Chapter 12
Christian
Violet’s Flower Shop on Main Street is undeniably the best florist in town. She sells all kinds of flowers and bouquets and arrangements, including flowers to plant for gardens.
Violet was also my third grade teacher before she retired and opened the flower shop. I came here all the time years ago, mostly to buy flowers for Lana. So the chances of Violet being Team Lana are extremely high.
I assume it also means that I am no longer her favorite student. I’m not anyone’s favorite anything around here at the moment. It’s great.
Earlier this morning, I stopped to talk to Katherine and she definitely overcharged for a surprise I’m working on for Lana—even after I told her it was for Lana.
I pull open the door to the flower shop, hold it open for an older man on his way out, and then step into what looks like a colorful greenhouse.
“Baby Calloway.” She laughs. “Never thought I’d see you again.”
I smile. “Hi, Miss Violet.”
She pinches my cheek. “What ya doin’ here?”
I grin. “Buying some flowers for a garden I’m putting together.”
Miss Violet eyes me suspiciously, her blue eyes narrowed and searching for something on my face. “Let me guess. It’s for Lana.”
I feel heat in my cheeks. “Maybe.”
She grins. “Then I’ve got just the thing. What’s her favorite flower?”
“Sunflowers.”
Violet shoots me a look with a sly grin. “Very good.”
I snort. “Quizzing me on my girlfriend?”
“Except she isn’t your girlfriend again yet.” She arches her brow. “Right?”
I shake my head, scratching my nape. “I suppose not, Miss Violet.”
“I presume you will be trying to win her back?”
“My entire life if I have to.”
Violet smiles and begins scanning all of her flowers. She’s always got something up her sleeve. She has this superpower, we call it. She looks at a person and makes the perfect bouquet just from their “vibes” and she gets it right every time.
Whenever I brought Lana flowers at our old apartment, Miss Violet gave me a different bouquet every time with different flowers—always with sunflowers involved though.
Each bouquet made Lana tear up. Still not sure if it was the flowers, the gesture, or just because she loved me so much, but the way she smiled…
I’d do anything for her to smile at me like that again.
“Sunflowers, sunflowers, sunflowers,” Violet sings to herself, her finger tapping her chin while her other hand holds a bundle of sunflowers. “What should I—Got it.”
I huff a laugh. I’m telling you, she has a superpower.
Miss Violet is crafting the ensemble in a crystal clear vase and she says, “You love her, I know.”
“I do.” I frown.
“So then you know flowers aren’t going to get her back, right?”
“I do, Miss Violet.” I swallow. “Are you Team Lana?”
“I’m Team Lana and Christian.”
I nod, rubbing my hand over the center of my chest. “Thank you,” I mutter.
“Don’t thank me yet,” she sighs. “These flowers and that garden won’t fix everything but…”
I huff. “Don’t worry, I’ve… I’ve got plans.”
Barely, but I can’t tell her that I’ve been winging it all this time. Lana was right when she threw those shoes at me. Her love language is different from mine. I knew that—I did once.
“Alright,” she smiles, adding the bouquet's final touch. “Here she is. I think Lana will love this one the most.”
“What is it?”
“Sunflowers, lavender limonium, and baby’s-breath,” Miss Violet tells me, adjusting the bouquet in the vase.
I hope Lana falls in love with it, and with everything I’ve planned to do this afternoon with Julian’s help. “It’s beautiful.”
She smiles proudly. “Alright. Let’s pick out stuff for your garden now.”
At the house, I take in Lana’s flowers first and leave the other ones in the car. The plan is to surprise her with the garden with all of her favorite colorful flowers, but I need to give her these first.
I go in through the side gate, leaving it open for when I go back for the rest of the flowers. The back door is unlocked when I go inside, and I leave the vase on the island with the note card Miss Violet picked out for me. Then made me write something to win Team Christian some points.
For my sunflower.
I love you.
Maybe it’ll help Team Christian. But I’m not Team Christian—like Miss Violet, I’m Team Lana and Christian. I like that team better. So I leave the note beside the vase and a ray of sun shines right on the flowers as I go back outside.
I don’t really know how to garden, it’s never been my thing, that’s why I called Julian. I think Lana deserves a garden for her patio for whenever she watches the sun rise and set and when she sits out here with a book.
Waiting for Julian, I go back and forth to my car for the bags of dirt, plant food, and pots of flowers to plant. I trip on a bag of dirt on my way back in and drop the one I’m holding, the bag cracking open.
