Page 20 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

By every reasonable measure, I am a florist.

I have the hands for it—thin fingers, root-knuckled joints, and nails permanently decorated with a respectable line of dirt no matter how often I scrub them. I inherited my mother's eye for seeing emotion before it ever reaches someone's face, and my father's inability to stand still for more than five minutes. If I'm not rearranging ribbon displays, I'm rotating succulents because one side seems lonelier than the other.

It's a perfectly ordinary morning.

Which is probably why I keep thinking about yesterday.

Not because Kilian's funeral was unusual.

Not because Grim was there.

Because nothing about him behaves the way it ought to.

He knew exactly which flowers belonged with Kilian before anyone explained a thing. He somehow anticipated every question before I asked it, though never in a way that felt intrusive. It was more like watching someone who had already lived through the conversation a hundred times before.

Then there was the little boy.

Children usually either adore strangers or avoid them entirely, yet he'd slipped his hand into Grim's as naturally as breathing.

And the elderly woman at the crosswalk . . .

She'd looked at him, smiled, and somehow found the strength to keep walking.

That's what stays with me.

People don't leave Grim feeling drained.

They leave feeling . . . lighter.

My phone buzzes against a bucket of leftover tulip stems.

Clover

Have you seen him yet?

I laugh before I can stop myself.

No, I text back.

Then, after staring at the screen far longer than necessary, I add:

Not yet.

I hate that she will immediately understand the difference.

The morning drifts past at its own leisurely pace. An elderly couple wanders in to buy potpourri, though Mr. Henderson accidentally asks whether I carry "funeral arrangements" instead. His wife spends the next five minutes apologizing while he insists flowers are flowers and everyone ought to stop making such a fuss.

Jasper arrives shortly afterward carrying a paper bag of bagels and his latest conspiracy theory.

"I've figured it out."

"I'm almost afraid to ask."

"The anonymous obituary writer . . ."

"Yes?"

". . . is also the sock thief."