But there’s something else. Something underneath the surface. I don’t know why I care, why it even matters. I’ve met enough men with walls as high as his and learned the hard way not to waste my time trying to climb them. And the look he gave me when he left the shop?
It was like I’d touched a nerve. Which is why the next morning I slip out of the shop with a single lily tucked under my arm, the funeral home looming ahead.
As I approach the front door, I hover for a moment, my heart pounding in my chest as if I’m about to confess some great sin.
I glance around the empty building before slipping inside, myfootsteps muffled against the polished floors, and make my way toward what I assume is Hayden Harlow’s office. There, on his desk, I gently place the lily, its pastel petals striking against the dark wood. The note follows. I slip it in next to the flower, pressing it there as if I’m making some kind of offering.
Small. Maybe insignificant. Still necessary. Like laying a flower on a grave or flipping a penny for whoever comes next. I step back, leaving the office as quietly as I came, and as I walk back to the store, I feel lighter.
Maybe it’s because I’ve done something to balance the scales. Or maybe it’s imagining Hayden’s face when he finds the flower. A flicker of surprise.
Something that might even make him come back.
• • •
If you’d toldme I’d spend the day obsessing over a funeral director with the emotional range of a cinder block, I would have laughed. Yet here I am, elbows deep in compost, replaying every terse word Hayden Harlow has grumbled. At the grocery store I stare blankly at the spice jars; at the hardware store I somehow buy twice as many pots as I need.
It isn’t a crush.God no. Crushes are soft, morning glories up a trellis. This is a weed through concrete. Stubborn. Loud. Unkillable.
By the time I sit down to dinner with Dominic and Elijah, I’m desperate for a distraction.
But unfortunately for me, my poker face needs work.
“You’re suspiciously quiet tonight,” Dominic says as he swirls his wine. Thick eyebrows frame eyes that have perfected the art of looking both amused and unimpressed. Today he’s wearing another one of his flawlessly tailored sweaters, this one patterned justenough to signal his disdain for the ordinary. It’s a skill, really, and he’d be the first to tell you.
Dominic Hart’s been my best friend since childhood. Back when he ran our high school yearbook committee like his personal gossip column and dressed like he was too good for this town. Now he’s Stonevale’s top real estate agent. Granted, he might be Stonevale’sonlyreal estate agent, but the distinction matters deeply to him.
With a mere three-day age difference, we’ve shared everything. Secrets, first crushes, awful hairstyles. Oh my god, theawfulhairstyles. And when he married Elijah, it felt like Elijah had always been part of our messy chosen family, sliding into place like the puzzle piece we didn’t know was missing.
“I’m fine,” I mutter, poking at my pasta, hoping neither of them will press the subject.
Elijah, older by a decade and effortlessly polished, leans forward, his sleeves rolled haphazardly up his forearms. His beard is neatly trimmed, and a touch of silver at his temples accentuates how unfairly well he’s aging. He watches me closely over his martini.
“You’re fine?” He lifts an eyebrow he’s weaponized over a career teaching at Stonevale College. “Sweetheart, you’ve asked me how my day was four times already. That’s not fine. That’s…concerning.”
“Maybe I justgenuinelycare about your life, okay?” I shoot back. “Wild concept.”
Dominic snorts. Elijah tilts his head. “Oh, honey, you really don’t.”
“Fine,” I relent, leaning back in my chair, feeling the tension settle deep in my shoulders.
“It’s nothing major, but a guy came…”
Elijah interrupts, gasping dramatically and gripping Dominic’s arm for support. “Oh. My. God. Levi Wilder has met a man? Hold my tenure.”
“Can you keep it down?” I hiss, but I can already feel my face heating up. “Some guy came into the shop the other day to yell at me about sending sunflowers for a funeral.”
Dominic’s eyes narrow in amused disbelief. “Levi Wilder, florist and scandal maker. Sunflowers at a funeral? Please tell me you didn’t.”
“It was a small amendment to an order, dick!” I protest. “And it was a damn good one. Who looks at sunflowers and thinks,Ugh, joy? Psychopaths, that’s who.”
“For a funeral?” Dominic interrupts again, his tone unconvinced. “Clearly, Mr. Grumpy didn’t appreciate your brand of vitamin D.”
I groan, throwing my head back in exasperation. “Why does everyone have such a fucking hang-up with sunflowers? I already got the same lecture from him.”
Dominic chuckles softly. “Does Mr. Grumpy have a government name, or are we workshopping?”
“Hayden Harlow,” I admit grudgingly.
