Page 27 of Poetry of Flowers

“I’m in,” I said, and Kayden let his knuckles brush over my cheek as he looked at me like... like he saw through me, directly in my heart.

I liked that look a lot.

“How much do I have to pay for that trip?” Autumn slowly asked with her head tilted.

“Oh nothing, I have enough in my account. I’ve been saving up for a long time.”

He winked at her because we all knew that was what would convince her on the spot.

“Alright, let’s be rebellious teenagers and piss our parents off.”

“I don’t think you could piss them off even more,” Theo said from beside her, earning himself an evil glance from Autumn.

“Aww, Kayden look! She’s just like an angry chihuahua.” Theo chuckled and turned Autumn’s head towards us with his hand under her chin.

“I told you she’s like a dog.”

“Oh, piss off, Weston!”

Tuning the two of them out, I tugged on Kayden’s cuffs. “Can we talk?” I asked him quietly, and his excited expression turned serious within a second.

“Of course,” he nodded. As we walked up to my bedroom, I could still hear the two arguing below.

Closing the bedroom door behind me, I swallowed.

“What is it?” he asked as he lifted my face with his fingers underneath my chin.

“You cried. Shit, I was so concentrated on the trip that I didn’t even notice your red eyes.”

“It’s okay … It’s okay now.”

It wasn’t, but he would force me to tell him.

“It’s not okay if it made you cry, Fleur.”

A smile immediately spread on my lips.

“You stopped calling me Fleur when we were twelve,” I said, and his lips mirrored my smile.

“You asked me to stop it.”

“Because one of the girls in school called me a wallflower. I still enjoy the nickname; it reminds me of my mother because she used to make those daisy crowns and put them on my hair.” I talked a lot when I got nervous. I didn’t want to tell Kayden my father was going to rehab and that we would probably move away after that.

Away from him.

“Now tell me what happened, I’ll make it better.”

Oh Kayden, you can’t fix everything.

“It will be alright; my father is going to rehab.” I left the moving part out. After all, it wasn’t decided yet.

“That’s great, right?”

I looked at the ground, but Kayden pulled me up softly by my chin again. It was a bad habit of mine not to look at people when I was talking to them, but Kayden liked to make eye contact.

“Of course, it is, he gets sober, and we’re going to be a happy family again! Happy happy happy!”

I let my hands brush through my hair that was finally untangled thanks to my cousin.

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