People date first, Ciro.

I don’t.

I smile, because he’s making me heady. I bring the phone closer to my face as I sink into my pillows. Lavender and grey flannel, homey and eternal in the midst of the sudden upheaval of Status Quo.

What’s the purpose of dating anyway?

Get to know each other.

I know you.

I don’t know YOU, I type fast and hit send.

I see dots swimming at the bottom of my phone screen. They swim for so long I have time to get up and close the door to my room. It’s late. I came home hours ago, after leaving Ciro’s house in a rush, after passing by the restaurant and being swatted off by Il Signore, because, I didn’t expect you back.

When I plop down on my bed, the dots have stopped swimming. There’s just a heart, a red one, in place of an explanation or excuse or dismissal.

You want to know me? he types next.

Yes...

Then be my girlfriend.

Heat flashes over my skin. Charlotte pops her head in on her way to bed. “Still awake?”

I shrug. Show her the screen.

“Wow. He’s a man on a mission. A Latin lover who isn’t going to stop until he gets his woman. That’s pretty romantic, Savannah,” she says in her low, deep-water voice. “You should live a little. If I were you, I’d give him a try. What’s the worst that could happen?”

I swallow. When I told Frieda about the night’s adventures and how he brushed a kiss along my neck on that makeshift dancefloor, she said, “I was worried that he was a creeper. But that’s freaking hot, and how horrifying if you turn, like, seventy, and have to look back thinking, ‘What if?’”

But the thing is, what happens if I say no? Nothing. I’ll be me. My moments will remain mine with only the slightest blip on my monitor.

I text Mom, hoping she doesn’t text back. She doesn’t. Such a good sign.

My phone falls asleep. I don’t.

It’s eleven in the morning the day after I never gave an answer, and I keep being jolted by how much I liked being pursued. I wonder if I’ll hear from him today.

For one: it’s early. Second off: no, never mind. I mean, I could go into how I don’t deserve being drooled over by someone like Ciro Anthony Silveira, but I’m already sick of that girl. He was thinking about me, period. He paid off my restaurant to have me be his dinner companion, and he did it for a reason. He freaking asked me to be his girlfriend. I even have that in writing.

I take a screenshot of his message and show it to Frieda. Samuel wonders what we’re looking at and ducks between us in the living room. I turn my phone away so he can’t see, but when he starts muttering about the general wussiness of chicks, I whip the screen toward him anyway.

“Is he for real? Yeah, it’s Savannah—I’d do you any day, my friend—but guess what? You’d have to work hard to get me tied down.”

“I’m not trying to tie anyone down.”

“Sam, you’re not helping,” Charlotte says calmly and tips her chin so she can squint down at him.

“So what’s his deal?”

“Savannah hinted at maybe she’d say no to him.”

There’s a knock on the door. It’s light and unassuming. Lin, our Chinese exchange student roommate is the closest and opens it.

“Delivery for...” A fairy-sized girl hides behind a floral explosion. The girl might be small, but that package is ginormous.

“Savannah...?” She cranes her neck to keep the bow out of her nose. Then she bends her knees so she can wobble it safely into a standing position on the doormat. Once she’s done, she stares between us trying to find a potential Savannah.

This Savannah isn’t used to claiming floral arrangements, so I’m frozen behind Frieda. Who’s behind Charlotte. Who’s next to Sam and behind Lin.

“Is her!” Lin exclaims, eyes narrowed into happy slits for me. “Is flowr for you, Savannah.”

Frieda steps forward, taking the delivery girl’s pen. “You want me to sign for you?”

“Flowers, huh?” Sam says belatedly.

“Uh-huh, please,” I say.

Charlotte and Frieda unwrap it in the kitchen. It stretches leaves and branches all over the counter next to the stovetop. Besides the green, there’s tons and tons of deep red.

“Flamingo lilies and Hibiscus. So many of them,” Frieda gushes. “They’re so beautiful, I don’t even care about the roses. Open the card.” She tosses me a small envelope, and I open it, heart knocking against my ribs.

My fingers aren’t shaking—that would be pathetic—but it takes longer than it should to open a measly envelope.

Bold black writing. With a Sharpie? Square cap letters, like he doesn’t give a shit about cursive. Three words only.

BE MY GIRLFRIEND

“Oh he’s swoony,” Charlotte whispers, slowly covering her mouth.

“Whoa.” Frieda brushes my hair away so she can see past it to the card I’ve dropped to the counter. My brain warns, Don’t-don’t. Life will never be the same. But my heart’s doing a woot-woot-look-at-me-biatch dance, leaping all over the place, and if it had hands it’d be clapping—the way Lin does.

“So swoony,” he agrees. “Hot man?”

“Hell yeah, he’s hot,” Frieda tells him, and Lin brings steepled hands up in front of his face, covering the middle of his lips and nose.

“Yasss! He Savannah’s?”

“She hasn’t decided yet.” Frieda jumps with excitement, her toes never leaving the floor.

“Oh.” Lin nods. “He Savannah’s.” He thrusts a narrow finger at me. “Savannah, you get him or Lin will have him.” He winks sweetly.

Thank you for the flowers, I text later.

Ciro replies with a red heart.

What are you up to?

He doesn’t answer.

