Page 55 of Accidentally in Bloom

Attagirl87: Is he like her ‘partner’ partner or just her partner, because hiiii.

GetThisShipDone_4: Uh, where is this business located??? Because I need to check out this new shop. :eyes emoji: For uh… business reasons…

Rose jumped in, swallowing a smile. “So, Gray, tell us about yourself.”

Keep it brief. If you don’t say much, you can’t fuck it up. He cleared his throat. “I’m just a farmer in Fairwick Falls,” he shrugged, “and a tiny co-owner of Bloom, as Rose likes to remind me.” He pointed to the sign behind him.

“That’s not true.” Rose smiled at him playfully.

Oh, now they were friends?

“His farm is huge, and he’s expanding like crazy. He just signed with a new regional distributor.”

He caught her eyes and shrugged. “I mean, I have a few acres. We’re just getting started, really.” The silence in the room was deafening.

She was trying to make him into something more than he was. And he was just fine being himself. It was okay to be new at something. To be terrified it was all going to go south.

“He’s being very humble.” Rose smiled at the camera with her mega-watt grin that he’d kill to have directed his way for once. “As I mentioned, my sisters and I are launching a refresh of our family's one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old flower shop in gorgeous Fairwick Falls. We hope to have a community-level impact with our products.”

Gray snorted, thinking about how much she couldn’t wait to leave this “gorgeous” community. She sent him a quick glare.

“Gray, can you talk about your process in helping launch the store?” Angela asked.

He was done with this. “I’m just the handyman,” Gray said, waving a hand. He crossed his arms, waiting out the rest of the podcast. Angela and Rose quickly filled the rest of the time, answering follow-up questions from their listeners.

As they signed off, Rose slammed the laptop down. “What is wrong with you?” She threw off her headphones and glared at him.

He shook his head, biting his lip. “I’m just tired of people leaving.”

“Who’s leaving? I’m right here.”

“You’ll be out that door as soon as someone hands you three hundred thousand dollars.”

“So I can save my little sister.”

“But what happens after she’s saved?”

“Look, as my business partner, you knew—”

“No, Rose. We’re not business partners. We’re friends. You are,” his breath hitched, “a gigantic pain in the ass sometimes, but you’re still my friend. Yeah?”

Her eyes blinked suddenly. “Yeah.”

“And yet, you can’t wait to leave the store, your sisters, me, as soon as you can.” He knew he was caught up in his feelings, but goddamnit, he didn’t have the energy to be cheerful today. Couldn’t shove it down any further.

“Just because I have to leave doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

“Why do you have to leave?” Gray’s voice was ragged at the edges. He couldn’t claw the hurt back from his voice. “So you can live a life full of anonymous faces? So you can reach higher heights and have no one to share it with? No sisters around, no friends dropping in on you?”

This woman meant more to him by the day, and he was losing his grasp on why she wasn’t already in his arms. In his bed. In his kitchen the next morning, with her hair tousled, talking about her plans for small business domination.

“I’m used to a solitary life. I…” She took a gulp, a tear threatening at her eyelash. “I’ve always preferred it that way.”

Message re-fucking-ceived. She wasn’t interested? Great. She could leave like all the important people in his life. Casey. Frank. Alex and Giselle, and now her.

He grabbed his work shirt and headed for the door. “Then I’ll leave you alone the way you prefer. But Rose?”

“Yeah?”

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