Chapter Eight
Jamie
The first half of the Valentine’s week passed in a blur of roses and ringing phones.
Monday and Tuesday, I kept to our arrangement—mornings at the shop, afternoons at the coworking space.
Holden and I moved around each other with the ease we'd built over the past weeks, handing off tasks with warmth, but not much discussion.
The Valentine's orders kept stacking up, the whiteboard behind the counter filling with names and dates until there wasn't an inch of space left.
Then he pulled out a second one labeled ‘Redding Wedding’ at the top.
We didn't talk about last Saturday. We didn't talk about much of anything, not really. Just worked, touched when we passed each other, spent our nights tangled together in whoever's bed was closest.
By Wednesday morning, I couldn't make myself leave.
“I can stay longer,” I said, when noon came and went and I was still restocking the greeting card section near the store entrance. “If you need me.”
Holden looked up from the arrangement he was building—peonies and garden roses, soft pink fading to cream at the edges. An anniversary order, I was pretty sure. Happy marriage flowers. “You don't have to. That wasn't part of the arrangement.”
The word landed wrong. Arrangement. Like that's all this was. Like the past month had been nothing but a transaction with terms and an expiration date.
“I know it wasn't.” I kept my voice light. Kept sorting cards. “But you're slammed, and I'm caught up with my clients. Unless you want me to go.”
He was quiet long enough that I looked up. His expression shifted, there and gone before I could name it.
“Stay,” he said. “If you want.”
I wanted.
So I stayed all day on Wednesday and Thursday, and now it was Friday morning—Valentine's Eve, one day left—and I was bundling long-stem red roses into dozens while the dogs dozed in their corner.
Red for the traditionalists, yellow for the ones who wanted something different, cream and blush for the couples who'd been together long enough to know that romance didn't have to shout.
The shop smelled like roses and carnations, buckets of them soaking in water as they opened up.
Not the cloying sweetness of cheap perfume, but the real thing, green stems and velvet petals and that particular brightness only fresh flowers had.
I'd learned to tell the difference over the past weeks.
Learned a lot of things I hadn't expected to.
The workbench in the back was buried under ribbon scraps and cellophane, snippets of greenery scattered across the worn wood like confetti.
The coolers were packed so tight you had to play Tetris to pull anything out.
Every surface held something in progress—half-wrapped bouquets, spools of twine. Beautiful chaos.
I was just getting off the phone with the Jolie, event coordinator from Hawkin's Ridge Ski Lodge, where Sunday's wedding was being held, when I heard Holden call my name. I stepped into the doorway to the back so he could see me holding up a finger to let him know I was almost done.
“Yes, what time did you want the delivery to be made? Eleven, that sounds perfect. We'll see you then.”
I got off the phone with her and headed toward the back. “Tell me again what you were thinking, agreeing to a wedding the day after Valentine's Day?”
Holden let out a deep breath, shoulders falling as we both turned toward the coolers, now filled to the brim with both Valentine's roses, ready to be tied into bundles of a dozen, and the flowers he'd ordered for the Redding wedding.
Thousands of dollars in stems, buckets marked with painter's tape so we didn't accidentally pull them by mistake.
“Mrs. Redding was close to my grandma. I couldn't say no.”
“Ya big softie.”
He snorted. “What did the wedding planner say?”
“Just reviewed the order list one last time and asked that we'd be there by eleven.” I stepped closer to his workbench. “Is that—”
Holden looked at the flowers in his hand and nodded.
“Bridal bouquet. I'm just figuring out how I want it to look.” For a few minutes he test-built the bouquet, those big hands that I knew so well now, just as gentle and dexterous as he added stems, studied it, then took it apart while writing some notes in a worn notebook.
White peonies, garden roses in the palest blush, trailing eucalyptus. “What do you think?”
“It's beautiful.” Then the front bell rang. “I'll take care of it.”
Jenna Mendoza from the high school was at the counter when I got there, her coat dusted with the light snow that had started falling an hour ago. She wanted the arrangement she'd ordered for her mother's birthday party and something for her daughter, who was going through a hard time.
“Holden made something with sunflowers,” I said, pulling the second arrangement from the cooler. Bright yellow faces surrounded by sprigs of lavender, wrapped in kraft paper with a purple ribbon. “He thought it might cheer her up.”
