Chapter 4
Chapter Four
SIX YEARS AGO
It all starts with a rose.
I’m the first one backstage on opening night of All That Jazz: Swan Lake.
Even with sticky, sweaty palms I raced through folding programs in the front office in record time, and clocked out of my time sheet early.
I have an entire hour in the dressing room to myself.
To relax. To get ready. To panic-spiral about messing up tonight as I pace the floor.
My first real performance, not just for family and friends, like recitals at my old studio back home. It hit me, the sheer number of people expected to come out for the show this week, when it materialized as a ginormous box of shiny paper I needed to bifold.
Playing over and over like a skipping VHS, all I can picture is botching the timing of the kick section of the opening song.
Being the singular screwup who ruins the impressive visual.
Being cut. Losing my spot. The driving force behind why I moved to Dallas at all—well, aside from college, I guess.
The snick of the door handle interrupts the tape. I whirl around.
“Oh, sorry, didn’t realize anyone was in here yet,” a deep, smooth voice says.
It’s a moment lifted from a movie as I stare at him.
The tunnel of golden light from the bulbs lining the mirrors in the oblong room, encircling him like a halo.
The black crate in his arms overflowing with dozens and dozens of lush red roses.
The way he adjusts his glasses, the curious corner of a smile coming out to play, when our eyes meet.
He’s so strikingly handsome my heart pitter-patters for reasons outside my brewing anxiety.
“You’re fine. I’m decent.” My legs turn to jelly as I tug at the hem of my ratty old T-shirt. Maybe decent isn’t the best word.
“I just have some deliveries to drop off.” He doesn’t take his eyes off me as he slides the crate on the counter. “What’s your name?”
I squint and cross my arms. “Who’s asking?”
He nods to his crate of blooms, one corner of his mouth pulling down like he’s trying not to smirk. “Just a guy trying to do his job.”
“It’s Winona.” I drag out the syllables, brows furrowing as he examines his haul. “But don’t bother. None of those are mine.”
Ignoring me, he bothers. Pastel peach cotton hugs the curve of his bicep as he removes bouquets one by one. Rosenhoth’s Flower House is centered on his chest in deep garnet serif letters, the ‘rose’ italicized. His mouth pinches as he double-checks his phone, like there’s been a mistake.
I wasn’t expecting anything anyway. I doubt my parents even remembered today was opening night. I haven’t made any close enough friends who’d drop that kind of money on me yet. It doesn’t matter. All flowers do is die.
Flower Boy rests one arm on the corner of the crate, leaning slightly.
The protruding lines running across his forearm have no right looking as delicious as they do.
His smile tips into caution, a mixture of mischief and curiosity.
“I think you need a new boyfriend if he’s not surprising you with flowers, Winona. ”
My name rolling off his tongue sends a pleasant chill down my spine. He says it like a treasured secret—low and intimate, a little delighted.
“I don’t have a boyfriend.” I haven’t had enough positive experiences with males to think they’re worth keeping around for long, and regardless dating’s the last thing on my mind.
With a confident dexterity, he slips a single stem from one of the bouquets, not disturbing a single other bloom. He extends it to me. “Here. For you.”
I eye it warily. “Won’t your boss get mad if they find out you did that?”
“My mom owns the shop. I think she’ll forgive me if I bring a pretty girl home for dinner.”
I stare at him blankly. “What does that have to do with me?”
Ostensibly taken with my confusion, he sighs. “Well. When a man finds a woman attractive—”
“Oh,” I squeak, frowning. “You mean, like . . . on a date?” An uncomfortable warmth sweeps the back of my neck.
He laughs, like he isn’t used to being met with a response like that. Judging by the cut of his jaw, I’m sure he’s not. “Right. Yeah. Exactly that. Don’t sound so thrilled.”
Despite myself, I smile. “Does this sort of thing work on girls often?”
“I don’t know. I’m still waiting to see what you say.”
Against my will, thousands of butterflies pirouette in my stomach.
He’s devastatingly attractive—and dammit, okay, charming too—but this chivalrous, flirty thing has to be an act.
It always is. A calculated ruse to get me in the backseat of his car in a dark parking lot, his hands pawing beneath my shirt while he molds excuses to my neck about family dinner not working out.
I promised myself I wouldn’t fall for this again.
“Sorry, Flower Boy. Not interested.” I let out a heavy breath and feign like I’m busy, digging through my makeup bag and all its drugstore accoutrements as I sit on a stool.
He lowers the rose, twirling it at his side, but he’s not put off by my rejection. From the corner of my eye, I can swear I see him grinning, twin dimples popping in his cheeks. “All good. Figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.”
“Unless I decide to call the flower shop and make a complaint about the overly forward delivery driver,” I quip.
To my surprise, it doesn’t even make him stumble. Dare I say, he finds my petulance amusing. “Yeah, that tall, handsome, funny one is a real dick.”
A snort makes its escape. “You’re not that tall.” An even six feet, I’d guess. Only five inches more than me.
