Chapter 9
JOY
By the time I locked the front door of McKinley Flowers, the bell inside had gone silent and the shop looked like it was holding its breath.
Britney had already left, her ponytail bouncing as she waved and promised she’d be back early. I’d watched her disappear down the sidewalk and told myself that was that.
Workday over. Mind back in its lane.
But my body didn’t seem to understand lanes anymore.
I stood on the stoop with my keys in my hand, staring at the street like it might offer an explanation.
King Street was still alive—tourists drifting, couples laughing, the occasional bachelorette pack tottering past in heels.
Charleston always looked like a postcard someone had learned how to animate.
I could’ve walked home. I usually did. Two blocks. Easy.
Instead, I went to my car.
Not because I needed it.
Because movement helped. Because sitting still felt dangerous. Because if I went home and listened too closely to my own thoughts, they would circle back to him the way they had all day—quiet, relentless, as if my brain had latched onto the shape of his presence and decided it mattered.
I drove around town. Down streets I didn’t need.
Past places that had nothing to do with me.
The Battery, where the water looked endless.
The porches of old houses, soft music drifting from somewhere.
The kind of evening that made you believe people could fall in love just because the air was romantic enough.
I laughed once, alone in the car, because that wasn’t how it worked.
Not for me.
For me, it had always been practical. Slow. Careful. I liked careful.
Careful kept you from looking foolish.
Careful kept you from wanting someone who didn’t want you back.
Careful kept you from handing pieces of yourself to people who didn’t know what to do with them.
Finally, I parked behind my building and climbed the stairs to my condo, each step oddly loud. The hallway smelled faintly like sugar from the bakery downstairs, like someone had baked comfort into the walls. Usually that scent settled me.
Tonight, it didn’t.
Inside, the place felt too quiet.
I locked the door twice. Then a third time, because my hands were busy and my mind wasn’t. I set my bag down, crossed to the kitchen, and poured myself a glass of water I didn’t drink. I stood there staring at it, like hydration was going to fix what was happening inside me.
It wasn’t.
I was still buzzing.
Not with nerves exactly.
With awareness.
With the uncomfortable sense that something in me had been … noticed.
And once something was noticed, it was hard to pretend it wasn’t there.
I walked into my bedroom, switched on the lamp, and sat on the edge of the bed the way I always did when I needed to think. Straight-backed. Hands folded. Like if I held myself in place, the rest of me would follow.
But it didn’t.
My body kept flashing back to the way he’d stood on that path. Still. Built like a threat. Quiet like he didn’t waste words on people he didn’t consider worth them.
And when he’d looked at me—really looked at me—it hadn’t been the usual Charleston male gaze I’d gotten my whole life. Not the easy flirtation, not the “you’re so sweet,” not the harmless appreciation that lived safely on the surface.
His attention had weight.
Like it could press fingerprints into you.
And I hated myself a little for wanting it again.
I stripped off my jeans and blouse and changed into sleep shorts and an oversized t-shirt. My movements were too quick, too efficient, like I was trying to outrun my own skin. When I caught my reflection in the mirror—bare legs, damp hair from the humidity, cheeks still a little pink—I paused.
I looked … normal.
Not like someone who’d had her insides rearranged by a stranger’s voice.
Not like someone who’d spent all day trying not to remember what it felt like to be seen and evaluated and—God, help me—wanted.
I climbed into bed and turned off the lamp.
The dark didn’t help.
It made everything sharper.
In the quiet, my mind did what it always did when I was exhausted: it slid backward.
Not to romance. Not to fantasies with candlelight and slow dancing. That wasn’t my brain’s first language.
My brain went to history.
To patterns.
To the way I’d always been a little … behind.
Not in life. I wasn’t helpless. I ran the shop. I kept the books. I handled vendors who tried to overcharge us and brides who wanted impossible things and customers who cried into bouquets like flowers could fix a marriage.
I could do hard things.
But when it came to sex—real sex, not jokes whispered by classmates or scenes skimmed too quickly in books—I was a locked door.
I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t invite questions.
And I’d gotten very good at making it seem like that was just because I was picky.
Because I had standards.
Because I was waiting for something meaningful.
All those things were true.
And also—
I’d been afraid.
The idea of being touched like that—truly touched—had always felt like something I had to earn. Like if I gave myself to someone, I needed to be sure they wouldn’t take it and decide I wasn’t worth keeping.
I needed certainty.
And certainty was rare.
So rare that I’d built a whole life around not needing it.
Work. Family. Flowers. Beautiful things I could control, grow, fix. Things that responded to care in predictable ways.
People weren’t predictable.
Men, least of all.
I’d come close, once.
College. A guy named Matt who’d looked good in a button-down and had laughed at all my jokes like they were clever, not just polite. He’d walked me home after a late study session and kissed me in the hallway, hands warm on my waist.
I’d wanted to want it more.
I remember thinking that—standing there with my back against the wall, his mouth on mine, my body waiting for the spark everyone talked about like it was a universal law.
But the spark never came.
Not then.
Not with him.
His hand had slipped under my shirt, tentative, respectful, and instead of heat I’d felt a sudden panic—sharp, bright, irrational.
Not because he was doing anything wrong.
