Page 147 of Bloom

It’s not a final decision. I’m not one-hundred-percent sure I’ll even be able to do it. But I must decide something because Lux sees me do it. And she lets out this noise, this tiny, sniveling noise, that has me falling into her arms, freakingwailing.

“You were playing the long game, weren’t you?” I sob into her hair. “You’re finally getting rid of me.”

“Yeah.” She sniffles, her voice barely more than a croak. “Look how ecstatic I am.”

I cry harder, and she does too, and at some point, Alex wakes up and does some crying of his own until Lux scoops him up, cradles him close. “It won’t be forever, though,” she whispers to me while looking at him. “You’ll come back, right?”

“If I’m really able to leave.”

She snorts a choked-up noise. “You’re going. And you’re taking that money. I’ll shove it down your throat if I have to.”

Instinct conjures up a refusal, but I snuff it out. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, right? “Thank you. I’ll pay you back, one day.”

Lux lifts her gaze to me. Reaching the arm not wrapped around her son out to me, she hooks her pinky around mine. “One day.”

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He waits for her to say it.

To ask.

He doesn’t like the bitter taste of disappointment.

Odette crieswhen I tell her.

She tries to hide it, and over the phone, it’s easier. Only the odd sniffle gives her away as she insists Bloom will never be the same, but it’ll be just fine, and maybe I wouldn’t even notice if I wasn’t so well-versed in stealth crying.

Nova, on the other hand, doesn’t try at all. She weeps as she throws herself at me, warbling promises to uphold my floral legacy, and I laugh through my own tears as I squeeze my coworker-turned-friend tightly.

Aldo doesn’t cry. He huffs and puffs and acts all grumpy and affronted, but offers up his spare room in an offhand, non-committal way that I know is his version of begging me to stay, and when he hugs me, he clings.

I don’t live in Haven Ridge, he grunts in my ear.You don’t have to leave me.

I spend a long time explaining why I’m leaving to Chiara withoutactuallyexplaining why, and I spend even longer fighting the urge to soothe that wobbling bottom lip by backing out of my plan entirely.

By the time I get to Hunter’s place, I’m a shell of a woman yet somehow, I manage to do it again—thetoo muchthing. The ‘sneaking into his house in a pretty dress and cooking him dinner’ thing.

I’m struck with déjà vu as I watch a lasagna cook through the oven door, but I’m filled with dread for different reasons than last time. Because this time, I know without a shadow of a doubt Hunter wants me here—I know he wantsme. What I don’t know is how he’s going to react when I tell him I won’t be here for very much longer.

A million scenarios jostle for dominance in my poor, fatigued mind. Will he be annoyed? I wouldn’t be surprised, and I wouldn’t blame him either. I imagine how I would feel if I told him I loved him, if I ended a marriage to be with him, and then, just a day later, he decided to haul ass out of town—I know, no matter how valid the reason, I would be crushed. Iamcrushed. This is not the way things were supposed to happen, it’s not how I was supposed to fall in love again. It wasn’t supposed to be somessy.

I wouldn’t change it though.

If he asked me to say, I’m pretty sure I would.

Of all my theories, though, that isn’t one of them.

Hands encircling my waist make me jump in surprise. Stubble scratches my cheek, soothed by a kiss that makes me slump backwards against a hard chest. “Thought you were gonna let me cook this time.”

And deprive my anxious hands of something to do? Yeah, right. Hunter would’ve gotten home to find my nails bitten right down to the cuticle.

Silently, I turn in his grip, rising up onto my tiptoes and wrapping my arms around his neck to hug him tightly. Too tightly, I think—a hand strokes down my spine cautiously, and I hear his frown as he asks, “What happened, honey?”

I was going to wait until after dinner. Soften him up with good food and better beer. But I take one look at his face, and I know there’s no chance of that happening.

Taking him by the wrist, I lead him to the sofa. At my urging, he sits obediently. I stay standing, backing up a couple of steps, because I know the second my ass hits that couch cushion, his hands will be all over me, distracting me, making it harder to get out what I need to say.

Fingers twined together in a nervous knot, I spit out the part I fear he’ll hate the most. “I went to see my dad this morning.”

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