“Oh, that's lovely.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “He remembered I mentioned her. That man is an artist.”
“He pays attention.” More than people realized. More than he'd ever admit.
“You two make such a good team.” She handed me her credit card. “How long has it been now?”
The question shouldn't have hit so hard. We'd answered it a dozen times over the past weeks—the performance, the story we'd agreed to tell. But something about today made the words stick in my throat.
“A few weeks,” I managed.
“Well, you seem happy together.” She tucked her wallet away, gathered the arrangements. “It's nice. Holden deserves someone who sees him.”
The bell chimed behind her. I stood there longer than I should have, her words echoing.
Tomorrow was Valentine's Day. The most romantic day of the year, and the end of our arrangement.
I'd spent the first half of this week pretending that wasn't true. Throwing myself into the work, staying late, filling every moment with tasks so I didn't have to think about what came next. But the deadline was here now, and I couldn't ignore it anymore.
Holden appeared at my elbow. “You okay?”
“Fine.” I made myself smile. “Just tired.”
He studied me for a moment, that quiet, assessing look he got sometimes. The one that made me feel like he could see straight through me and liked what he found anyway. Then he nodded, giving me that soft half-smile before he went back to work.
I loved him.
The thought arrived without drama, settling into place like it had always been there.
Like I'd always known but had been too scared to look at it directly.
Not the desperate, clinging thing I'd felt with Landon.
Something steadier. Something that felt like the first deep breath after too long underwater.
I loved him. This ended tomorrow. I had no idea what to do about either of those things.
The telephone didn't seem to stop ringing during the morning, last minute orders, people asking if it was too late to order flowers for tomorrow.
But even juggling the chaos, there was a satisfaction in it, the way I could handle the credit card machine without freezing it, could answer questions about how to keep flowers lasting longer, and could wrap a bouquet almost as neatly as Holden did.
I'd learned something here. Become useful to someone. That felt good, even when everything else felt uncertain.
During a quiet spell, I walked to the back to check on Holden.
He was bent over an arrangement, hands moving with that careful precision I'd come to love watching.
The late morning light caught the edge of his jaw, highlighted the stubble he hadn't bothered to shave in two days.
He'd pushed his sleeves up past his elbows, and I could see the muscles in his forearms shifting as he worked.
He looked exhausted, shadows under his eyes, a slowness in his movements that hadn't been there a week ago. But his hands never faltered.
“Hey.” I leaned against the doorframe. “Need anything?”
“I'm good.” He didn't look up. “You should take a break. Eat something.”
“I ate.”
“A granola bar at seven doesn't count.”
“It had chocolate chips.”
His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. I'd take it.
I crossed the room, came up behind him, wrapped my arms around his waist. He stilled for a moment—he always did, that first second of contact—then relaxed into it. Let me press my cheek against his back, feel the warmth of him through his flannel.
“One more day,” I said. The words came out softer than I'd intended.
His hands stopped moving. “Yeah.”
“Big day tomorrow.”
“Biggest of the year.”
I tightened my grip. Breathed him in—soap and flowers and something underneath that was just him. This time next week, we could be over. He could shake my hand and thank me for my help and walk me out like nothing had changed.
“Holden—”
The bell rang. Another customer.
“I've got it.” I let go, stepped back. “Finish your masterpiece.” It really was beautiful.
He caught my hand before I could leave. Squeezed once, brief and hard. Didn't say anything.
I went to handle the customer and told myself the ache in my chest was nothing.
Holden
The second Friday of every month, Reid and I had lunch.
This had been true for three years now, since he'd taken over my grandmother's accounts and discovered what a disaster I was at keeping records.
He'd declared that quarterly check-ins weren't cutting it, that I needed monthly monitoring like a patient who couldn't be trusted to take his own medication.
I'd resisted. He'd ignored my resistance. Eventually I'd stopped fighting it.
The meetings happened at Pine & Flour Bakery because it was neutral ground. Not the shop, not his office. We'd sit in the corner booth, he'd review whatever receipts I'd remembered to save, and I'd eat pastries while he lectured me about estimated tax payments.
Today was the second Friday of February. The day before Valentine's Day. The busiest weekend of my entire year.