“What the—?” I gasped.
The trailer was full of plants. Full. There was almost no space to move around. I looked a little closer; these weremyplants, the plants that I’d left at Ryan’s house. How the hell had these gotten here?
“They didn’t all fit in.”
I heard his voice and turned. “What are . . . I mean, how did you . . .?”
“I’m sorry.” The production assistant suddenly appeared from around the corner. “He said he was your boyfriend and he wanted to do something special for you for your first day back. I hope that’s okay?” she asked, looking a little concerned.
I nodded. “It’s okay,” I said.
She smiled and walked off again.
“My boyfriend, eh?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
He shrugged. “Well, it was either that or they might have thought I was a crazed fan or stalker, since you are so famous now.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m big in Japan,” I said. “And by that, I mean Nigeria.”
“You’re still big,” he said, taking a step closer to me. “The people love you. And more importantly, I love you.” He looked at me meaningfully.
I shook my head. “You know, according to my daisy, ‘you love me not.’”
He shook his head, clearly confused. “You know . . .” I started miming the pulling of petals. “He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me . . .not.”
“That’s not very scientific,” he said.
“Well, it did kind of make sense. What with the things you said to me the last time we spoke.”
He hung his head. “God, I was such an asshole. What I said and how I reacted . . . I was just scared.”
“Of what?”
“Losing you. I was scared of losing you. It seems to me that the people I love, well, they tend to . . . go away. And you were going away.” His eyes were tearing up.
“I wasn’t going away. Well, physically I was, but emotionally, God, Ryan, don’t you know you have my heart? You have it. And no matter where I am, you would still have it. I wasn’t taking that away.”
He nodded. “I see that now.”
“And this is my dream, Ryan. You know that.”
“And you deserve this. God, if there is one person in the world that deserves it, it’s you. You deserve it all. Everything.” He took another step closer.
“Do you really regret bringing me into your life?” I asked. That line had played over and over in my head.
“God, no!” He shook his head. “No. Not at all. That was a terrible thing to say, and I didn’t mean it. I said it because I thought I was losing you, and I can’t lose you . . .” He paused. “You’ve saved me. Don’t you see that? Before you, I was empty, I was angry, I was lost. And now I’m none of those things, and it’s because you’ve brought fucking flowers and pigeons and butterflies into my life. And now that I’ve had those things, I don’t want to live without them anymore. I can’t.”
“How is Houdini anyway?” I asked.
“He misses you. We all miss you.”
“I miss you all too,” I admitted. I stepped closer to him. My heart wanted to explode out of my chest and right back into his hands. “Wait!” I suddenly said. “It’s Tuesday, you have your board meeting every Tuesday afternoon. How are you even here?”
At that, he smiled at me. A strange, slow smile that I’d never seen before.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I sold my shares in the company.”
