Page 111 of Puck Princess

Which is why, no matter what she says, I can’t let Spencer release that video. I’ll figure this whole mess out some other way.

36

OWEN

“Can’t you two pluck any faster?” I snap.

Dax is gabbing away on his phone and Lance is de-petaling the roses a little too gingerly. He’s a hockey player, for Christ’s sake. He shouldn’t be ginger about anything.

“I’m trying not to tear them!” he fires back. “They’re fragile.”

As we sit in my apartment with a funeral home’s worth of roses on every surface, I’m starting to think I am in over my head.

Dax hangs up and tosses his phone aside. “You’re the one who ordered whole roses instead of just the leaves?—”

“Petals,” Lance corrects him.

Dax rolls his eyes. “Petals.You don’t have to be a dick to us. Besides, I’m sure Kennedy will keep her out long enough that we can get this done.”

I did tell Kennedy to keep Callie busy for the better part of three hours. But now, as I sit surrounded by at least twelve dozen roses that all need to be plucked because, yes, I fucked up andordered actual roses and not just the petals, I am starting to wish I’d told Kennedy to take her to a restaurant on the other end of Houston. Or San Antonio. Maybe a girl’s weekend trip.

“Callie barely even wanted to go. I had to force her out to dinner. I could see the countdown text from Kennedy coming in at any time, and we aren’t even halfway done.”

“Do you think she knows you’re going to propose?” Lance is still pulling at the roses with the urgency of a ninety-year-old woman admiring the monarchs at a butterfly pavilion.

“I haven’t hinted at it at all, so I’m hoping to surprise her.”

Dax, in stark contrast to Lance, is yanking at the roses with his fist and scattering crumpled petals every which way.

I should’ve asked for Summer’s help, but my sister can’t keep a secret to save her life. Unless, of course, it’s who the father of her baby is. Ironically, telling me that secret might have saved her life, but she stayed tight lipped about it until the bitter end. And for those reasons, she didn’t make the cut when it came time to choose proposal assistants.

“Even if she knew you were going to propose—because women do have a sixth sense about these things—when she walks in here and sees the clusterfuck of violated flowers all over the place, she will be surprised.”

I ignore him.

Mostly because I’m already nervous.

“What if she says no?”

“To the proposal?” Lance asks, reaching for another rose. “You think she doesn’t love you?”

“No, it’s not— We haven’t exactly said that yet, but I know she wants to be with me. But it’s also been a weird year. We just moved in together. The Miles stuff. I don’t know.”

“You just dropped one thousand bucks on roses and made me rip the petals off of every single one, and you aren’t sure she’s gonna say yes?” Dax flings another fistful of petals into the air. “What the fuck are we doing here?”

Good question. I stopped knowing what I was doing the second I opened my balcony door and saw a pantless Callie standing in the moonlight. It’s been a wild few months.

“She wants to marry me. It’s going to happen… at some point. I’m just saying, there’s a possibility I might be jumping the gun here.”

“Obviously!” Dax snaps. “I’m not a dating guru, but even I know you’ve missed some steps here, bro. The Gen Eds of happily ever after, if you will.”

“Saying ‘I love you’ would probably be one of those Gen Eds.” Lance looks sorry he has to agree with Dax.

Dax points at him, nodding. “One-hundred percent it is. As is hearing her say it back. That’s the kind of thing normal people do before they get engaged.”

Yeah, but Callie and I aren’t normal. We got pregnant before we knew each other’s names. We moved in together before we were dating. We’ve done everything else backwards—why not this, too?

I spread a bouquet worth of rose petals on the floor and reach for the next one. “You guys are terrible wingmen.Whenshe says yes, I’m making Heath the best man.”

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