Chapter 9 #2
I locked the door behind her: a young woman buying a single red rose for her girlfriend, hands shaking, smile so wide it hurt to look at. First Valentine's together, she'd told me while I wrapped the stem. She was so nervous she shook.
I understood the feeling.
I turned to find Jamie standing in the middle of the shop. The green henley he'd worn all day had a smudge of pollen on the sleeve. His hair was mussed from running his hands through it during the afternoon rush. He looked exhausted and exhilarated and beautiful in the fading light.
“We did it,” he said.
“We did it.”
The place looked like a disaster zone. Ribbon scraps scattered across the floor like confetti from some floral parade.
Empty buckets stacked against the wall, their water rings marking the concrete.
Bits of greenery everywhere: stems and leaves and the occasional crushed petal ground into the floor by a day's worth of foot traffic.
The cooler held tomorrow's wedding arrangements, centerpieces and bouquets waiting for their moment.
The whiteboard was nearly blank for the first time in weeks.
Marceline and Bubblegum emerged from their corner, stretching and yawning like they'd done all the hard work. They padded through the debris, Marceline nosing at a pile of discarded stems with great interest, Bubblegum following more cautiously.
“I should clean up,” I said, but I didn't move. The smart thing would be to rest for an hour, eat something, then come back down and prep for tomorrow. Get ahead of the chaos before it could build again.
But Jamie was standing there in the golden evening light, and I couldn't make myself care about being smart.
“It can wait.” He crossed the shop toward me, legs clearly aching from ten hours on his feet, but his smile hadn't dimmed. “We survived Valentine's Day. That earns at least five minutes of standing still.”
“Five minutes.”
“Maybe ten.”
“Don't push it.”
He stopped in front of me. Tilted his head back to see my face, the angle sharp, familiar now. That particular vulnerability I'd stopped being able to look away from. He reached up and rubbed my jaw with his thumb. I went still under his touch.
“Holden.”
“Jamie.”
We both spoke at the same time. Both froze. The silence stretched between us, filled with everything neither of us had said for weeks.
“You first,” he said.
I shook my head. “You.”
“I was going to say thank you. For letting me be part of this.” He gestured at the destroyed shop, the evidence of a day well spent. “For all of it.”
“You made it possible.” My voice had gone rough. “Not just today. Everything.”
“You would have managed.”
“No.” I stepped closer. Close enough that he had to crane his neck, close enough to feel the heat radiating off him. “I wouldn't have. And I need to tell you—”
I stopped. Dragged a hand through my hair.
“Reid told me to just say it,” I muttered. “But I don't know how to—”
I stepped closer again. Jamie stepped back.
His shoulder caught the edge of the oak cabinet.
The bag of rose petals, hundreds of petals, tipped off the top.
Time slowed. The bag tumbled, the folded top coming open, and then petals were falling. Red and pink and white, catching the last of the evening light through the windows, drifting down over both of us like snow.
Like confetti. Like celebration.
My grandmother never believed in accidents. “The universe has opinions,” she used to say, usually when something went wrong. I could almost hear her voice now, that dry humor underneath: Well, Holden. What are you going to do about this?
The petals caught in Jamie's hair, gold and pink together. Landed on his shoulders, his eyelashes. Settled on the green henley he'd worn all day, clinging to the fabric like they belonged there.
He blinked, and a pink petal fluttered from his cheek.
For a moment neither of us moved. Just stood there, petals pooled at our feet in drifts of red and white. Jamie looked like he'd been decorated for a celebration he hadn't known was coming.
I wanted him. Not for three weeks. Not until Valentine's Day. Forever.
“Oh no.” His voice was small. “The wedding—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
A laugh escaped him, startled, almost disbelieving. A petal fell from his hair to his shoulder. I reached out and brushed it away, and my hand stayed there, cupping the side of his neck. His pulse jumped under my palm.
“I love you.”
The words came out rough. Raw. No polish, no grace, no careful arrangement of syllables. Just the truth I'd been too scared to speak, forced out before I could swallow it down again.
“That's what I couldn't figure out how to say.” I cupped his face in my hands, holding him carefully so I could see his eyes. Rose petals clung to his sweater, his hair, caught in the collar of his shirt. “I love you, Jamie. I just—”
His hands reached up and pulled my face down.
