Page 54 of The Kiss of Deception

It’s not Miles. I don’t know if the pang in my chest is relief, but it can’t be disappointment.

The girl wears mom jeans and a baggy hoodie that would be perfect for Boston if it wasn’t sunny, impossibly balmy June, but I barely see her face behind the monstrosity she carries.

“Yes?” I confirm, simultaneously implying a question.

The answer is in my face, though, red and intoxicating.

“These were sent for you.”

She can only be referring to the flowers, though she doesn’t make a move to pass them. In fact, her body doesn’t sway an inch, a statue if not for the moving mouth I can barely see.

I blink at the dozens of roses tucked inside a craft paper sheet, tied by a black ribbon with exquisite spirals that erupt and bloom in luscious red twirls.

I’ve never received flowers in my life. My birthday is long gone for the year, some cold day in February. I rack my brain—as far as I know, my calendar doesn’t mark any special dates in June.

Something presses in my chest, unrelenting. The thought of him, again.

Could it be? Miles? Would he?

“I need a signature,” Flower Girl says.

Unwilling to move, my eyes track as she shoves them into my hands. I’m almost crushed under the countless steams, some of them thorny, nicking at my bare arms.

Flower Girl doesn’t acknowledge my hiss when one draws a thin trickle of blood, staring out at me from under a black cap that almost covers her eyes, the hair underneath so fair it’s almost white, though something about it doesn’t look right—not natural, not dyed either.

On any other day, I’d wonder. Right now, there are more pressing questions. Like who the hell sent me flowers?

I clear my throat and demand, curiosity shadowing all else, “Who sent them?”

“Miles.”

It was him.

It was Miles.

Why?

No one has ever gifted me flowers. I don’t know the protocol, and I surely know nothing about keeping living things alive.

With every breath that I fear could be their last, the roses feel heavier in my arms. With every blink, my stare seems to wilt the silky petals, darkening at their edges in my shadow.

“I… Let me just put them down,” I say.

Flower Girl invites herself in, following me inside before I can wonder where to sign, since she didn’t seem to be holding any clipboard or sheet of paper.

Before I process the way she said his name, like he isn’t just any customer. It’s Miles, though. There isn’t a single soul he wouldn’t befriend after two words—like good morning.

Before I identify that what her voice tickled was recognition. It’s on the tip of my tongue, taunting me, but I can’t quite get for it.

“Excuse me, do I know you?” I angle my face to her as I walk.

That’s when I see it. It glints, caught by the sunshine flooding the room through my windows.

A gun.

It’s a metallic silver, like Miles’s eyes under the sharp lights of a stadium or when he stares down at me, like it’s us, always just the two of us.

Miles.

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