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“I know she is,” Heather said. “She told me you like to go target shooting with Zane.”
“I do. We blow some steam off, but we haven’t done it in a month or so.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“We’ve been busy. The summer is nuts for Zane. I know that.”
“And I think Lily wants another baby,” she said.
“I’d heard something along those lines, but that is between them,” he said.
“Rose is due in two months, so we will see what the next year brings,” she said.
Their dinner came out after that, they ate and he had another beer, then she drove home. Not that he was drunk, but no way he was risking his job because he had two drinks out.
They got back to his place and he asked, “Do you want to sit on the deck?”
She was staying the night and then going to work in the morning. He’d do what he needed to for the week since he’d be working or sleeping starting Saturday for four days.
“Sure,” she said. “It’s a beautiful night out.” She walked to the deck, but he went to his room. “Where did you go?”
“To get your gift,” he said.
“You brought me out to dinner,” she argued.
“So?” he said. “That isn’t anything special.”
Not that he’d ever bought a special gift for anyone before and since he didn’t have a lot of notice of her birthday, he’d been unsure of what to even do.
There was part of him that felt horrible going to the Blossoms retail store and looking at jewelry there, but Daisy had been helpful and swore she wouldn’t say a word.
The earrings he went with ended up being a couple of Benjamins, but he didn’t care. He was told it was a new design that Rose created with real gemstones in the center.
The white gold roses with a light green stone that was Heather’s birthstone looked nice to him.
He put the gift bag on her lap. One from Blossoms. No card inside. He didn’t do cards. Doing jewelry was hard enough.
But there was part of Heather that was wiggling her way into his life and he wanted her to know that he was trying to open the door more. He just hoped she didn’t slam it and run in the other direction at some point.
He’d spent way too much of his life trying to block out hurt.
She opened the bag and pulled out the box. “I can’t wait to see what this is,” she said.
“You’re not annoyed I got it at where you work?”
“No,” she said, frowning. “Why would I be? Rose and Daisy do beautiful high-quality work. I know it’s jewelry. It’s one of Rose’s boxes.”
She squealed and he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. “Are they okay? I know you don’t change out your earrings much.”
He only noticed them when her hair was back like it was now.
“These are perfect. And it’s my birthstone. It’s a brand new product. Something they started selling a few weeks ago and were making them custom.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Daisy put the stones in them.”
“And she didn’t tell me. You both suck, but it’s super sweet. You can trust her any time you want to surprise me.”
She was swapping the hoops out of her ears and putting the roses in. The grin on her face told him the comment she made was more a joke than an expectation.