“Ah. So you think I’m handsome and funny, though. I’ll take it.”
I laugh. He’s earned it, anyway.
I coat my index finger with concealer and dab it under my eye in the mirror, both a signal this conversation’s over and a reminder to him—and myself—I’m not interested in him; I have no reason to try and impress him.
Taking the hint, he parses out the bouquets across the counter for the dancers to find later and picks up the empty crate with one hand, dangling it from his thumb.
“Here. For you,” he says, and I turn. He holds out the pilfered rose. “Just don’t tell Allie Michele one of her stems is missing.”
“But I rejected you.”
He shrugs a shoulder. “Everyone deserves flowers on opening night, Winona.”
My breath catches and I study the delicate spiral of petals, the brilliant shock of scarlet, the way it’s only starting to gently open. I take a deep inhale, savoring the sweet, luscious, buttery scent. I’ve never been given a flower before.
“Thank you,” I murmur, taking it. When our hands brush, sparks light in my skull before making a path down my limbs. I quell the blaze with a stabilizing breath, but my skin sizzles all over. September heat’s getting to me.
Flower Boy nods in acknowledgment and heads for the exit without another word. No expectant pause, no lingering to see if this last kind gesture is enough to sway my decision. The rose is truly a gift. Not a barter.
He’s still a boy, but he doesn’t seem all that bad. He’s the first person I’ve made genuinely laugh since I moved to Dallas. And as I watch his reflection retreat in the mirror, my stomach leaps with a desire to stop him.
“Wait,” I yelp. He pauses, turning back to me, and I swivel on my stool.
“I don’t need a boyfriend right now. But I—I could use a friend.
” Rethinking my offer, I clarify, “As long as you don’t do that gross guy thing where you’re only being my friend hoping I’ll change my mind about you. Because I won’t.”
He chuckles and looks down at his feet. His chest rises and falls with a thoughtful breath before he meets my eyes again. “Friend. Okay. I can do that.”
“It might be helpful if I knew your name. Unless you like being called Flower Boy.”
“You can call me whatever you want.” One side of his mouth pulls up. Pleased. “But all my other friends call me Charlie.”
Flower Boy grows like a weed in my mind.
I only last three days before I text the number he gives me.
It turns out we both go to Briar College—his junior year to my freshman—and he rents a house with another guy that’s only a ten minute walk from my dorm.
Both of them are atmospheric science majors.
I tease him about being a future weatherman, he corrects me and clarifies meteorologist.
Charlie becomes the best kind of friend.
Knowing him is like a portal to normalcy.
Like I’m an alien and he’s the human subject I’m studying to better blend in amongst the species.
He’s lived in the Dallas area his whole life.
He has a normal, happy family. Two younger brothers.
So many friends even the thought of keeping up with them all exhausts me.
It’s all fresh, new. And for some strange reason, no matter what I say, he doesn’t judge.
Not even when I ask, “How many people have you had sex with?”
What I don’t say out loud is I’m curious what a normal number is for someone in college.
A number I can give people, in case they ask, so they don’t immediately categorize me as Other.
I’ve been trying so hard to fit into the mold of someone who belongs here; Charlie slots into place everywhere he goes.
“Five.” Charlie lifts a brow, silently volleying the question back.
So I tell him, “I’m waiting for marriage,” because if he is doing that stupid guy thing, waiting around for me to change my mind about him, I figure this will scare him off.
“Religious?” he asks.
“Picky.”
It’s the closest I can come to explaining how I really feel: sex is the one shred of power I hold over men. I messed around plenty in high school, but this has always been the one line of defense I’ve never pulled back on. It’s the one thing I won’t give to someone who doesn’t deserve it.
We hang out every time he’s on campus.
He takes me to the super-secret-only-STEM-majors-know-it-exists sandwich shop in the basement of Nichols Hall and buys me the best meatball sub I’ve ever had in my life.
I pay him back by buying him coffee. He’s so sweet, I’m surprised when he tells me he takes it black.
He teaches me to play chess on one of the boards by the campus pond, and his eyes glint when he explains the king is the one you’re trying to protect, but the queen’s the one with all the power.
I teach him to ice skate on the rink that opens at the park across the street the first week of November, and he executes a perfect hockey stop before admitting he hustled me so I’d hold his hands.
On sunny days, we lay in the grass outside the gymnasium and trade memories like Pokémon cards.
He tells me he hasn’t read a fiction novel since high school, and I threaten to go no-contact on him.
His dimples convince me to let it slide.
Next time I see him, I surreptitiously slip a copy of Sanderson’s Mistborn into his backpack that I found in a Little Free Library outside the campus bookstore.
He makes me laugh like no one else can.
It’s dangerous, how easy he is to talk to—like no one else has ever been.
Charlie pours the story of his life out and I drink it straight, no chaser. But mine I share slowly, indulgent glimpses here and there, like dipping a finger in the brownie batter for just a taste. And he savors every detail.
There’s always a bouquet of roses waiting for me backstage at Colby Theater on opening nights.
The From is always left blank.