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“Read the note,” Luna encourages.
“It’s just mushy nonsense. About how I lost my earring and he’s returning it. I- I met this guy at the masked ball. The thing Granny was supposed to go to and then bowed out at the last second because she ended up being busy, but it was a charity thing, so she made me go like we had planned. We were going to go together. Uh- I- met this guy there and we- uh- well- I’m taking a break. I swear. It wasn’t about that.”
“But this…” Luna holds up the earring. The sapphire winks in the light overhead. “Isn’t this part of the set? The set. The cursed set?” She practically yells it and I grab the earring away from her swiftly and grimace, hoping that no one heard that from the back.
“Yes,” I hiss. “It’s the cursed set. Granny bought me this crazy vintage dress. I couldn’t just wear shit jewelry with it. I didn’t have anything as nice as them. They’re- I- they just screamed masked ball. I didn’t put them on intending to meet anyone or anything. I made it clear that it was a one-night thing and it shouldn’t go further than that.”
“But you wore them. And you met someone.”
“I did, but he returned it, so what does it matter.”
Luna gapes at me. “Did anything happen? Like how with Ellis the ring got stuck on her finger, and with me the bracelet kept making the lights go all wonky and it burned all hot when Toren touched it. With Trent, it was his crazy cursed necklace that glowed and with Taylen his broach kept disappearing and appearing in funny spots.”
“Nothing happened.” I lean hard against the counter, the earring in my palm. Maybe if I tell myself hard enough that I wasn’t daring fate or the curse or whatever, and that I’m not disappointed that nothing happened, it might be true.
“But he sent you flowers. What does the note say?”
“It just says that he hopes I enjoy the bouquet and the book, and he wanted to return my earring. And he signed his name. That’s it.”
I don’t tell Luna that just seeing his name there, Daniel Parton, sends a shockwave zinging through me hard enough to make me want to hum under my breath at the sensation. We didn’t exchange names. Nope. Not telling my sister-in-law something like that. It sounds rather irresponsible when I put it like that, when I shed the light of day on a night of passion. That’s why nights of passion are called nights of passion, not days of passion. The blissful stuff from the dark isn’t supposed to meet the reality of the light.
“Do you think the bouquet means anything? Like, do the flowers correspond to that book?” Luna is grabbing the book before I can protest. She starts thumbing through it, flipping from illustration to illustration. Each page contains different flowers, their names, a short write up, and their meanings. “Ooooooh!” She squeals. “I don’t care what you say about this being a one-night thing. This is romantic! And he had your cursed earring for a good while. That ball was how many days ago? Weeks. It was weeks ago. Maybe something rubbed off on him.”
“Dear god, I hope not.”
That’s not the truth. I’m so secretly thrilled at the strange book and the flowers that now I’m tingling all over with the thought of seeing Daniel again. Would he have sent flowers if he didn’t want to see me again? No. I mean, probably not. He could have just returned my earring.
“I don’t know what half of these are.” Luna examines the bouquet. “Where did he even get these? Some of them look like weeds.”
It’s true. It’s a strange looking bouquet with a bunch of flowers I can’t name.
Luna pulls out her phone, ever practical like her husband, and flicks open an app. “This is a flower identifier. I downloaded it because there’s this crap that keeps growing in my flower garden and in the yard and it just springs up out of nowhere. I was sure it was a weed, and yup, I was right. An invasive one too. I had to deal with that… Uh- but never mind. Let’s scan some of these and see if it comes up with names.”
Suddenly I don’t want to do this. I feel strange, like I’m a balloon getting too full of air, ready to burst. I hate balloons, and I hate that my chest feels like one. I wish I could be doing this in private, finding out the meaning of these flowers, but Luna is already taking charge, writing down names on a paper and a pen she’s grabbed from behind the checkout counter where I’m standing.
She doesn’t stop until she has everything written down, then she picks up the book, which she uses like a dictionary, and starts ear marking pages. The further she goes, the more her nose wrinkles up.
