Page 43 of Almost Always

Rafferty

I also forgot how to make them. Cal asked me the other day and my brain went blank. I made a lopsided paper boat instead. It didn’t stay in the water very long.

Daisy

Maybe we need to get some practice in and make him the paper plane catapult, or show him how to do it.

Rafferty

There’s a higher chance of my kid wanting to do a science experiment with flowers than paper planes

Daisy

What can I say, he’s got good taste.

Rafferty

Takes after his father.

Daisy

Okay, Mr. Ames. Cool your jets.

Rafferty

A plane pun, nicely done.

Daisy

She’d been thinking about him for three days too. Mostly because the day they spent together was reminiscent of their New York years. She’d lost track of the number of times he’d appear at her front door back then and make an announcement about going exploring. It was always simple stuff like visiting one of the many parks or going to the zoo, and ending the outing with ice cream. Just like in the city, Daisy had to keep her feelings in check when they went to the park, because she was still figuring it out for herself.

The most unexpected thing now was the flirting. She hadn’t intended to call him hot, but after the second time, she rolled with the punches.

She’d never been able to put into words the way he made her feel. She was twelve when the crush started, fourteen when she realized he could only be her best friend and sixteen when she took her shot and kissed him. Then they were separated by more than eight hundred miles for twenty years. Even now, she didn’t know how to identify them. But he had daisiesandher initials inked into his skin. People didn’t do that unless they had feelings, right?

Besides, his priorities were different now. He had an adorable kid to raise, two jobs that kept him busy and she couldn’t assume that she even featured on his ‘important’ list. Sothese feelings? She’d suppressed them pretty well as a teenager, she could do it again.Or I’ll die trying?

And if she was being honest, it wasn’t like Daisy had all the time in the world either. Spring was the most popular time for everyone to throw parties—weddings, baby showers, engagement and divorce shindigs, anniversaries and birthdays—so the list of events on her calendar was quite long. She was glad the amount of work was also stopping her from checking her phone often. Other than whatever audiobook she was listening to at the time, she didn’t even pay attention to the device tucked into her apron pocket.

She’d taken a break after prepping for one of the three divorce parties when Ripley brought her laptop over. They had a wedding in three months they needed to order flowers for. She tried not to leave anything until the last minute, but there were always certain couples that could not make up their minds.

“It says roses,” Ripley told her. “A variety of roses, if we’re being specific.”

Grunting, she opened up the file that listed what her distributor had available. “How many?”

“As many colors and types as you can find. They only saidbright shades.”

Sighing heavily, she scrolled through the list. As her main supplier, Bear of Bear’s Botanics had never steered her wrong. If he didn’t have the flowers she wanted, he would usually source them from somewhere else.

“Okay, what do you think we should go with?” she asked Ripley and smiled when he genuinely looked excited to answer the question.

Here was the thing: she used to like roses. Back in the city, she used to joke with Rafferty about why they were a predictable kind of flower—it always symbolized romance. While married, it was all Clarke gave her on anniversaries, like other florals didn’t exist. However, after the divorce, seeing roses upset her. They angered her. It wasn’t the roses’ fault that bad memories were attached to them, but she didn’t care. She tried to steer clients to pick anything else, so she wouldn’t have to stock large amounts in the shop. But people were set in their ways and it was hard to get them out of the habit.

While everyone at the Patch knew how she felt about roses, they didn’t knowwhyshe held them in such contempt. Bear would be amused when he saw her request list, because it was the second time in a short period that she was asking him to get her roses.

“The miniatures might be nice?” Ripley said and she nodded.

“How about albas?”

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