Page 94 of Accidentally in Bloom

“Great,” Rose said with building excitement. “Be the Chief Plant Officer for us. Build our stock of florals and plants so we can expand.” Rose was pacing now up and down the length of her floor.

“I thought small because we were in a small town. But plenty of brands have started with a smaller target audience and expanded to regional and national chains. We can turn Lily’s personal social media accounts into business accounts. Let them have a look at three sisters creating beautiful things.”

Lily danced side to side with excitement. “Oh! Vi, how fun would it be to work on enormous wedding designs together?” Lily practically jumped on Violet.

“Wait!” Violet flung her arms out. Rose and Lily stopped in their tracks. “I can’t think with you both walking everywhere.” Violet shoved her hands through her mass of auburn curls.

She turned to Rose. “You’d stay? Like, stay forever?”

Rose hadn’t realized how much this was weighing on her sister. Violet had quietly and diligently worked for so long, never asking for much.

“Really stay,” Rose said, taking her hands.

“What finally changed your mind?” Lily asked.

Rose glanced at the clock. Eight minutes until the podcast. “I went for a run to think and ended up at Dad's grave. I yelled, no, screamed at him. I’d been running for miles and miles and couldn’t take it anymore. I was—still am—so damn mad at him for dying. At leaving me with everything again. I screamed until I was hoarse. And as I knelt to scream directly at his headstone, I saw that he was fifty-eight when he died.”

Violet scratched her head in confusion. “But you knew that already.”

Rose’s heart thudded in her chest, remembering how her mortality smacked her in the face. “What if I only have twenty-three years left?”

Six minutes left. “What do I want to do with my last twenty-three years? Stare at PowerPoints and drink bad coffee from a communal kitchen? Fall into bed alone every night, exhausted from work I don’t even like?”

The more she talked about it, the dumber it sounded. How had she spent so many precious years of her life wasting them away?

“I want to make a go of this. I want to stay here, and I want sister hang sessions, and lattes from Fox & Forrest, and friends, and…” Rose took a gulp, “a super-hot flower farmer.”

Chapter

Twenty-Four

ROSE

Lily gathered her in a fierce hug, her eyes shining. “I’m so damn proud of you.”

Rose squeezed her back. “I want to try to make something real with both of you, but only if you're both in.”

“I’m in.” Violet hardly waited for Rose to finish her sentence.

They both waited, staring at Lily.

Lily hated commitment. She’d lived in eleven different apartments and eleven different areas of the city since moving to New York.

“Lilybug, we know you hate being tied down, but maybe for a year so we can get it off the ground?” Rose bit her lip, hoping she’d say yes.

“What we've made is amazing. I can never leave you guys, at least...” Lily’s smile bloomed, “Not for a year.” She shrugged and sent them a laugh.

Rose glanced at the clock; three minutes left.

“So, we're going to do it for real?” Rose looked at them across her tiny twin bed.

They all glanced at each other and held their breaths. It felt like they were on the precipice of something amazing. “We’re going to do it," Rose said. Lily and Violet leaped across the twin bed and launched themselves at Rose.

Rose caught them, laughter and happiness bubbling up out of her, and, for the first time didn’t hold it back. “But first, we’ve got to get our flower shop back.”

Two minutes until the podcast.

“What about Gray?” Lily asked.

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