Page 5 of Dear Ripley

“Are you okay, dear?” Freddie prompted again as I held the daffodils out to them but struggled with relinquishing my grasp on them.

I yanked my hand back too quickly. “Yes, sorry. So sorry. I just… got a little lost in thought again. Sorry.”

They chuckled. “I’m sure you did. Lots to think about.”

I hummed noncommittally. I wasn’t sure we were thinking about the same thing. If we were, we definitely weren’t feeling the same thing about it.

Although, it wasn’t like I could expect anything else from them. They and Davey had lived a thousand lives together, it seemed. They’d met young, both been in the closet, but so in love with each other. They’d both been too scared to say anything in a world that hated them, so they hadn’t. They’d gone on with their lives, wishing for each other and dating the women their families expected them to. They’d both tried to be happy, to be straight, to live the lives they were supposed to, but neither could. They’d each given up on the notion, and, somehow, found their way back to each other here in Jackson Point. They’d gotten a second chance at love twenty-five years later. And they took it. They’d lived through so much together, figured out who they were together, and kept doing so as the world changed around them and they learned better who they were. It was the most beautiful love story I’d ever witnessed.

But it wasn’t mine or Alicia’s.

“Four fifty,” I said, nodding to the flowers.

They laughed. “As always, what a bargain.”

I smiled genuinely for the first time since they’d dropped the news that Harlow—and, by extension, Alicia—was coming back. They knew they got a hefty discount, but it didn’t matter to me. I had more than enough business to cover giving Freddie a massive discount each week. “Got to keep my best customer happy.”

They handed over the cash, waving happily as they headed out of the store, leaving me alone for the first time with the knowledge that Alicia was coming back.

It would have been easy to let it overcome everything, and I didn’t have time for that with a wedding coming up, so it was handy that, moments later, Morgan burst into the store.

I smirked at her hectic energy—hair frizzy and unkempt, odd socks and oddly clashing shoes, and a hoodie it looked like she’d slept in. “Hello. Having a lovely day are we?”

She examined me, confusion clear in her expression. Her head whipped to the street, visible through the large window, and I was certain that she’d seen Freddie leaving.

After a moment, she forced her posture into something more relaxed, feigning casual. “Yeah, good. How’s it going with you this lovely morning?”

I watched her with narrowed eyes as she wandered around the store, pretending to look over the flowers and plants on display. She never came to the shop to buy flowers. “Just dandy, thank you. How was bridge last night?”

Her hand froze in midair as she reached towards a spider plant. “It was fine. Why? What’d you hear?”

I stared at her back. Were we really playing it like this? “Oh, nothing at all. Is there something I should have heard?”

“No,” she replied, too quickly and far too high-pitched. “Not at all. I mean, if you didn’t hear anything, there’s nothing to hear, is there?”

“Is there not?” I asked, leaning across the counter on my elbows. “Nothing that would have been nicer to hear from my best friend, rather than, say, Freddie when they came in to buy a bunch of daffodils for their husband?”

She winced hard, turning slowly to look at me. “So… you did hear then?”

“I thought there wasn’t anything to hear?”

She chewed her lip. “There might have been a little something. You know, just a silly little thing that’s not really anything, but that might be… you know, maybe just a little bit… relevant to you.”

“Oh, yes?” I asked, keeping my voice as light as possible.

She sighed, deflating and looking absolutely as ragged as her clothes implied. “Okay, fine. I give. I’m sorry. Harlow’s mom was at bridge and she told us Harlow’s pregnant and she’s moving back here and, you know, it seems like a safe bet that if Harlow’s coming and she’s pregnant, well, then, maybe that means Alicia’s going to be here too.”

Despite working hard to appear nonchalant, the air rushed from me at Morgan’s confirmation, any hope that I might have been dreaming or hallucinating gone. “Yes. I did hear that. Thank you.”

She winced again. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you last night, but I didn’t know how. So, I was going to come in here first thing and bring pastries and tell you then, but… I… overslept. Sorry.”

I laughed once. “Bridge really takes it out of you. Wild night with all the over sixties.”

“Hey, don’t knock it. You’ve never even tried it.”

“Because I’m not over sixty yet.”

“Neither am I,” she protested, reaching out to lightly hit my arm.

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