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Then I roll over, belly first, real careful, to look at him. And I stop.
There’s something on his shoulder.
I lean in close. Right on the curve of his shoulder, where the grain swirls down toward his chest, there’s a little bump in the wood. Small and green and tight.
And next to it, another one.
And another.
A whole little cluster, running down over his collarbone. Tiny and green and brand new.
I stare at them. Then I poke one.
Rowan opens one eye. “What.”
“Baby,” I say slowly. “Don’t freak out.”
“I don’t freak out.”
“I think you’re budding.”
Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen: Rowan
I’m budding.
I didn’t think this body would do that. It’s a body. It eats, it sleeps a little, it breaks beds. It’s not supposed to bloom.
But every spring for as long as I can remember, I put out buds the second the snow started melting. And apparently, nobody told my shoulders that I’m a man now.
By the end of the week, there are buds all down my left shoulder, across my collarbone, and down the center of my chest. Little tight green clusters, right there in the grain. They don’t hurt. They itch a little. Mostly they’re fucking embarrassing.
Hattie thinks they’re the funniest thing that’s ever happened.
“How are my flowers this morning?” she asks, every single morning, lying in bed and poking them.
“They’re not your flowers.”
“They’re on my man. They’re my flowers.”
“Stop touching them.”
She touches them again. “Are they gonna open?”
“Probably.”
“What color?”
“White.”
She gets this look on her face. Pure evil. “Rowan. Baby. Are you about to be covered in little white flowers?”
I get out of bed.
She laughs so hard behind me I have to come back and make sure she’s not hurting the baby.
* * *
