21. Maren
— ? —
Maren
The call is nothing.
Paperwork. They need me to sign off on Rowan’s emergency contact forms because they’re updating their system and my handwriting was apparently illegible on the original copies.
My heart is still slamming against my ribs when the front desk administrator cheerfully says, “Just wanted to catch you before pickup!” and hangs up.
I stand in the venue’s marble foyer for a full minute, phone pressed to my chest, breathing.
He’s here. He’s in Boston, somehow connected to the biggest contract my shop has landed in three years, and I walked into that room completely unprepared.
I don’t do unprepared. Not anymore.
The drive home is a blur. I don’t remember getting in my car or pulling into my parking spot or climbing the three flights to my apartment. I just remember standing in my kitchen, staring at the fridge covered in Rowan’s preschool art projects, thinking this can’t be happening.
I could pull out of the contract.
The thought surfaces around midnight, while I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling. The venue hasn’t signed final paperwork yet. There are penalty clauses, but they’re manageable. I could cite personal conflicts, recommend another florist, walk away clean.
The ceiling doesn’t answer.
I think about Jamie, who left a corporate job to work with me because she believed in what we were building.
Diego, who’s been saving for his sister’s wedding and counting on his Christmas bonus.
Camila and Sofia, who just signed a lease on a bigger apartment because they trusted the shop would keep growing.
I think about three years of proving I could do this alone.
And then I think about Rhodes Calloway standing in that event hall, watching me walk away, and the idea of letting him drive me out of one more thing makes me so angry I can taste it.
No.
Absolutely not.
He doesn’t get to cost me anything else. Not one more client, not one more contract, not one more square inch of the life I built without him.
I’m going back tomorrow. I’m treating him like any other client. And if he doesn’t like it, he can find another florist.
The venue’s project manager, her name is Patricia, I checked, seems relieved when I show up at nine the next morning. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back,” she admits. “After yesterday. I didn’t realize you two had… history.”
“It won’t affect my work.”
“Of course. Of course.” She’s nodding too much, clearly uncomfortable. “Mr. Calloway asked me to tell you he’s in the east conservatory whenever you’re ready to continue the walkthrough.”
I take my time getting there.
The east conservatory is beautiful, glass ceiling, original ironwork, the kind of natural light that makes arrangements basically style themselves. It’s going to photograph like a dream.
Rhodes is standing by the window again. He looks like he didn’t sleep either.
“You came back.”
“I have a contract.”
“You could’ve sent someone else.”
“I could have.” I set my portfolio on the nearest table, pulling out the venue specifications. “I chose not to.”
He watches me for a long moment. I can feel the questions piling up behind his eyes, where do you live, why Boston, why did you disappear, is there someone else now, and I brace myself for the first one.
It doesn’t come.
“The conservatory needs centerpieces for up to thirty tables,” he says instead. “Patricia thinks tall arrangements, but I’m wondering if low and wide would photograph better for corporate events.”
I stare at him.
He stares back. Waiting.
“Low and wide,” I say slowly. “For corporate.”
“Yes.”
“You want to talk about centerpiece heights.”
“Unless there’s something else you’d rather discuss.”
There are a thousand things I’d rather discuss.
There are a thousand things I’d rather scream at him, three years of accumulated rage that’s been festering without an outlet.
But he’s not giving me an opening. He’s standing there with his hands in his pockets, his face carefully neutral, waiting to talk about flower arrangements.
“No,” I hear myself say. “Centerpiece heights are fine.”
We spend the next two hours walking through the venue. Room by room, specification by specification. Rhodes asks reasonable questions about seasonal availability, color palettes, installation timelines. He defers to my expertise on anything botanical. He doesn’t push.
He doesn’t push once.
I keep waiting for it. The bulldozing, the demands for answers, the Rhodes who used to decide what he wanted and simply assume everyone else would fall in line.
But every time we get close to anything personal, when I mention a supplier I’ve been working with “for a couple years now,” when he asks if I’m happy with the Boston market and I say “it’s home now” he just nods and moves on.
