Page 50 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

“Devoted to family and crossword puzzles,” he continues. His eyebrow lifts. “Brushed her teeth with bourbon.”

“That explains the longevity.”

“It may explain the crossword puzzles.”

I laugh and look at him over the edge of my mug, grateful for the easy silence that follows. There is no mystery waiting to be solved between us now, no secret looming over every conversation. For this morning, at least, I can simply sit across from him and enjoy the strange little life taking shape around us.

After breakfast, Grim folds the newspaper neatly and rises from the table. “I should go. I have somewhere to be, if you understand my meaning.”

Unfortunately, I do.

“You could come back,” I say lightly, though it is not quite a joke.

He studies me for a long moment, his eyes the pale, melancholy blue of deep water. “I will. I’m simply not accustomed to being wanted.”

I reach for his arm, touching him just above the wrist. “There’s a first time for everything.”

“Is there?”

His smile is so uncertain that I want to capture it somehow and save it for the bleakest of my future days.

“I’d like to see you again,” he says.

“Tomorrow?”

His quiet laugh fills the kitchen. “I don’t think I can wait that long.”

So this is what ordinary people do, I realize. They make plans. They leave with the expectation of returning.

I walk him to the door, resisting every urge to draw out the goodbye until it curdles into awkwardness. He pauses on the threshold, tall enough that he must duck slightly beneath the lintel, and looks down at me as though weighing his chances of surviving whatever comes next.

I rise onto my toes and kiss him.

Not because I feel sorry for him or because I am trying to prove that his confession changed nothing. I kiss him because I want to, because somewhere along the way the rules shifted beneath my feet, and I am as helpless against desire and entropy as anyone else in Blackthorn Bay.

He kisses me back, tentative at first, then slower and deeper as one hand settles at my waist. For a brief moment, the careful restraint slips and something fiercer moves through him, something that makes my fingers tighten around the front of his shirt. It is not a promise of forever, but it is honest, and for now honesty feels like more than enough.

“Text me if you want lunch,” I say when we finally separate. “Or if you happen to run out of souls to collect.”

He hesitates, then smiles. “You’ll be first on my list.”

“That sounded less threatening in your head, didn’t it?”

“Considerably.”

Then he is gone, leaving the space behind him curiously brighter than it had been before.

The rest of the morning unspools inside Belladonna Blooms with such quiet ease that I might almost mistake it for happiness. The air remains cold enough to fog the windows, and everything beyond the glass wears the pale, faintly bruised lookof fruit forgotten too long in the bottom of a refrigerator drawer. Inside, color presses against every available surface, brilliant and temporary, with just enough mortality to keep it honest.

I lose myself in the work, and for once that is not a metaphor. Somewhere along the way, I have become dependent on the ritual of it: the steady weight of a mason jar in my palm, the wet velvet of lamb’s ear beneath my fingers, the quick sting of rose thorns finding the skin beside my nails. My hands understand what to do even when my thoughts refuse to settle. Wrap, snip, tuck, repeat.

The town grapevine is especially active this morning. At nine-thirty, Mrs. Finch calls to request something “not too extravagant, but not too pitiful either, Lavinia, dear,” for Eleanor’s injured knee. By noon, I am ankle-deep in peony shrapnel, and the telephone is still ringing.

Jasper arrives late, as usual, compensating with his standard sheepish smile and a peace offering from the gas station bakery. Today it is a cupcake with frosting in a shade of blue never witnessed in nature. He slides behind the counter with the practiced ease of a gremlin squeezing into a crawlspace, then stops and stares at me with enough intensity to crack the nearest vase.

“You look awful,” he says by way of greeting, the cupcake hovering uncertainly between us.

“I’m radiant,” I reply. “I’m a spring goddess. I am the second coming of floriculture.”