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Lou rolled her eyes but she lowered her voice. “Fine, fine, I’ll shut up. Continue.”
“Thank you.” Grace settled back in her chair and cleared her throat. “Anton was being his usual playboy rake self, but I went into the woods with him because, yes, he’s attractive as hell and, yes, I’ve had a crush on him for months.” She paused, rolling her eyes at Lou, who mouthedI knowat her, and continued on. “That’s when he ambushed me with the tryst proposal and I-well, I counter-offered.”
“With the dare?” Lou asked when Grace didn’t continue.
“Well, yes. I told him I wasn’t going to do a rendezvous with a time limit and that, well, if he wanted to get in my pants then he was going to have to date me. Like for real.”
Lou’s eyes widened. “And he agreed? Just like that?”
“Yes, just like that, but then Firestarter over there blew up the bonfire and we got interrupted, which is why I’m saying I don’t exactly know how much I’m dating him. I didn’t get the specifics exactly before I made out with him. For all I know we aretinilydating.”
“What does that even mean? How do you tinily anything?”
“Bigly is like a lot. The whole thing. Tinily is maybe we text or get pizza when we’re drunk. Fool around or something. Talk about our feelings.”
Lou gaped but said nothing.
“What?”
Lou snapped her mouth shut with an audible click. “Look, it’s very bigly, or whatever. There’s no tinily. If he told Mindy, then I’m sayingverybigly is a good guess. He doesn’t do relationships. Not ever, Grace.”
“I guess so,” Grace muttered, resting her chin in her palm. How they’d gone from friends to not and then straight past friends to something more in the blink of an eye had her head spinning. It was thrilling to think of the possibilities, but how was it true when she still couldn't believe she’d been so daring as to ask for it? Her eyes jerked up to Lou’s face when her friend made a sound somewhere between choking and grunting.
“What is it?” Grace asked, already leaning toward Lou to slap her back to safety in case of a freak accident. It wouldn't do to have her big-brained friend keel over from choking on her own spit.
Lou inclined her head behind Grace with a laugh. “The fact that he’s coming over here with flowers seems like another good indicator that you’re 100% dating Anton.Bigly.Those are not tinily flowers.”
Grace’s eyes widened. “What?” she squeaked. “Flowers?”
“Lots of them. Expensive ones too,” Lou replied, sliding away from her friend with a wink. “I’ll just leave you alone for some privacy, so you two can do datey things.”
“Wait!” Grace tried to make a swipe for Lou’s arm but the woman danced away, coffee in hand. She didn’t so much as spare her best friend a look as she practically skipped past Anton with a knowing look on her face. Grace made to bolt after her, but froze when she caught sight of the bouquet making its way through the lab towards her. It was practically a bouquet with legs, as it dwarfed Anton’s frame so that only his legs and feet were visible.
“Holy shit,” she breathed, eyes widening when she realized that Lou had been right. When a man brought you a bouquet half his size, then you were dating.
Like big time dating.
That had to be written down somewhere in theHow To Boyfriend Properlyinstruction manual. Was there a manual? If there was, then she should really look into procuring her own copy. It figured Anton would have already memorized the manual and left her scrambling to catch up. When the bouquet with legs came to a stop in front of Grace, she set her pen down and craned her neck, trying to get a look at Anton’s face, but everywhere she looked there was just another exotic flower.
“Hello?” she said.
“I got you these,” came the muffled reply before Anton shifted the bouquet to the side and popped his head out.
“They’re… I just-well, they’re very big,” Grace said with wide eyes.
Anton sighed. “They’re too big, aren’t they? I knew it.”
“No, no! I love them. Thank you so much. No one's ever gotten me flowers before.”
“What?” He pursed his lips and maneuvered the flowers onto the desk in front of her. “What do you mean?”
She ducked her head, one finger going out to toy with a lily petal. “I’ve never been given flowers before.”
His hands went to his hips.“I don’t care what you say, I absolutely should have gotten you the bigger one.”
“There was abiggerone?”
“Of course there was, but I think it was reserved for the likes of partners who forget their anniversaries, make the family give up carbs, and so on,” he told her with a shrug.