It’s disorienting. It’s deeply, profoundly disorienting.
By noon, we’ve covered everything on Patricia’s checklist. My notes are thorough, my professional mask is intact, and I have absolutely no idea who this man is.
“I need measurements for the arch in the main hall,” I say, closing my portfolio. “I’ll send a formal proposal by Friday.”
“Take whatever time you need.”
“Friday is fine.”
Rhodes nods. He’s looking at me the way he used to look at contracts, searching for the clause he’s missed, the detail that’ll make everything make sense.
“Maren-”
“Don’t.”
He stops.
“Whatever you’re about to ask,” I say, “don’t.”
For a second, I see something crack in his composure. Just a flicker. Then it’s gone, and he’s nodding again, stepping back.
“Friday,” he says. “I’ll have Patricia send over the numbers.”
I’m halfway to the door when I stop.
This is stupid. This is so stupid. But the question has been burning a hole in my chest for three years, and I can’t walk away without asking.
“You still see my sister?”
Behind me, I hear him exhale. “Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Because she was my family too.”
I turn around. He’s still standing by the conservatory windows, sunlight catching the gray at his temples. There’s more of it than there used to be.
“Did you ask her about me?”
“For a while.”
“Of course you did.” The words come out bitter. They taste bitter. “Let me guess, you showed up at the shop, demanded answers, made it impossible for her to just do her job-”
“Yes.”
I blink.
“All of that,” he says quietly. “For about five months. Until I finally understood that interrogating your sister wasn’t going to prove I’d changed. It was just going to prove I was still exactly the man you left.”
The honesty of it knocks something loose in me.
I don’t know what to do with Rhodes admitting his own worst behavior. With Rhodes standing in front of me, not defending himself, not explaining, just, acknowledging.
“She never told me you came by,” I manage.
“I know.”
“I didn’t ask her to keep it secret. I just-” I stop. I don’t owe him explanations, or anything else. “I didn’t want to know.”
“I know that too.”
He’s watching me with an expression I can’t read. Patient. Steady. Like he’s prepared to stand here all day if I need him to.
“I have to get back to the shop,” I say.
He nods.
I leave.
But I think about his face for the rest of the day. The gray at his temples, the stillness where there used to be constant motion, the way he held himself like someone who’s learned that silence is sometimes the only gift you can give.
The next morning, I arrive at the venue before Patricia’s even unlocked the doors. Rhodes is already there, leaning against his rental car with two coffee cups.
“I don’t know how you take it anymore,” he says. “So I got black.”
I stare at the cup he’s holding out. Three years ago, he knew exactly how I took my coffee. Two sugars, splash of oat milk, slightly cooler than most people drink it.
“Why?”
“Why coffee?”
“Why any of this?” I gesture vaguely at the venue, at him, at the entire impossible situation. “You could’ve delegated this project. You delegate everything now, Nora says you barely show up to your own meetings. So why are you here?”
Something shifts in his expression. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“It’s all I’ve got.” He sets the coffee on the car hood. “The property needed hands-on attention during the transition. I came. I didn’t know Bellamy Blooms Boston existed until I saw your portfolio yesterday.”
Bellamy Blooms Boston. Hearing him say it out loud makes it real in a way it hasn’t been before. My business, my shop, my city that he’s now standing in.
“You’re not going to ask why Boston?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Rhodes looks at me. Really looks, the way he used to when we were first together, when I was a mystery he was desperate to solve.
“Because you don’t want to tell me,” he says simply. “And I’m trying to stop being the person who takes what he wants without asking if it’s being offered.”
I take the coffee. It’s still too hot, but I drink some anyway.
We go back inside.
The morning follows the same pattern as yesterday, professional questions, professional answers, the strange choreography of two people who used to know each other intimately now treating each other like polite strangers. But something’s different. There are cracks showing.
When I move to lift a heavy sample box, Rhodes is there before I can ask, shifting it to the table without comment.
