Page 151 of Small Town Firsts
“Here,” I called out.
“Should I worry that you’re on the floor?”
I peered at the doorway, but instead of Sage’s face, there was a huge arrangement of lilacs and daisies tucked into a copper watering can.
I didn’t need to look at the card to know it was from Seth. My head thunked back onto the hardwood. “Dammit.” I slung myarm back over my face. Why the hell did he have to remember both me and my mama’s favorite flowers?
Couldn’t he be like the guys I heard my friends complain about? The clueless boyfriends or husbands who bought them a vacuum instead of a bracelet for an anniversary?
That guy was easy to ignore.
This one?
Not so much.
Add in thirteen years of being my best friend and I was friggin’ toast.
“Where do you want me to put this? And why don’t you have any furniture?”
I hauled myself off the floor. “By the door is fine. In fact, put it in your car and take it home.”
Sage put down the jumbo watering can. “I will take it home, but only because it’s your home now too. Or did you forget that little fact?”
“Of course not.” I tucked a stray curl out of my face and back into my fraying French braid. Like a damn homing beacon, I couldn’t stop myself from crossing to the flowers. I brushed the back of my knuckles along the delicate lilac petals before curling my fingers back into my dirty palms. A fine layer of dust caked my hands, arms, and knees from packing and hauling boxes. “And that’s why I didn’t need all this stuff.”
“We could have put it in storage,” Sage said with a flutter of hands.
I dabbed at the sweat on my forehead. I needed a shower something fierce. “None of it was worthy of storage.”
Her huge green eyes were about a blink away from tears. “There has to be something you want to keep.”
“Would that be the cracked Walmart lamp, or the sagging wicker round chair circa 1994?”
“Stop. You can’t throw everything away, dammit.”
Sage actually stomped her foot. It was sort of cute in a fluffy half unicorn, half pixie kind of way. The unicorn half was the one that had a little mettle behind her words. She wasn’t a pushover, even if she was the sweetest, most fanciful woman I knew.
“Some kids from the university came and took me up on my bargain basement deals.”
“You didn’t use Craigslist.”
When I didn’t disabuse her of that little statement, her eyebrows shot up.
“Are you insane? And why didn’t you wait until I got here?”
I shrugged. “Not like I couldn’t handle myself.”
“You are on a semi-secluded road a quarter mile away from the main road and the lake. Anything could have happened.”
“Okay, Ann Rule.”
“Don’t joke. We watch those shows together, woman. Anything could have happened. They could have kidnapped you and put you in the back of their van?—”
“Before you get all bent, there was no van, Scooby Doo Magical Mystery van or otherwise. They had an old rusted truck with a flatbed that wouldn’t even close properly. The most exciting part of the whole endeavor was us wrestling with bungee cords to get them safely back onto the highway.”
Sage tipped back her head. “You’re incredible.”
“Thank you.”
