“Huh.”
“What?”
“I just … in all my years, I don’t think anyone has come in here to buy her flowers.”
“You’re kidding.”
Mrs. Buckley shakes her head and laughs. “And I'm shocked as shit that it’s you.”
Her smile doesn’t drop, and I chuckle.
“In that case, we’d better go all out. Can you have these delivered to her tomorrow? Really make a show of it.”
“That can be arranged.”
I pay for the flowers, scribble something on the card that will go with them, tell her goodbye, and head for the door.
I stop just as the bell goes off again and turn.
“Mrs. Buckley?"
“Hmm.”
I wait for her to look at me before I say the two words I should have said years ago.
“I’m sorry.”
Chapter
Fourteen
BROOKE
Since the festivalran until around nine last night, Dutton didn’t come over.
A part of me still wanted to invite him, but it was approaching the late hours, and I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea.
Or maybe I did.
I don’t know.
Something happened between us yesterday. I wish I had the words to explain it so that I could at least talk to the girls about it, but I don’t. Even then, I wouldn’t want to say something in front of Grace that might complicate things. And I’d feel guilty asking the other girls to keep something from her until I know what I want to do about it.
Right now, all I know is that Dutton is my friend. My ridiculously attractive friend. Before all this, I’d let my mind occasionally have some fun and think of him in a way friends don’t thinkof each other, but then we actually became friends and that part of my mind shut down.
Until yesterday.
I close the sliding glass door to the display case, then take a lemon bar to the customer who ordered it.
“Thank you,” she says kindly.
“You’re welcome.”
I make my way back to the register, then a breeze hits me.
I look up to spot my dad standing in the doorway, and my heart races the way it would as a kid when I knew I was about to be in trouble.
I hated being in trouble.
