After a while, I settle down with my comic, sniffling, and I think I hear a knock on my door. Getting up, I pad over and hesitate. Is it safe to look?
Leaving the chain on, I carefully open the door a crack.
Holy crap. The bouquet is right there, on my doormat. I grab it and close the door, then pad back inside, burying my face in the flowers. I’m crying openly now.
Of the three of them, Zach is the easiest to forgive. But just like with the trauma of almost being kidnapped, which has prevented me from going out ever since, the trauma of these guys means I can’t open my heart as easily as before.
He wants me? Let him work harder for it.
Goddammit, why do I have to be such a hard-ass cutie?
If I thought this would be the end of it—and I admit I did—I was wrong.
The flowers keep arriving. Sometimes bouquets, sometimes a single rose. Zach pings me, waves, and asks if he can come up.
Once refused, he leaves the flowers and goes.
Now they also bear small messages on cute pieces of paper, such as, ‘Miss you’ and ‘How is my pretty girl today?’ and other such sugary morsels.
I lap it all up.
“So he just… started formally courting you?” Sawyer asks, placing my caramel-and-peanut-butter latte on the table and sitting down beside me. The café is quiet, half-empty. “Seriously?”
“You sound so surprised.”
“You deserve the best, girl, and both of us know it,” he says, “but Zach has always been a flighty bird.”
“You’re not helping.”
Sawyer sighs. “Reformed rakes are my favorites. In books. It’s so sweet reading about them.”
“Are you implying it can never happen in real life?”
“Well, Zach isn’t a rake,” he argues. “Not really. And he’s a good kid.”
“Do you think it’s infatuation on his part? And it will pass?”
“I wouldn’t know. Truth is, if it’s an infatuation,” he says, “it’s lasted a long time.”
“Now everyone says he’s been in love with me forever and I was the only one who didn’t know?”
“Coco…” Sawyer wags a finger at me. “We are always the last ones to know.”
I giggle. We high-five. I take a sip of my sweet latte. And sober up again.
“What do I do now?” I whisper.
“Why not take a chance on him?”
“Because he kissed me and ran?” I wave a hand about. “Then ran again?”
“Good point. He never said why?”
I shake my head.
“Strange. He doesn’t look the type to run,” Sawyer muses.
“I know, right?”
