Page 113 of The Games We Play
The front door creaked open and Aspen stepped inside. I didn’t look at her right away—didn’t need to. I heard her familiar sigh, the scrape of the stool as she slid into the very spot Lizzie had just left.
When I finally turned and looked up, her eyes went wide. Her brows pulled together in something that looked like worry, maybe even pain.
“What the hell happened to you?” she whispered.
34
PENNY
“Sandy,” I called, dragging myself into Petal Pusher like a kid on the verge of a tantrum.
I needed to talk to someone—someone who at least had a sliver of understanding about this whole Mac situation. Sandy knew we’d once been a thing. She knew it had been secret. She knew we ended it. What she didn’t know were the details. And right now, I regretted not sharing them sooner. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t feel so alone with all this.
I could’ve called Aspen, but I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to unravel the entire mess. I needed a soft place to land. A quick fix. Someone to help me piece my head back together before I spun out completely.
The same questions kept circling. Was it too soon to feel the way I was feeling about Mac? In every movie, the girl always waited until the final scene to forgive him. But me? I was ready to crash right now—ready to throw myself headfirst intousagain. But was I really ready? Had I given myself enough time?
Sandy was my best bet.
She stood behind the counter, wrapping a bouquet in brown paper, her hands graceful and practiced, each movement filled with purpose. The way she worked was almost meditative.
“Hello, sweetie,” she said, not missing a beat as she secured the bouquet.
I let my tote drop to the floor with a thud and sighed loudly. Loud enough to pull her attention. Her eyebrows pinched as she gave me a slow once-over, the concern settling into her face like a storm cloud.
“You don’t look so good,” she said, placing a sticker on the brown paper and sliding the bouquet aside.
I flopped onto the counter, folding myself in half like a soggy napkin.
“My brain feels like mush,” I groaned.
She reached out and rubbed slow circles on my back, her touch grounding me more than I expected. We sat in a few beats of silence before she gently asked, “And you came to talk about it?”
I nodded, cheek mashed against the counter. The friction made a tiny squeaking noise that would’ve been funny if I didn’t feel so emotionally drained.
“Want to head out back and talk in private? I can close up shop,” she offered, removing her hand as I straightened.
“No,” I sighed. “Can I help with bouquets instead? Emotions always feel easier when my hands are busy.”
Fidgeting, picking, tapping—anything to let my hands distract my heart long enough to form a coherent sentence.
“Come around,” Sandy said with a small wave, motioning me beside her.
She had a bucket full of fresh-cut blooms, all sorts of colors and textures spilling over the rim. I scanned the selection, eventually picking a few stems I thought looked pretty together.
Sandy had already laid out brown paper for me. I started trimming stems, arranging them mindlessly as my mouth opened, words tumbling out without much thought.
“I need advice. It’s about Mac.”
She hummed softly, enough to tell me she was listening but waiting for more.
“You know we were secretly seeing each other for a while,” I said, placing down a few Gerbera daisies and fussing over their angle.
“Six months,” she replied casually.
I scoffed. Of course she knew. If I ever doubted I’d come to the right place, that was proof enough.
“Yeah. Six. Then something happened and we ended it. But a few weeks ago, he came back, demanding a second chance.”
