Page 74 of Stuck with Doctor Grump

When we finally hung up, I lingered by my display, brushing stray petals back into place, adjusting a vine like it made any difference at that point.

I wasn’t sure if the judges would love it.

But I did.

And for the first time, that was enough.

I grabbed my bag and glanced back once more at The Bloom After the Storm. It looked like it belonged in a dream—or maybe in a storybook written by someone who believed in messy miracles and rain-splattered beauty.

Like someone who had finally stopped trying to fit into a mold and had started blooming outside the lines.

And maybe that was the whole point.

…

The morning sun filtered through the hotel curtains like it hadn’t gotten the memo that today could unravel everything.

I rolled over, still half-asleep, expecting to smell brewed coffee and panic in equal measure. Instead, my phone buzzed insistently on the nightstand, and a sharp knock rattled the door.

I bolted upright, heart thudding. I flung open the door to find a volunteer staffer holding a clipboard and wearing a painfully polite smile.

“Morning,” she chirped. “We just wanted to let you know there’s been a bit of a hiccup with some deliveries. One of the floral shipments didn’t arrive on time.”

I blinked, mind still foggy. “Wait—what?”

She flipped a page. “Name on the order was… Ruby Shea? The rare freesia from Oregon?”

My stomach dropped. “Yes. That’s mine.”

The staffer gave a sympathetic shrug, like we were talking about misplacing a sock and not the focal flower of my entire centerpiece.

“Courier said it was delayed in transit. Might not make it in time for judging.”

“Might?”

“Might,” she echoed, not unkindly. “Delays happen. You’ll figure it out.”

And just like that, she turned on her sensible flats and walked off, leaving me in the doorway with bedhead, a t-shirt that said Don’t Kale My Vibe, and a growing knot in my chest.

I didn’t move for a long moment.

Then I snapped into motion.

I threw on jeans, shoved my keycard in my pocket, and ran the block to the venue, hoping—irrationally—that the shipment had magically appeared overnight and was sitting in the receiving bay waiting for a hug and an apology.

It wasn’t.

The loading area was empty except for a couple of taped-up crates and a guy sweeping leaves into a pile like they’d personally offended him.

I found my booth, and the installation still stood—wild and brave—but the space I’d saved for the freesia centerpiece sat bare. Stark. Incomplete.

My chest tightened.

This wasn’t just a missing detail. It was the heart of the display—the one flower meant to represent regrowth. I'd even left a broken teacup on the table, its cracks filled with gold leaf, where the freesia was supposed to bloom, like something fragile made whole again.

Now it just looked like a mistake.

I crouched beside the crate I’d left empty for the stems and stared at it like it might grow legs and walk in my order.

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