I groan trying to fix it up. I don’t want her to see it just yet, though she probably will. But even if she does, I hope this is one of those destination instead of the journey kind of thing because right now, the journey looks…traumatizing.
“Christian?” Lana calls out my name. “Babe?”
My heart flutters as the term of endearment. I try not to think about whether or not it was on purpose as I wipe my dirt covered hands on my pants and stand. “Back here!”
Lana leans against the railing. “Where did the flowers come from?”
She stands up straight as I come closer, shadowing over her and blocking the sun from blinding her. “I got them for you.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks go pink.
“You don’t like them?”
Lana shakes her head. “No—No, I love them,” she says quietly. “Thank you.”
Feeling a bit emboldened all of a sudden, I bend and brush my lips against her cheek bone. The soft breath that comes out of her is like a quiet moan, and I don’t pull away just yet. I just put my head to hers and breathe her in. The moment.
We don’t get these a lot—not ones like these.
Last week was the exception when she welcomed me in her bed after a bad day, but it wasn’t what I wanted it to be.
Maybe that sounds terrible, but I didn’t want it to happen like that.
I wanted it to be us on her bed, kissing and holding onto each other like we might die.
I wanted to make love to her slowly and tell her how much I love her in her ear after a good day.
I didn’t want to fuck her or eat her out on her floor. I want to lay her down, take off her clothes, and kiss every inch of her skin. Worship her the way she deserves and apologize over and over again with careful touches and whispers.
Lana shakes her head and takes a step back. “Thank you for the flowers.”
I dip my chin and try not to say I love you out loud right now.
“Thank you,” she breathes again, but this time it has more weight. Like there is something else she wants to say but doesn’t know how. “Thank you.”
I open my mouth to speak but her hand is against my chest and her lips touch my cheek.
“I brought you this,” she whispers and pulls out a small bottle from the back pocket of her denim shorts. “You’re going to be out in the sun all day and I won’t let you get premature wrinkles.”
Lana hands me a bottle of sunscreen, the same one she’s worn since I met her. Then she leaves.
I exhale a breath I didn’t know I was holding onto so tightly, and wish I could just sink into the ground or something. That soft peck on my cheek feels like a punishment, and I almost wish she didn’t give it to me at all.
Once she’s back inside, I open the top of the sunscreen and apply it across my face and neck. Then I continue to go back and forth, bringing in the things I bought from Miss Violet through the side gate so Lana doesn’t see the rest of the evidence.
From the back, it’s quiet enough to hear a car pull in, doors open and close, and the sound of Grace talking to her father.
I wipe my hands on the pants I’m now using strictly for gardening, and take a peek inside through the screen door.
“Oh hey, Julian,” Lana smiles, then gasps. “Gracie!”
I find Julian holding his sleepy, beautiful baby girl in his tattooed arms. He smiles but I’ve known him since we were eleven—it’s a sad smile he thinks I can’t see through.
“Look, Grace,” he says to his daughter, waking her up. “It’s Auntie Lana.”
Auntie Lana? Am I missing something?
Grace’s arms reach out for Lana who has a huge, bright grin on her face that I haven’t seen in a long time. The same one she used to give me with those deep, twin dimples.
“How’s the cutest baby in the whole wide world?” Lana says in her baby voice, peppering kisses all across her chubby cheeks. “Baby Gracie!”
Grace giggles, showing off her baby teeth, pushing Lana’s away with her tiny hands. “Me!”
I hear Julian chuckle, and it’s just as sad a sound as his smile looked. Lana and Julian fall into easy conversation, and I can’t help but wonder—
No, that definitely didn’t happen.
Couldn’t have. He’d never. Neither would she. I know that.
I know that.
While holding Grace at her hip, Lana takes out another glass and fills it with water. Julian sits at the island and she slides him a glass. “What are you guys doing here?”
Julian takes a long sip and I step into the house. “I’m helping Christian with his garden.”
“Thanks for ruining it,” I mumble, sliding the back door closed. I make my way over to Lana who’s holding Grace and kiss Grace’s head. “Hey, princess.”
“Uncle Christian!” Grace grins, a soft little laugh floating around the air.
I smile and, just because, I kiss the top of Lana’s head. Julian shoots me a look over her head and Lana looks at me over her shoulder while I grab water from the fridge.
“And it’s not my garden, by the way.”
“Men can have gardens, Christian,” Julian says.
I look back over at Lana and she’s got her arms around Grace, hip cocked out, and her brow arched. “Yeah, Christian. Men can have gardens. Are you scared about the flowers emasculating you?”
“No—”
“I thought you were better than toxic masculinity, man.”