The kiss was fierce. Everything he'd held back pouring through, meeting everything I'd been afraid to give.
I had to bend almost double, but he was pulling me down and I was going, bending to him.
Petals crushed under my boots as I pressed him back against the cabinet.
His fingers twisted in my shirt, pulling me closer.
“I love you too,” he said. His voice cracked on the words. “Holden—”
A soft huff at my feet made us both look down.
Marceline sat at our feet, tail wagging, eyes wide with that expectant look she got when she wanted to be included in something. Bubblegum had padded over too, sniffing at the petals with great interest, her smaller body pressing against Jamie's ankle.
Jamie's laugh turned into a snort. “We have an audience.”
“Nosy girls.”
“Holden.” He bit his lip, amusement and want warring on his face. “Take me upstairs.”
I kissed him once more, slow, tender, the kind of kiss that said everything words couldn't. His arms wrapped around my neck, and when I lifted him he went willingly, legs around my waist, ankles crossing at the small of my back.
He weighed nothing. Or close enough that carrying him felt easy, natural, like something I could do every day for the rest of my life.
“Come on, girls,” Jamie called over my shoulder. “Hurry up.”
Marceline bolted for the stairs, Bubblegum close behind. They raced past us, already halfway up before I reached the first step. Jamie laughed against my throat, his breath warm on my skin.
“Show-off,” he murmured.
“You weigh nothing.”
“I weigh a normal amount. You're just freakishly strong.”
I carried him up the stairs, the dogs scrambling ahead, rose petals still caught in both our hair.
Shouldered open the door to my apartment.
The space was dark, familiar, but it didn't feel empty anymore.
Hadn't felt empty for weeks, if I was honest. Not since Jamie started showing up with coffee and questions and that smile that made the quiet feel less like peace and more like waiting.
The waiting was over now.
Jamie's mouth found my jaw. My throat. The spot just below my ear that made me shiver every time he found it.
“Bedroom,” he said against my skin. “Now.”
I crossed the apartment in three strides, shut the bedroom door on Marceline's curious nose, and pressed Jamie against the wall.
His back hit the plaster with a soft thud.
The room was dark except for the streetlight filtering through the thin curtains, and Jamie looked up at me, his head tipped back, throat exposed—flushed and breathing hard, petals still caught in his hair.
I planted one hand on the wall beside his head, caging him in, and watched his pupils blow wide.
Jamie loved me.
The thought kept circling back, impossible and real. He'd said the words. I'd felt them in his kiss, his hands, the way he was looking at me now like I was something worth keeping.
“Holden.” His hands worked at my flannel, shoving it off my shoulders. “Stop thinking and fuck me.”
I huffed a laugh against his neck. “I'm not thinking.”
“You're always thinking.” He arched off the wall, grinding his hips against mine, and the friction made us both gasp. “Turn it off.”
I pulled back long enough to strip off my shirt, then reached for his.
He lifted his arms and I tugged it over his head, tossed it somewhere behind me.
His skin was warm beneath my hands, his body responding to every touch the way it had learned to over the past weeks.
I knew him now. Knew where to press, where to linger, what made him gasp and what made him moan.
I bent to kiss my way down his throat, his collarbone, his chest. He stayed pressed against the wall, pinned there by my mouth and my hands, fingers threading through my hair as I worked lower.
His jeans hit the floor. Then mine. I kicked them aside and kept going, kissing down the center of his stomach, the line of hair below his navel, until I was on my knees in front of him.
The angle put his cock right at eye level. Hard, flushed, already leaking at the tip.
“Holden.” His voice came out strangled. “What are you—”
I wrapped my hand around the base and took him into my mouth.
He made a sound like I'd punched the air out of him.
His head fell back against the wall, his hands tightening in my hair, and I worked him slow, tongue tracing the underside, lips tight around the shaft, tasting salt and skin.
His hips tried to buck forward and I pinned them to the plaster with one hand, keeping him still while I took him deeper.
“Fuck,” he gasped. “Fuck, that's… I'm gonna come if you keep—”
I pulled off. Looked up at him from my knees, his cock wet and straining, his chest heaving.
“Turn around.”
His eyes went dark. He turned.
I spread him open with both hands and licked a stripe up the center of him.
“Holy—” Jamie's whole body jerked, his palms slapping against the wall. “Holden, fuck—”