Page 20 of Wicked & Wildflower

We went out together after she finished school today and bought a plant for the space, a plant I’ll likely need to ask my sister to take care of because I do nothave her green thumb.

As we reach the back staircase, I pause at the bottom. “Alright, bug. You’re gonna have to let me carry that thing up the stairs.”

She huffs, setting the monstera down on the bottom step. By the way she’s panting, I can tell she quickly began rethinking her insistence on carrying it all this way down the boardwalk, but her stubborn nature didn’t allow her to drop it.

I hide a laugh at that.

I carry the plant up the stairs and unlock the door with Leo’s spare key. I show Lou the space and my office. She jumps around in excitement, spinning in my chair and pulling out every drawer in the desk— which I notice has been entirely cleared out, just as Everett promised he would. I let her play around a little longer before we head out, and I lock up behind us.

“Can we go inside the store?” she asks as we reach the bottom of the stairs.

I’m hesitant after what happened last time, but I know if I’m going to keep this job, I’ll be spending a lot of time in Heathen’s, likely in all the small businesses in the area. I’m going to have to get used to it, but I’m also not sure I’m ready to face Everett again, not after the emotional information dump I placed on him Monday after he came to fix my car.

I’m normally much better at locking things up. I only open up around my sister, really. Maybe she has been gone too long and I’m feeling too many things with nowhere to put them. Regardless, though, Everett isn’t that person—that place. So I try not to think too hard about why it was soeasyto vent to him about all my fears, about my past.

I sigh, checking my phone. It’s a half hour before the store closes on a Friday night, so it’s unlikely he’s the one there anyway. “Yeah, we can check it out real quick.”

She skips ahead of me, darting around the edge of the building and to the front doors. I catch up to her just as she stops at the entrance. She takes in the surf boards propped up outside the doors, slowly running her hand along one of them.

“Leo owns all of these?”

I laugh. “Well, I think they’re for sale, but he owns the shop. So, yeah. Kind of. He and Everett.”

She looks back at me. “Everett too?”

I hum in response. “They’re brothers.”

Her nose scrunches, a trait she took on from my sister, I think. “They don’t look like brothers.”

I maneuver her toward the front door as I pull it open. “Well, they’re not brothers by blood. They don’t have the same parents. Monica and Carlos took care of Leo when he was a kid, and they’ve been best friends their whole lives, so they’re brothers in all the ways that count.”

“Will I have a best friend like that?” she asks. My stomach plummets at the question. She doesn’t say it like she’s sad, like she’s longing for anything, but I know someday—someday soon—she may be. She has always had a tough time making friends, always isolated herself a bit.

Sometimes, I’m afraid it’s because she’s an only child from a broken home.

I’ve always been a sister first and a friend second. Everything I’ve learned about friendship and bonding and communication came from Darby and our closeness. I’ve never needed any other friends because I’ve always had her.

Lou doesn’t have that, and it breaks my heart that I can’t give it to her.

“I hope so, bug,” I whisper against the top of her head, planting a kiss in her hair.

I’m not sure she even heard me, her train of thought already barreling down another track as she enters the shop and takesit in. Her head is snapped back, tracing the surf boards hanging from the ceiling, the paintings along the walls. The entire place exists in shades of blue and green and orange, bright and colorful.

I love seeing the look on her face when she discovers something new for the first time.

Her eyes are wide with wonder as she wanders behind a stack of surfboards, sliding her hands along the smooth surfaces and yelling out to me which colors she likes most.

So hyper focused on my daughter, I almost don’t hear the caress of his deep voice as he says, “Hey, Wildflower.”

I jump around to face the back of the store. Everett is leaning on the counter, hands resting on his elbows as he smiles at me, studying me like I’m his favorite painting. My hands come to my chest—an attempt at calming my racing heart.

I can’t decide if it’s racing because hestartledme or becausehestartled me. “Shit. You scared me.”

“Mom!” Lou calls from the other side of the shop. “That’s a dollar!”

Shit.That stupid swear jar was such a bad idea. It has been draining my wallet for months.

Everett chuckles as he walks around the counter and closes the distance between us. Towering over me, he flashes that wicked grin again. “What’re you two doing here?”

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