Page 69 of Accidentally in Bloom

“Yes, perfect!” Rose whipped out her phone and started taking notes. She pulled up the Notes app and saw her “GTFOOFF” list. She swiped it away and started a new draft.

Rose furiously sent texts and emails to get the ball rolling on the event. They would only have a few weeks to put something together and sell tickets. Hopefully, the event could get both their finances and Rose’s plan to leave back on track.

“I think we should start getting ready. We have an early morning.” Rose yawned and rubbed her hand over her face. “Think Pop will sell us two-gallon buckets of to-go coffee? I barely slept.”

“Somebody came in late last night.” Violet wiggled her shoulders at Rose.

Rose took a massive bite of pancakes to avoid answering her.

“Hmmm. Did it take that long to unload flowers from Gray’s truck?” Lily put on a fake-innocent smile.

Heat grew on Rose’s face. Shit. She should’ve known these nosy buttfaces would figure out something happened. She gulped her mouthful of pancakes and closed her eyes, waiting for what she knew would come. “Gray and I kissed again—”

Lily and Violet screamed, clapping their hands.

There it was.

She was not going to tell them what else they’d done last night.

“And it was the last time, but that is technically none of your business, and we don’t need to talk about it.” Rose ran upstairs to get ready, like a coward.

“Oh, don’t you dare.” Lily chased up after her. “We get way more details than that.”

“It’s nothing serious,” Rose called out as she walked to her room. “Just think of him as a six-foot-three release valve.”

“Lily, you owe me twenty bucks,” Violet called, coming up the stairs.

“For the record, I thought you’d bone way sooner.” Lily air high-fived Violet over Rose’s head. They each stood in the doorway of their bedrooms.

“We didn’t bone,” Rose spit back, sipping her coffee. Okay, technically, we didn’t bone.

“So, are you and Gray dating? Fuck buddies?” Lily put Rose back in the hot seat.

“I’d call us,” Rose paused for effect. “None of your business.” Rose took a breath, all business again. “We’ll focus on selling the store now, so I probably won’t see him as much. He knows it’s nothing serious because I’ll be gone soon. Once the shop sells.”

All the fun was sucked out of the room at that moment.

Lily’s face fell, and she started to close the door to her bedroom. “We know, we know, Rose. You’ll be gone soon.”

Rose didn’t miss the sad look on Violet’s face as she also closed her door.

Rose bit her lip. It was what was best for all of them.

Right?

Chapter

Eighteen

GRAY

A perfect sexy daydream of Rose riding him was interrupted when Gray saw the worst fucking view in front of him: his parents pulling into his driveway.

Maybe if he ignored them, they’d go away. He carried his load of manure from the barn to the west greenhouse compost pile. Gray stalled as long as possible in the greenhouse and finally ambled out as they walked to him.

“Hi, stranger.” His mom waved with one hand and held a Tupperware full of snacks in the other. He was still mad as hell at his dad for screwing with his deal, but he felt a shadow of shame crawl up his neck from ignoring their calls the last few weeks.

“Hi, Mom. You’d better stand back. I smell like pigs today.”

---