Because I could feel the moment tipping. The moment where I might say yes out of obligation. Where I might give him something just because it seemed like the natural next step, and then wake up later with the sick knowledge that I’d handed myself over without being sure.
I’d pulled away. Smiled. Said something about an early morning.
He’d been polite about it.
Then he’d stopped texting as much. Found someone else. Someone more ready.
And I’d told myself it was fine.
I’d told myself it proved I was doing the right thing.
But lying was easier when you did it softly.
Now, in the dim, private light, I stared at the ceiling and admitted a truth I usually kept behind my teeth.
I was a virgin.
Not in the sweet, innocent way people imagined. Not as some shining badge of purity. I had thoughts. I had curiosity. I had a body that responded to things I didn’t always want it to respond to.
I was a virgin because I’d never met a man who made me feel safe enough to surrender and dangerous enough to want to.
And now there was a man who made me want without offering safety at all.
That was the cruel joke.
He didn’t belong in my world.
And yet, my body had reacted to him like it had finally recognized something it had been waiting for—without permission, without promise, without a single touch ever having happened.
I rolled onto my side, pulling the covers up, trying to stop my mind from opening doors it had kept locked for years.
But the doors were already open.
And the worst part was, I didn’t know how to close them again.
The next morning, I woke early with a strange sense of urgency, like my body had decided something overnight and my mind was still scrambling to catch up.
My phone buzzed as I made coffee.
A text from Portia.
Portia Dane: We’ll need a follow-up call today. 2:00. I’ll have my assistant send details.
I stared at the message longer than necessary, the name on the screen feeling like a key.
Dominion Hall.
Him.
I told myself it was ridiculous to connect them. Like Portia and that man were just separate pieces of a wealthy, mysterious puzzle I didn’t understand.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that Dominion Hall was not a place where things happened by accident.
I drove to the shop with my stomach tight, the morning sunlight too bright. Britney was already there, apron on, hair clipped back, humming as she refilled the front vases.
“Morning, boss!” she chirped, cheerful as always.
“Morning,” I said, forcing my voice steady.
She glanced up, eyes sharp in that way younger girls sometimes were—like they noticed everything but pretended not to. “You okay? You look… shiny.”
“Shiny,” I repeated.
“Like you’ve been running a marathon in your head.”
I laughed too quickly. “Probably.”
Britney went back to work, but the comment stuck. Because she was right.
My head had been running.
I checked emails, returned calls, scheduled deliveries.
I built arrangements for customers who wanted to say I’m sorry and I love you and please, don’t leave me, all in the language of stems and petals.
I moved through the day with practiced ease, and if anyone looked closely they might have seen the way my hands trembled sometimes when I paused.
But no one looked that closely.
People never did.
It was easier to assume Joy McKinley was fine.
At 1:57, I stepped into the back office, shut the door, and answered Portia’s call on the first ring.
“Joy,” she said, voice smooth as silk and sharp as a blade.
“Ms. Dane.”
“Portia,” she corrected, like she’d already decided we weren’t strangers anymore. “Tell me you’ve started the harvest schedule.”
“I did,” I said, flipping open my notebook. “I’ve mapped it backward from the flight time. If you can confirm the exact departure window, I can tighten it.”
“I’ll send it,” she said. “Also—make sure your packaging is … impeccable. The plane will be climate controlled, but my family doesn’t tolerate careless work.”
My spine straightened. “Neither do I.”
A pause.
Then a quiet, approving sound—almost a hum. “Good.”
I swallowed, glancing at the notes I’d taken. “I also wanted to ask—are you expecting full installations? Arch pieces, aisle markers—”
“Yes,” Portia said. “And I want it to look like Charleston walked into Montana and didn’t apologize for it.”
The image sparked something in me—pride, relief. Something safe.
“I can do that,” I said quietly. “I want to do that.”
“I know,” Portia replied.
We talked through more logistics. Numbers. Timelines. There was comfort in it—my old world reasserting itself. By the time we hung up, my hands had stopped shaking.
But when I opened the office door and stepped back into the shop, my calm evaporated.
Because the bell over the front door chimed.
And for one suspended second, my body reacted like it recognized a predator.
Heat. Low and immediate.
My pulse jumped, fast and traitorous, before my eyes even found the source.
It wasn’t him.
Just a man in khakis holding a birthday card, looking nervous.
My breath came out shaky anyway.
Britney glanced at me from behind the counter, brow raised, and I forced a smile so hard my face ached.
Get it together, Joy.
But my body didn’t listen.
It had learned something.
It had learned that there were men who looked at you and saw sweetness.
And there were men who looked at you and saw surrender.
And once you knew the difference, you couldn’t unknow it.
Later, when the shop was quiet again, I found myself standing by the front windows, staring out at the sidewalk.
As if part of me expected to see him there.
Watching.
Judging.
Deciding.
My cheeks warmed at the thought, a mix of shame and something darker.
I pressed my fingertips to the cool glass.
I was still a virgin.
Still untouched.
Still the same girl who grew up on Wadmalaw Island learning how to deadhead roses and balance ledgers.
But something inside me had changed.
Not because I’d been kissed.
Not because I’d been claimed.
Because for the first time in my life, I wanted to be.