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“Oh, good, they delivered them on time.”

He paid the florist to deliver them at a specific time? What the hell is going on here? I feel like I stepped into some kind of twilight zone.

“Yeah,” I mutter, not sure what else to say.

“So listen, I’m going to be in town this weekend, and I’d love to see you. Maybe we can grab dinner or something.”

And there it is.

“Oh, I don’t know that that’s such a good idea.”

“Please, Addy. Just as friends, I promise. I’d love to just be able to talk to you. When things ended, I was more than a little rude, and I want to make that up to you.”

“You really don’t have to do that,” I reply, trying to come up with a way to get out of this but I don’t have anything.

“I insist. Please.”

“Just as friends?”

“Absolutely.”

I sigh, giving in. “Okay. I can do that.”

“Great,” he says and tells me where to meet him while I wonder how my perfectly normal morning turned into such a disaster.

* * * *

“Wow, two days in a row, huh? Someone must really like you.”

I hold in my comments about how this is really some kind of pissing match and just smile as she hands me the flowers. After telling her to have a good day, I shut the door and look down at the beautiful arrangement of sunflowers that are much more my style. When Trey got back to the apartment last night and saw the flowers from Kyle, he was pissed. He didn’t say anything but I could feel the jealousy pulsing through him in everything he did. Actually, maybe jealousy isn’t the right word – it was more like possession.

So, I’m not the least bit surprised that I have a new bouquet of flowers this morning, and I would bet everything I have that they are from Trey. Setting them down on the desk, I plop down into my office chair with the card in my hand and open it. A giggle spills out of my mouth as soon as I see that, instead of writing out a sweet note, he just taped a picture of two cartoon lobsters with their claws locked together. Right underneath the picture, he wrote “To my lobster” and drew a heart.

I just stare at it, so many emotions swirling around inside me, and I don’t know which one to lock on to. I love this – it’s everything I’ve always wanted but I’m terrified, and I feel so guilty for allowing him the chance to fall in love with me when I haven’t told him everything he needs to know. The fact that he remembered something from when Emma, Daisy, and I were younger, touches a part of me – that little girl that dreamed of finding a prince charming one day, a man like her daddy who would love her fiercely and unconditionally. And it feels so wrong to hope that maybe I found just that.

I look over to the table where Kyle’s flowers sit, and there’s really no comparison. Kyle’s flowers, while beautiful, are so wrong for me, and I wonder how after dating for six months, he knew so little about who I am. But when I look at Trey’s flowers, it’s so obvious that he sees me – the real me. He sees past the bravado I’ve been holding on to for the past year and a half, he sees past all the sass and attitude, he just sees me. Addy.

Releasing a heavy breath, I set the note down and start off toward my bedroom, needing my dad’s words right now more than anything. When I pull the old box down from the closet, I get a whiff of his cologne – almost like he’s right here in the room with me, and tears well up in my eyes.

“Miss you, Daddy,” I whisper into the empty space before taking the box to the bed and pulling one out to read.

To my gorgeous bride,

Today, we celebrate ten wonderful years of marriage, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’ll bet that there were times, especially in the beginning, that you wondered if we’d ever get here. I know that I haven’t been a perfect husband. I’m stubborn and my listening skills could certainly use some work but I swear to you, there hasn’t been a day since we met that I haven’t loved you with every fiber of my being. You and your spirit are so much a part of who I am today that I’m sure you’re probably embedded in my DNA. Each day, I love you more than the day before, and at this point, I don’t understand how that’s possible. I laugh when I read that letter I wrote you the first day we met because that kid was so sure that he was head over heels in love with you and he was, but it has grown to so much more. I fall deeper and deeper into the abyss, and I wouldn’t wish for anything else.

A few years back, I was thinking about how much your parents were against us when we got married and I wondered how I would feel about our marriage if we ever split. Let me tell you, sweetheart, I can’t regret a single day with you. Ever. If I were gone tomorrow, taken from you, I would know that I lived a good life and I did everything I could, took every opportunity to show you the depths of my feelings for you. I think in some ways, that’s why I started writing these letters. Because what the hell is a diamond in relation to how much I love you? It’s worthless. It will never come close to showing you what you mean to me. And I know that my words don’t even reach the mark but I try. I think the best way to say it is this – I love you today, tomorrow, and forever.

Happy anniversary, my love.

XOXO

Chills race down my spine, and I shake my head. This letter was only a year before my dad died, and hearing him talk about living a good life and loving my mom with everything he has makes my eyes well up with tears. And I can’t help but wonder and hope that Trey will feel the same.

* * * *

As I pull my car into the parking lot of the very same restaurant that I dumped Kyle in three months ago, I see him waiting by the door for me, and I sigh. I can’t believe I let myself get talked into this. It’s such a terrible idea, and I already know that it’s going to be incredibly awkward. If I hadn’t been so out of sorts from the mini panic attack when the flowers showed up and he called, I would have turned him down. I guess it’s lucky for him that he has good timing.

I’ve spent the last two days trying to think of what he could possibly want to talk to me about. I feel like we left things settled when it ended, and I wasn’t cruel to him or anything. I just don’t know. I spent the other half of my time deciding if I should tell Trey or not. Indecision won out, and he has no idea that I’m here, which only makes me feel worse about this dinner.