Page 66 of Dear Ripley

From the sound of hands clapping around thick paper, she managed to catch the haphazard throw, but I didn’t see it. The second it was out of my hand, I was towing Harlow out of the store, and off towards Didi’s.

“That was the worst thing you’ve ever done to me,” I said, pausing outside the diner, far enough from Petal and Pebble that Ripley wouldn’t see.

Harlow laughed. “Nah. It was amazing. Just think about how happy I’m going to be when you and Ripley get married again, and I get to be your maid of honor for a second time.”

“I regret letting you do it the first time after that stunt.”

“No, you don’t.” She continued laughing, turning to enter Didi’s. “Besides, Ripley looked thrilled about the whole thing, so, you’re welcome.”

I groaned. My heart was a mess, my stomach was a mess, my head was a mess, breathing was a mess.Iwas a mess. And I needed pancakes. Lots of them.

Chapter 22

Ripley

Well, wasn’t that the most interesting encounter with Alicia I’d had so far?

I leaned on the counter at Petal and Pebble, turning the envelope she’d just flung at me over in my hands. Ordinarily, after running into her, I was left feeling on edge, anxious, and confused. This time, I still felt jittery but it was different. It was more like the jittery I felt around her when we first met, before we were together.

Deep down, I knew that was dangerous, but I couldn’t shake the feelings off. Being around her was always like being pulled back in time. Watching Harlow drag her towards me, Alicia blushing outrageously, throwing something at me, and running out the door before I could even think of anything to say was the biggest throwback of them all. Added to the rapid pace of the letters and the more relaxed tone of our messages, there was no way not to feel that tingling in my stomach that felt so oddly familiar around Alicia, and so unfamiliar for having been gone for so long.

We were playing with fire. At some point, one or both of us was going to get burned. But, oh, how good it felt in the run-up.

Well, so long as it wasn’t me getting dragged around by Morgan, which I definitely wouldn’t put past her. It felt good when you were the one on this side of things. It was significantly less amusing when you were the one being exposed by your best friend—and what a pair Morgan and Harlow were. It probably said something that Alicia and I had best friends who were somehow so similar and so different at the same time. And, when it came to forcing the two of us to interact, they were on exactly the same page.

But that was a bad thing for more reasons than potential embarrassment.

What were Alicia and I really doing? If I was going to keep writing to her, I really needed to figure that out. Maybe I should ask her. She’d been surprisingly honest in her letters so far. However, if I asked her and we had to name what was happening, maybe that would make things awkward. Maybe it would scare her off as the realities of the situation hit home. Or maybe she’d stop flirting with me. Which, she definitely should. We both needed to stop that. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t something of an ego boost. And maybe that was okay while we were keeping it just in the letters? Probably not, but I really wanted it to be.

I looked down at the letter. Or, maybe, she’d already taken care of it all, and part of the reason she’d been so reluctant to come in here was that this was her… breakup letter? We weren’t together, so it wasn’t that, but something akin to that. Whatever it was when you’d taken up written correspondence with the ex-wife you still couldn’t physically stand to be around but liked flirting in writing with.

Complicated. This whole thing was complicated.

I really should have been hoping that she was breaking things off in her letter, and yet… I truly wasn’t. I was desperate to know what was in the letter, but only if it happened to be good.

I grimaced, shutting it in a drawer in the counter. This whole experience was far too similar to everything else I’d gone through with Alicia. When I’d been falling for her, I wanted every second, every word, every look I could get from her, always hoping she was going to tell me she liked me too. Yet, the whole time, I’d been living in fear that she was going to figure me out and tell me she didn’t feel the same way, that she needed not to see me anymore.

Eight years ago, I’d known the end was coming and lived in fear that she was going to bring it up, that I’d be forced to admit we weren’t really a team anymore and needed to go our separate ways. And part of me had foolishly hoped that neither of us would ever bring it up, that we’d be okay, we could carry on forever without addressing it, or that we would address it, but Alicia would have a solution. I’d hoped there was a fix that wasn’t getting divorced, even though I knew there wasn’t. Hope was like that.

The bell hanging above the door tinkled and a couple I didn’t recognize walked in, smiling politely at me. It wasn’t uncommon for strangers to come in—tourists sometimes wanted flowers for special occasions, or to brighten up the rental place they had. Plus, there were those who were getting married in Jackson Point, on the lookout for a florist who could create the floral landscape of their dreams.

Ordinarily, I’d greet them properly. For what I wished was the first time, but sadly wasn’t, my head was so full of Alicia that I’d forgotten my usual spiel. Instead, I simply smiled, nodded, and pretended not to look at them as they walked around the shop.

They spoke quietly, but the shop wasn’t big enough for me not to catch pieces of their conversation. As such, it didn’t take me long to figure out that they were, in fact, not a couple in the romantic sense. One of them—the one with a purple bob and a sense of self-importance that was obvious in the way they carried themself—was shopping for flowers for someone else. Ominously, they were also insistent that the flowers had to come from here. I had customers, like Freddie, who wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else, but it was unusual for strangers to be so insistent.

The other person—more petite and masc leaning—followed them around the store obligingly, but muttered almost constantly under their breath in Spanish. It quickly became apparent that the one with purple hair did not speak Spanish, and I kept my gaze averted so as not to give away that I did.

I wouldn’t usually spy on my customers like this, but something was off, and this was my livelihood. If I needed to protect it, I absolutely would.

“What do you think about foxgloves?” the one with purple hair asked their companion. “She always did love purple.” They gestured to their own hair with far too much flourish even for my peripheral vision.

Foxgloves weren’t in season yet. I’d probably be able to get hold of some, but I didn’t have them in the shop.

Interesting, too, that they’d chosen a flower associated with pride and insincerity. There was something about the way they spoke about whoever it was that liked purple that didn’t feel sincere at all—more like control.

“Yeah, maybe,” their companion replied halfheartedly, before muttering to themself again.

Having missed part of their comment, it took me a second to put it together, but, as far as I could tell, they seemed to think this was a genuinely terrible idea, that even purple flowers weren’t going to save the situation.

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