“Those are not normal-boy flowers.”
I laugh softly, already reaching toward the card tucked between cream tissue and one ridiculous velvet ribbon.
“No.”
“They’re romantic-comedy flowers.”
“That’s dramatic.”
“There are two teddy bears.”
I pause.
Fair.
The card is thick white stock with my name written across the envelope in a dark, slanted, unmistakably masculine hand.
That alone does something treacherous to me.
Because there’s something intimate about a man writing your name by hand. Something old-fashioned and intentional and impossible to skim past.
My fingers slip under the flap.
And for one glowing, humiliating heartbeat, I let myself have it.
The image.
The certainty.
The story.
Tristan sending roses in every color because he couldn’t pick just one.
Tristan sitting in some postgame quiet, maybe still in his hoodie, writing me a card because words come easier on paper than in hospital rooms.
Tristan finally, finally stepping toward me in the language men use when they’re done pretending not to mean things.
I pull out the card.
Read the first line.
And my whole body goes still.
Not Tristan.
Drew.
Because apparently humiliation is a renewable resource in my life.
Becca sees my face change instantly.
“What?”
I blink down at the card once more just to make sure I’m not having a morphine hallucination.
Nope.
Still Drew.
