Page 31 of Perfect (mis)Match

“Well, if that’s the case, I’ll definitely step in. I want you to feel safe.”

Piper squinted up at me. “Speaking of stalking…what areyoudoing here?”

I laughed. Yeah, she’d caught me. “I guess it does look bad, huh? The truth is, you made the whole ‘fresh breakfast’ thing sound so good I couldn’t help myself. And you were right.” I held up my coffee cup. “This is my warm-up, and now I need to find those croissants.”

The sadness in her face disappeared to be replaced by a gorgeous smile. I loved that I was the reason for the shift.

“Now you’re talking!” Piper said excitedly. “This way.”

I followed behind her as she navigated through the increasingly crowded market. I stopped when a familiar sight came into view.

“Piper,” I called. “Come here.”

She joined me in front of the flower stall, which was packed with buckets of flowers in every color. She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent. “Amazing!”

“Agreed.” I decided to quiz her. “Can you tell which scent is the strongest?”

“Um…”

She closed her eyes again, and I took advantage of the moment to drink her in. Her white tank top was clingy in all the right ways, and her jean shorts were short enough to show off tonedthighs that made my mind wander down paths I usually forced myself to avoid.

But not this time.

I let my thoughts run free, savoring every detail of her. The way her hair cascaded over her shoulders, the faint rise and fall of her chest, even the tiny scar on her knee. Every inch of her drew me in like gravity.

“I’m picking up this beautiful, clean scent. Fresh and green. But I think the roses are the strongest aroma.” Piper pointed at the display of pink, red, and peach roses.

“I agree. What else?”

She laughed. “Is this a test? Should I have studied up on my flowers?”

“I can teach you everything you need to know, don’t you worry,” I said. “My mom’s a world-class gardener, and my dad ran Summit for decades before retiring—I’ve learned from the very best.”

Piper’s mouth twisted up in an adorable grin. “You know what? I think that’s really amazing. You look like this big tough guy, yet you know all about flowers. I like the contradiction.”

“It’s good to keep people guessing,” I replied. “Now let’s talk roses.” I pulled a pink one from the bucket. “Tell me what this scent makes you think of.”

Piper held my gaze as she walked closer and touched her nose to the bloom. “Honestly? It’s beautiful, but roses always remind me of…”

“Grandmothers,” we said in unison.

She giggled. “So we agree! Honestly, I love the flower and the scent, but as a perfume? No thank you.”

Rose scent would always hold a special place in my heart since it was Nana Dee’s go-to fragrance, but Piper was right; it skewed older. It was the reason Summit only had one top note rose fragrance—Nostalgia—and why we rarely even included the scent in our primary ingredient line.

“If you had to choose one flower from all of these as your favorite scent, which would it be?” I asked, genuinely interested. The types of scents people gravitated toward revealed a great deal about them.

Piper strolled deeper into the stall and surveyed her options from the explosion of color.

“Gardenias smell amazing,” she pointed to the white flowers. “And lily of the valley are so sweet and delicate. They remind me of a fairy flower.” Piper stopped in front of a bucket packed with purple flowers. “But for me, it’ll always be lilacs. I just love the fragrance.”

I joined her and leaned down to inhale the sweetness.

“Excellent choice,” I said. “They’re sturdy early bloomers that last a long time when cut. Every different flower has a special meaning. The Victorians believed lilacs were the symbol of the first stirrings of love.”

“Oh really? First love, huh. That’s, uh…interesting,” Piper stuttered as she looked up at me.

Somehow, we were alone in the booth, surrounded by walls of blooms. The moment felt cinematic, like it wouldn’t be out of character for me to sweep her into my arms, bend her backward,and kiss her. And the way she was looking up at me felt strangely like the last time we were toe to toe, frozen in a moment and desperate to see what would happen next.

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