Page 8 of Novice Girlfriend

I thanked her again after she let us in and decided to add to my plans. The flowers Sergey had gotten me were amazing quality and the shop was apparently an ignored gem. It wasn’t a big or flashy one in the magical malls because it wasn’t owned by a top-tier family.

Yeah, that was why the council guards knew it and ordinary people used it. But ordinary people didn’t have the money to buy flowers all that often.

I did.

I went over to the roses and looked over the yellow ones. I’d really liked the tulips Kelton had gotten me. Roses were always pretty, but Winter was someone who loved nature. That seemed too… Prim for him?

No, not the right word, but typical maybe?

I kept looking and then smiled when I saw something different, a bit wild and big. The stems were. I hurried over there and glanced at the label. Forsythias? I wasn’t familiar with them, but they were pretty.

Really pretty.

I looked them up on my phone and smiled. They were shrubs that flowered and could get huge. Huge, wild, a bit crazy, and beautiful.

Perfect. Yeah, that was Winter.

I picked out enough for a large bouquet and brought them up to the counter.

She did a double take. “No fun assortment this time?”

I couldn’t hide my shock. “You remember me?”

“You leave an impression,” she chuckled.

“My crazy choices, you mean.” I shrugged. “You were polite and I know they didn’t mix, but… I got to choose it.”

“Good for you, but I meant your eyes. They’re so breathtaking and I’m a woman who loves color.” She gestured around the shop.

Fair enough. “They’re not for me. I need to apologize to my boyfriend.” I frowned. “I think.”

She frowned then too. “You think?”

“I should, but we were both wrong.”

She bobbed her head. “But men give the flowers. Not us.”

I opened my mouth to ask what she meant, but one of my guards snickered and that made me mad. “Why not?” I dug in my heels when they glanced between each other. “Why not? You guys don’t like flowers? You can’t appreciate something pretty? Don’t you like women because we’re pretty?”

“Well, yeah,” he mumbled.

“Okay, and flowers are,” I said, gesturing to the flowers on the counter. “So you wouldn’t like pretty from someone who cares about you? Like are you stupid?”

“No, and it’s always nice, but it’s just not how it works,” he hedged, realizing this was going to be a thing.

Yeah, well, they’d started it.

I crossed my arms over my chest and bobbed my head. “So that’s not how it works. But I’ve heard you and like everyone around me complain a ton about how things work. You hate the way things are with lots. So then you snicker when someone wants to change things and bitch about the way things are? Do I understand that right?”

“Dayummmmnnn, she got you,” the other guard said with a hiss, glancing between him and the witch, making it clear he meant her too. “I’d love it if my ex-girlfriend had ever taken the time to care about picking me out anything to show she wanted to make up with me even if we were both wrong. Seriously. She would just go, ‘whatever, we’re fine,’ and I hated that.”

I felt better when the witch flinched. So clearly she’d done something like that. I decided to not push and be a jerk and thank the guard later on the side.

“Is there something I should add to this to make it better?” I asked her instead.

“I would leave them plain for the simplicity,” she answered, her lips twitching as if noting that I wasn’t going to be petty.

Glad she did.