Page 69 of Dear Ripley

When my brain slowed down enough to actually assess the situation, mortification gave way to genuine worry, because the pair of them were coming at us, but this wasn’t about me and Ripley. This was something else. I’d known Ripley far too well, for far too long not to see it on her face.

The pair skidded to a halt at our booth, Morgan somehow managing to keep hold of her doughnuts, despite everything. The woman knew what her priorities were.

Harlow looked up at them in amused surprise as she swallowed a bite of her food. “What’s up with you two?” she laughed, scooting over in an obvious bid to get them to join us.

Morgan sighed. “As much as we would love to be here to eat, drink, and get remarried—”

“Morgan,” Ripley snapped, shooting her a betrayed look. Morgan simply smiled at her. “This is not the time.”

Seeming to realize something was wrong, Harlow shot me a questioning look, her brow furrowed.

“Seriously,” she said after a moment, “what’s up?”

Ripley took a deep breath, her eyes slipping momentarily towards me before they bounced away quickly again. Despite the letters, the earlier encounter, and whatever was happening now, she still wasn’t totally comfortable around me. It hurt, but I got it.

It also simultaneously told me I probably didn’t want to know what the problem was. If she was putting aside the very obvious feelings she had to talk to—or, at least,near—me in public, it couldn’t be good.

“I, uh, just had a new customer in the shop,” she said, her words and her tone measured.

“Okay…” Harlow and I shared a look as she spoke.

“Someone came in wanting flowers to send to a person they referred to as their wife. Said they’d made a mistake, cheated, regretted it, and wanted to make things up with her.”

I was still hesitant to talk to Ripley in person, after all, we kind of had a good thing going at the minute and I didn’t want to wreck that, but this was not a regular situation. “Isn’t that pretty normal for a florist? You must get stuff like that all the time?”

She worked hard to suppress the shudder that ran through her, but I knew her too well not to see it. “Kind of? People come in a lot for apology flowers, and, yeah, I do hear a certain amount of scandal from people needing to apologize, but I usually know who they are. Or, at least, I’ve seen them around. This was someone completely new.”

Something about the expression on Ripley’s face, the way she spoke, and the fact that she’d chased Harlow and me down for this felt like a creeping sensation up the back of my spine. My brain tried hard not to know what she was telling us, but I felt it in my gut. I’d clung so hard to the idea that Ripley and I didn’t really know each other anymore, but, now, when it mattered, I felt like we understood each other completely. I knew what she was telling me, and, as she looked at me, she knew I did.

Her eyes widened, fear for Harlow and the situation, I was pretty sure, and she looked back at Harlow. “She had purple hair, and said her wife’s favorite color was purple.”

I thought I might be sick. Harlow was on edge but hadn’t quite figured it out yet. She didn’t know Ripley like I did.

Harlow’s favorite color wasn’t even purple. It never had been. She’d just had a sweater one year that was a deep purple, that she’d loved so much, she’d worn it at least every couple of days. And Ellie had somehow interpreted that as Harlow’s favorite color being purple.

It was news that she’d dyed her hair purple, though. A desperate attempt to get back in with the ex-wife whose actual favorite color she’d never bothered to learn. Plus, a way to disguise herself in the crowd. Harlow would never be looking around for someone with purple hair, thinking that was Ellie.

“I took the order,” Ripley went on, and, even in the midst of how horrible this situation was, I couldn’t help but feel happy at the way her eyes darted back to me for reassurance every few seconds, “and, when I asked who they were going to—”

“They were for me,” Harlow said, her voice flat, as she finally figured it out. She looked at me. “Ellie’s here. With purple hair?”

I nodded. “It seems so.”

“Was she alone?” She looked up at Ripley again.

Ripley shook her head. “No. She was with a friend—small, brown skin, they spoke Spanish.”

Harlow looked at me, bewildered. “I don’t know who that is.”

I reached a hand across the table. “It doesn’t matter who it is. We’re going to figure this out.”

“If it helps,” Ripley added, “I don’t think the friend thinks this is a very good idea. They were muttering in Spanish the whole time about what a mess it was, and how Ellie shouldn’t be doing this.”

Harlow stared down at her plate for several minutes. “And she came to you?” she asked eventually, looking up at Ripley.

“Yeah…” She shrugged, but something about her tone told me she didn’t think it was the coincidence Harlow seemed to imply.

“She came to you on purpose,” I said, watching Ripley closely.

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