Page 56 of Down Bad

I nod at it. “Bertha.”

He flinches, confused. Then: “Oh … that its name?”

“Yep. She’s my Dianthus. That specific variety is called … wait for it … Pink Kisses.” I smile at the look on his face. “Thought you’d like that. Your Aunt Lottie did, too. Always asked how her Bertha’s doing. Sometimes she’d come back here all on her own and sing to them. Literally. I’d come back here and catch her standing where you are right now giving it a whole dang concert.”

He wears a poker face when I talk about his aunt or uncle.

I can’t tell one way or another whether my stories are cool or unwelcome.

“Don’t tell Lottie I told you,” I tease him, not knowing when to stop. “She’ll deny it anyway.”

To my surprise, Diego cracks a little smirk at that. “Alright,” he mumbles in seeming agreement.

I smile, feeling proud of myself.

“I should probably go,” he says.

My smile falters. “Oh. Uh … okay.”

“Getting late.” He gathers up the few tools he brought over.

I step out of the way of the door. He slows down as he passes by, then stops, both of us in the narrow space of the doorway. His eyes bear down on me. His face close to mine. His heat. His breath. His unceasing intensity.

I wonder if I shouldn’t have mentioned his aunt and uncle for some reason. “Thank you,” I tell him softly. “For saving Rapunzel’s life. And maybe mine a little, too.”

His face tightens in this unexpectedly cute, vulnerable way.

He gets uncomfortable when I thank him. Or compliment him. Or show him any kind of affection when his eyes are open.

It’s funny, the things you learn about a person when no one’s saying a word.

“Night,” he says, then gently brushes past me on his way out.

A moment later, I’m at the front kitchen window watching as he enters his house. Soft light comes on in his kitchen. Then goes out soon after. Despite the abrupt end of the night, my fingers are on my mouth as my mind wanders and wanders, feeling the way my lips keep curling upward into a smile.

Even as I put myself to bed, cuddling a pillow and grinning up at my ceiling, I can’t escape the feeling that he’s wide awake in his bed right now, too, still chasing the thrill of tonight.

I don’t think I’m getting any sleep.

You wouldn’t know it the next day. I’m up when I’m supposed to be. At my kitchen counter with my coffee. Smiling through the window with the morning sun. Feeling revived. Almost giddy.

I don’t catch him leaving for work, but it doesn’t stop me from checking the front flowerbed and giving them a little love before I go. The sky is clear, not a cloud to be seen, and I’m whistling along (badly) to the song on the radio as I drive to the shop. Every little task I do is done with a smile on my face. Even the more tedious things—conditioning fresh stems, stripping the thorns from roses, sweeping petals off the floor—don’t seem so tedious today. I still have a whole list of things to finish before the Spruce Ball this weekend, but right now, none of it feels like work.

Customers come and go.

Birds tweet in that nook between the roof and the building next door where they keep building nests, and I stand at the front door, letting the fresh air into my store as I watch, smiling.

Even when Cash strolls in unannounced ten minutes before I was gonna head out for lunch with a, “Sup, Mr. C,” I just swipe my wallet and phone out from under the counter and say, “Feel like a burger? It’s on me!” and don’t await a reply as I swing through the door, Cash blinking after me.

Then we’re in a booth at Biggie’s by the window, I’ve barely dented my fries, and Cash is in the middle of complaining about even more dramatic updates on the saga of Nico and Savannah and their unrelenting will-they-won’t-they. “And I told Nico I did not care what they did last night at the movies, and he’s like, what, are you jealous? And I’m like, bro, I don’t care who you’re … Mr. C, you getting all this?”

I most certainly am not. “Yep,” I answer, then airplane a fry into my mouth after a layover at Mount Ketchup. Every fry is tastier than the last. “Every word.”

Cash narrows his eyes at me. “Then what’s Nico’s cat’s name?”

I glance at him. “What does his cat have to do with anything?”

He jabs his burger at me. “Exactly.” Then he shakes his head and goes back to stuffing his face.