, but I wasn’t sure I could connect it with the dahlias, or maybe I could. Maybe I’d press one and put it in my journal, but something in me rebelled at that idea. There was something here that was complicated, circling fear, but it wasn’t in the same zip code. I needed to name it before I could decide what to do with it, but what I kept circling back to was that sprig of rosemary.
