Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
SUNNY
Wedding party boutonnières: pink lisianthus for romance and appreciation; bluebells for everlasting love; and white phlox for unity and harmony.
It’s been eight days, six anniversaries, one wedding, one funeral, and several birthdays, and I still can’t get Tall, Dark, and Slightly Spooky out of my mind. And making these wedding boutonnières for a massive wedding party isn’t not reminding me of him.
I also can’t stop thinking about cornflowers. A legend says to place one in your pocket while you think of the one you desire. If the flower is wilted the next day, that love is not meant to be. But if the flower is still fresh, the love will last forever.
I bet his boutonnière wilted the moment after we met.
I sigh and stretch my back. I’m almost glad I didn’t get his name, because then I would’ve Googled him, and that way madness lay. Even better, not knowing his name allowed me to pretend that the beautiful man with the soulful eyes was a ghost tragically bound to the church.
And honestly? That made a wild kind of sense. On my thirty-third birthday, I treated myself to a tarot reading to ask when I would find love, and the psychic pulled the Death card.
Despite the psychic explaining that the card was more about one phase ending and transforming into something new, I’d been laughing about that card for over a year—because yeah, my love life was pretty dead.
I didn’t meet a guy in college because I never went, I couldn’t meet a guy around my small town because I’d already rejected most of these bozos in high school, and the dating apps were full of misogynists, serial one-night-standers, and a couple of exes who were firmly staying in the past.
So the possibility of the first guy I met in a long time who I was really interested in being a ghost was the most perfect explanation for my life.
Because over the past week I thought more and more about meeting him.
It was a good hair day, and my skin was all pink and glowy from the heat. I was quite simply, adorable as fuck.
He must’ve been deeply mourning, or married or gay or in a committed relationship of some kind that precluded asking beautiful redheads for their number. I snip the ribbon of the last boutonnière and set it carefully into its case. Committed relationship. That had to be it.
Or he was a ghost.
No. No, no, no. Because that would send me right back to the church hoping for a paranormal encounter of the sexy kind.
The bell over my door rings, and a familiar voice hails me. “Good afternoon, Sunshine!”
I smile up at my best and oldest customer—in both senses. “Hey, Bev!”
Bev comes closer, her pink pixie cut feathering back in the wind of her own making.
“I had to come introduce you to my new friend.” She turns around and reveals she’s wearing a backpack.
From inside of it, the tiniest, cutest, fluffiest orange tabby kitten peers out of a little window like a miniature astronaut.
“Beverly Angel Sweet! Who is this precious baby?” I jump up from around my table without taking my eyes off of him.
She laughs and shrugs her backpack off her petite, frail shoulders, setting it on a chair.
“Sunny, may I introduce you to Sir Orpheus Puddinpaws.” The little guy mews as she pulls him from the carrier and hands him unceremoniously to me.
“He killed a roach for me last night, so he was knighted for his great service to the kingdom.”
“As he should be!” He’s all white whiskers and big blue eyes as I pull his warm little body closer and pet his soft little round head, which smells like Bev’s French perfume.
“You were so brave!” I coo to him. He mews at me and wiggles loose, Velcro-ing to my shirt and starting to climb.
“Hey, now!” I unhook him and readjust. “When did you get him?”
Bev’s watching like a proud mama and blotting the sweat from her face with a handkerchief.
“Yesterday. My hairdresser’s daughter rescued him from the street, and they were looking for a home for him.
” She’s in her early eighties and my role model for growing old: sharp, active, and giving zero fucks about what anyone thinks of her.
But she looks a little pale today, like the walk in from her house took more out of her than usual.
I pull a stool up to my counter. “Take a load off. Can I get you some water?”
“Thank you, baby, that sounds delicious.” She pulls a prescription bottle from her backpack. “It’s so hot out there.”
I scurry to the back, and it takes me a minute to get to the last cold water bottle from an overstuffed flower fridge, especially with a squirmy baby cat in my hands. When I go back up front, she’s behind my counter taking a seat on my stool, her usual spot.
I hand her the bottle. “Why don’t you let me give you a ride home when you’re ready? You don’t need to be out here sweltering in this heat.”
“No, no.” She gulps back her medicine. “I need the exercise.”
Orpheus chases the ribbon I’m dangling right into a pile of mail.
Of course, one of my overdue bills is on top, this one from the electric company.
Keeping flowers cold costs me a small fortune.
I stuff it under the pile again before Bev’s sharp eyes can spot it.
I suspect she only buys flowers from me every week to try and help me out.
“I’m here to get my weekly flowers for Ginnie. Are you ready for it?”
I smile softly. Her eyes are as wistful as always as she mentions her late wife.
I met them right after I opened when they came in looking for flowers for their twenty-fifth anniversary party and the two other intolerant asshole florists in town refused to serve them.
And ever since Bev learned about the language of flowers, she’s loved playing this game with me.
Orpheus is curled up against my chest, warm and purring. “Okay, but you distracted me with this little angel, so I may not be at the top of my game.” I gently transfer the tiny one into Bev’s hands and dust the fluff from my fingers. “What would you like to say today?”
She clears her throat. “I want to remind Ginnie how I loved playing with her. Whether it was a board game or a video game, or tennis, or even just goofing around at home…” Her voice wobbles a little, and her eyes shine.
“I just miss playing with my Ginnie, and I hope she’s up there thinking of all kinds of new ways to make me laugh when we’re together again.
She always could do that the best.” Her smile beams at me through tears, like sunshine while it’s raining.
I lean over the counter to grab her hand and squeeze it. “That’s beautiful.” I straighten and wipe a tear from under my own eye. “And I know she’s doing just that.”
“Well, go on,” she sniffs. “Let me watch you work.”
I gather supplies and flowers and come back to make the bouquet for her as I explain my selections. “Of course I’m starting with Ginnie’s favorite.”
“Hydrangeas,” we say together.
“As a bonus, they mean that you’re grateful for having her in your life.” I cut extra leaves from the bottom portion of the stem and set the pink hydrangea into a working vase. “And pink because it’s playful and Ginnie’s favorite color.”
“You always remember.” Bev smiles, gently running her fingertip down Orpheus’s nose over and over as he settles to sleep in her arms.
I pull two red tulips from the stack of flowers I’d brought to the counter.
“These represent a perfect love, the warm memories of being together in those everyday moments. And I just happened to get these forget-me-nots in.” I stick the little purple flowers into the arrangement.
“They’re saying, ‘you better be up there thinking up new games for us to play.’”
Bev laughs quietly. “She better be.”
“Of course she is! A lilac, which stands for youthful joy. That’s the essence of play, in my book.” Bev nods as I grab some sprigs of wax flowers. “And wax flowers as a filler, because they’re pretty, and they represent a happy marriage.”
“Oh, Sunny, it’s perfect. Just beautiful.”
“I’m glad you like it!” I make my final adjustments to the arrangement then tie a pink ribbon bow around the stems. I smile at Bev. Would I ever find a love like theirs?
The memory of the deep brown eyes and wistful, charming smile of the man at the church pulls at my belly and makes me warm all over, but I know better than to chase what isn’t meant for me.