When I mention needing lisianthus for the spring installations, he nods like he knows what that means, then squints at the sample board I’m holding.
“Is that the purple one?”
“This is ranunculus.”
“Right.” He frowns at it. “What’s lisianthus look like?”
“Similar. Ruffled petals, long stems. Often mistaken for roses by people who don’t know better.”
He studies the sample board for a long moment, and I can see him filing the information away, determined to remember even though we both know he won’t.
“That one,” I say, pointing to a different sample. “The white one. That’s lisianthus.”
Rhodes examines it with the same intensity he used to bring to work. Then he shakes his head.
“That’s a rose.”
“It’s not a rose.”
“It’s absolutely a rose.”
“Rhodes-”
“That’s a rose with a superiority complex.”
The laugh escapes before I can stop it.
His head snaps toward me. For one second, his whole face changes, something raw and hungry in his expression, like he’s been starving for that sound.
“Don’t,” I warn.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did.”
“Unfortunately, I still have one.”
I hate that I almost laugh again. I hate that three years of carefully constructed walls can crack this easily, that his stupid jokes still land even when I don’t want them to.
My phone buzzes.
The screen says LITTLE SPROUTS, and my stomach drops.
“Excuse me,” I say, already moving toward the door. “I need to take this.”
“Everything okay?”
“It’s fine.”
But my voice is too tight, and I’m walking too fast, and I can feel Rhodes watching me as I push through the door into the hallway.
“Ms. Bellamy? This is the front desk, we just need your authorization for the preschool registration paperwork for next year. They need it by end of week.”
“Right. Yes. I’ll drop it off this afternoon.”
I hang up and lean against the wall, eyes closed. Just paperwork. Just administrative nonsense. But my hands are shaking anyway, because for one horrible second I thought-
“Maren?”
Rhodes is standing in the doorway. He’s keeping his distance, not pushing, but his eyes are sharp.
“It’s fine,” I say again.
“You went white.”
“I said it’s fine.”
He nods slowly. He doesn’t ask what the call was about, doesn’t ask who called or why I reacted the way I did. He just stands there, watching me with that patient, careful expression, and I can see him thinking.
I can see him putting pieces together.
Something in my life I’m fiercely protective of. Phone calls that make me bolt. A Boston existence he knows nothing about.
“I should get back to the shop,” I say. “I’ll have the proposal finished by Friday.”
“Take your time.”
“I said Friday.”
“Maren.” His voice is quiet. “You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
The words hit harder than they should. Three years of proving things, to myself, to my employees, to everyone who thought I couldn’t do this alone. And here’s Rhodes, standing in a doorway, telling me I don’t have to.
“What do you want from this?” I ask. “From me. From being here.”
“I want to do my job,” he says. “Same as you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I can give you right now.” He pushes off the doorframe, stepping back into the conservatory. “Friday works. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
I leave.
That afternoon I pick up Rowan from preschool. I take him to the park and watch him destroy a sandcastle three times in a row, laughing hysterically each time. I make pasta for dinner and negotiate a bedtime compromise that involves exactly two stories and one song.
I lie awake until two in the morning, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the way Rhodes looked at me when I laughed.
Thinking about all the things he didn’t ask.
Thinking about what he said to Nora: You were my family too. I’m not going to pretend you stopped mattering because your sister stopped loving me.
Around three, I finally admit the truth to myself.
It would be so much easier if he’d stayed the same. If he’d pushed, demanded, bulldozed. If he’d given me a reason to hate him that felt fresh instead of three years old.
But he didn’t.
And the man who stood in that conservatory today, patient, quiet, respecting every boundary I set, is someone I don’t know how to fight.
He’s someone I don’t know at all.
My phone lights up on the nightstand. A text from an unknown number.
I should have said this yesterday. I should have said it three years ago. But I’m glad you’re okay. That’s all I wanted to know.
There’s no need to ask who it’s from.
I don’t text back.
But I don’t delete it, either.