Gia beamed. “I like himsomuch. He’s so different from city guys, you know? He bakes muffins by himself, like, once a week. And he’s going to take me fishing—he promised I wouldn’t have to touch any fish or worms. I’ve figured out how to deal with Addison, too. I told her to stop when she started going on about Juniper again last night. I don’t want to hear it. Anyway, I have no interest in being alpha wolf here; I don’t mind letting her think she rules her squad.”
I laughed. Gia understood the teen pecking order better than anyone. And good for her for standing up for Juniper. “What about the Bloom? They’re not going to try to steal our secrets, are they?”
“They don’t really care enough, honestly. I think Addison’s only doing the competition because her mother wants her to, and Cam’s only there because Addison told him he was on the team.”
“Like how I told you?”
Gia grinned. “I want to do it, remember? We’re going to meet Christopher Chan after we win. This is going to be awesome for you! Plus, it’s going to be a big boost for my follower count. I’ll totally start getting sponsorships by the end of the summer. Why do we have another lesson so soon, though? We just had one on Friday.”
“The Bloom is, like, less than six weeks away. Everyone else here has been working with flowers forever—we need to catch up.”
Gia chuckled. “At least the meetings are entertaining. I love watching you and Rowan argue—you drip with chemistry, as my drama teacher would say.”
“He was nice to me last night. Even gave me advice about dealing with a breakup. But I’m sure he’ll be back to growling at me today.”
Gia put her hands out like claws and gave me a flirty growl.
I laughed.
Our floral design lesson tonight was with living plants—which was what we’d be working with for the Bloom. Basically, that meant all the flowers and greenery needed to be alive with roots attached.
We were working on a small scale to start, arranging tiny succulents in rectangular metal trays. I’d bought my own slim gloves, and I guess since these succulents weren’t really flowery, my allergies were behaving. My aunt had made me an appointment with Rowan and Juniper’s mom, who was a doctor in town, and I suspected Rowan was keeping me away from pollen until I saw her about my allergies.
“Don’t force the root ball,” Rowan scolded as I tried to fit this cute little spiky thing in between puffy leaf things. “They need space.”
I sighed. As expected, there was no sign of the camaraderie we’d had last night. He was full-on grumpy with me again. He barely spoke when he dropped the box of plants on the workbench, and he did his familiar scowl when Gia took pictures of me picking out the succulents I wanted to use. His shirt even had a different vibe—still plant-y, but more stylized tropical plants instead of cartoony flowers.
Leanne had joined us to help Rowan teach, though, and she made up for his sour mood by being especially perky. She’d even brought her rabbits, who she’d caged in the middle of the yard using theselittle fences she’d brought. They were currently gorging themselves on Rowan’s grass. Leanne giggled. “Guys are alwayssoooprotective of their root balls.” She winked at me. “Don’t even mind him—succulents are pretty hardy.” She handed me some garden scissors. “You can trim a bit to make it fit. Don’t look, Row—this might be traumatizing.”
Gia gave Leanne a snorty laugh. “I like you.”
Rowan did that growl thing that wasn’t really a growl. More of a huff. “Why exactly did you insist on coming tonight, Leanne?” he asked.
“Because I had nothing else to do. Y’all are my best friends, remember?” She grinned at Juniper, who quickly looked away.
I trimmed the root ball a bit, but it still wasn’t fitting. “This isn’t working,” I said. Leanne came around to my side of the bench to show me that I didn’t need to be delicate with it. “I love succulent art,” she said. “Last year my aloe Vera Wang went viral.”
Rowan shook his head. “Viral in gardening circles isn’t much of an accomplishment.”
“Aloe Vera Wang?” Gia asked.
“There was this succulent art challenge on TikTok. Here, look.” Leanne showed us a picture on her phone. It was hilarious—the plants were arranged to look like a wedding dress.
“Remember, Row?” Leanne said. “I used that succulent hybrid we helped your dad make in the lab, back when we used to go to Wynter’s just to hang out with him. Before the...great Johnston rift.”
I looked at Rowan, curious. He shrugged. “My dad works at the laboratory at Wynter’s. He doesn’t approve of me studying landscape architecture, so we haven’t been as close lately.”
It was interesting how easily he mentioned this, but I got the impression he didn’t want to talk about it more. I pointed back to the aloe Vera Wang. “I kind of love that,” I said.
“And you’re, like, a real fashion person, so that’s a big compliment!” Leanne said. “Hey, since you know clothes people, maybe you can help Junebug find someone to make her prom dress? Ever since she was akid, she’s wanted a yellowBeauty and the Beastdress because Belle’s all into books.”
“I’ve grown out of that,” June mumbled.
“Of course you have,” Leanne said. “Hey, I heard that author of that wolf series you love has a signing in Toronto soon. We should go! I read the first book and loved it!”
June didn’t look up from her arrangement. “I can’t go. It’s the weekend of the Bloom.”
“Oh.” Leanne frowned. “That sucks.”
