Page 82 of The Florist and Her Alphas

The sheets are cold. I hadn’t realized how warm four bodies keep a bed until I’m lying in one without them. I pull the blanket to my chin and stare at the ceiling.

I think about the ring under Ezra’s bed, small, green, and exactly the color of my eyes. I think about Julian’s voice asking if I was still their omega.

I’m not crazy for leaving.

I barely know these men. That is not enough time to decide the rest of my life. It’s not crazy that I needed to come home. It’s the sanest thing I have done in a long time.

So why does my chest feel like it’s caving in?

I turn onto my side, drag a pillow against my chest, and press my face into it; it smells like laundry detergent, missing the scent of Ezra and his brothers. I hadn’t realized I’d already learned the brothers’ scents as safety until the safety wasn’t here to smell.

I get up. I pace the narrow length of my bedroom twice before I end up back at the window, pulling the curtain aside again.

Cole’s car hasn’t really left.

It’s parked across the street from the shop now, engine off, and through the windshield I can see him reading something by the dashboard light, a paper cup of coffee steaming faintly on the console beside him.

He hadn’t left me.

I press my palm flat against the cold glass.

He doesn’t look up. I know that he knows I’m watching anyway. He’s the kind of alpha who always knows. He turns a page. He lifts the thermos and drinks.

The tears come fast and silent, sliding down my face and onto the inside of my wrist where it rests against the glass. I don’t deserve him sitting out there for hours. I don’t deserve any of them. I cry quietly, without moving, watching him turn another page like there’s nowhere else in the world he’d rather be.

Eventually I let the curtain fall closed. I climb back into bed. The thought of him down there under the streetlight loosens something clenched tight behind my ribs, and I finally feel a little more relaxed.

I close my eyes, and think of the four men not in my bed anymore.

Groaning, I wake up suddenly from a bad dream, and for a long moment I don’t know what time it is or how long I’ve been under. The sun is up. The city outside has that low, steady hum of mid-morning traffic.

Getting out of bed, I go straight to the window before I even think to do anything else.

The Range Rover is gone.

The spot across the street is empty, just a stretch of curb and a maple tree dropping the last of its yellow leaves onto the pavement, and something in my chest drops with it, hollow and sudden. I don’t know what I expected. Of course he left once the sun came up. Of course he had somewhere else to be.

I get dressed and put on my grandmother’s apron. My hair is twisted into a loose bun at the back of my neck as I brush my teeth. Walking into the kitchen, I groggily make coffee because I definitely need it right now.

I drink it standing at the counter, watching the morning light slant through my own window onto my own worn countertop.

I’m surprised by how much I missed this. The particular slant of this light. The particular chip in this mug. But I also miss Pepper yelling at his owners. It’s bittersweet. I smile as I finish my coffee and head downstairs to my shop.

The wonderful smells of stems, flowers, and dirt greet me as I reach the bottom steps. The buckets by the cooler are mostly full. Somebody, probably Toby, my delivery guy, has brought the chalkboard sign in from the sidewalk and propped it against the front of the counter.

There’s a sticky note stuck crooked to the mahogany. I peel it off and read Toby’s terrible, cramped handwriting: I tried. Sorry about the foxglove…please don’t fire me - Toby.

The foxglove in question sits brown and shriveled in its bucket by the window, thoroughly, unmistakably dead. I shake my head and smile despite feeling the intense heartbreak of leaving the Frostwood Pack.

I walk behind the counter, running my palm along the mahogany surface I sanded and refinished myself, feel the grooves and knots I know by heart, and touch the little bell jar with its single pressed sprig of mountain ash. Something in me settles half an inch back into place, the way a bone does when it’s finally set right.

I turn toward the back room, meaning to grab my shears apron, and stop.

But there’s a small white envelope lying on the floor just inside the front door. I must have stepped right over it coming in, too distracted by the note and the dead foxglove to notice.

I bend and pick it up. The paper is heavy. There’s no name on the front. No return address. No postage stamp.

Hand-delivered.