At ten a.m., Lin knocks on my bedroom door in a feverish flurry. Sunday is my only day off this week, but I manage to pry my eyes open enough to find Lin’s skinny frame squirming with delight in my doorway. “Excuze, Savannah. You have flowr again, on door!”

I do. This arrangement makes my heart bang at my chest, wanting out to look for itself. Ciro likes flamingo lilies, it seems. The red hibiscus are here this time too, and so are the roses. But if yesterday’s bouquet was large, this one is obscene. As a whole, our place doesn’t even have a vase big enough for it.

Sam watches me struggle with the flowers. I separate and rejoin them, because they’re so well arranged I feel sacrilegious messing with the composition.

He scratches the back of his head making brown coils of hair bop. Then he lifts an index finger in the air, Einstein-style, says “Hold on. I’ve got the thing for that,” and disappears into his room.

BE MY GIRLFRIEND

Sweet lord. The same three words on this card too.

Metal drags and scratches across wooden floors, adding muffled squeaks as it comes closer to the kitchen. I frown. “Sam, what’re you doing?”

My friend appears in the doorway and lets out a poof, attention rising from the medieval replica cannon on the floor between his legs. Don’t get me started on his room. The man lives for the Dark Ages.

“Okay, what’re you doing?” I repeat.

He tips the cannon’s mouth upward so it faces the ceiling. “Put the flowers in a bag with some water, and we’ll shove it in here. ’Cause I think this is the only three-foot tall flower holder in the house.”

“Vase.”

“Uh-huh, whatever.”

Five minutes later, we’re done stuffing the arrangement in there. We push it into the living room and situate it in front of a window. It stretches upward covering two thirds of the glass pane. Sam angles the mouth of the cannon down so it points at the love couch.

“Pow!” He sounds like he means it, which makes me laugh.

“Boys,” I say.

“You get his message, right?” Sam asks.

“Yeah. It’s clear as day.” My heart does a shimmy. I’m infatuated and flattered, feeling much too shallow for myself. It’s like living on the cover of a fairytale, partaking in the beaming eyes between the prince and the princess. “He wants me to be his girlfriend.”

Sam grins. “Okay, he also sent you a bunch of dicks.”

“What?”

Lin snorts into a laugh from the doorway. “Dicks.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” My gaze goes to the beautiful flamingo lilies... with their long, yellow tails at the center. The hibiscus. Also with long yellow thingies erect and proud at their core.

“No, you ass.” I point out the few red roses in between all the phallic symbols.

“Oh right. My bad.” Sam’s a terrible actor. “Your dude doesn’t want to bang your brains out, and also I didn’t just help him shoot.”

As he backs out of my stunned company, Sam lifts an imaginary gun—cannon?—and points it at me. “Pow.”

Flowers. Every day flowers of the same kind. I don’t know what to do with them anymore, except texting him different variations of Thank you for the flowers again, lol. Can we talk?

I feel like my blood pressure goes up, and when my mom calls because I miss our Wednesday breakfast, I reschedule by text—work, you know—for Sunday. She grumbles but mentions a retreat for a new religious sect she’s learned about. I reschedule again for Friday.

On day eight of filling our house with plastic buckets of flamingo lilies and hibiscus, my roommates have had it, and Ciro has yet to call me. Whenever I text, he sends me a heart the color of his flowers, and I’m at the point where I laugh and groan at the same time.

It’s five in the afternoon. Outside, the sun loses force, leaving our desert garden in an orange glow. I’m done with my sales calls and have some time before my shift at Mintrer’s. This is as good a moment as any to swallow my pride and call him.

He doesn’t take long to pick up. “Savannah?”

“Hey, Ciro.”

“Are you okay?”

“Of course, I am. You?” He’s kept my thoughts hostage. I haven’t seen him in over a week, but his flowers make sure I don’t forget him. I wonder if he does it on purpose. I wonder if he’s that savvy.

“Yeah, I’m at work.”

“Oh sorry, I shouldn’t have called. When are you off?”

Soft music plays in the background. Someone yells an order.

“Hold on. You caught me at a good time. We’ve wrapped my part in this scene, and I need a break. Martin!” he shouts, phone away from his mouth. “I’m taking five.”

“Make it fifteen. Clean up. Donnella’ll be here any minute.”

He sighs. I remember that name. That was the actress he’d rather not work with again. She must be this moody bitch who wants everything her way. Or maybe she’s evil.

“All right. Savannah, are you there?”

“Yeah. Are you in the Valley?” I suddenly get the feeling he’s not.

“No, I’m in Canada this week. I’m back on Saturday. Have you thought any more about my question?”

“Which question?” I tease, because not-special girls get bigheaded when they’re showered in flowers. “You really need to make clear what you want from me.”

“Cute.” His laughter is quiet, of the kind that breezes over your ear and makes you shiver with anticipation. “Okay, I’ll try something new: be. My girlfriend.”

“But dating is such a good way of getting to know each other.”

“Been there, done that,” he clips. “Hmm, I have slight déjà vu over this conversation.”

“So no more dates with you?” I only had two, and one was in my work outfit.

“Oh once you’re my girlfriend, I’ll take you on so many dates you’ll get sick of them. But we’re skipping the childish stages where we scour each other for flaws and do the whole base one, base two thing.”

My stomach surges with anxious excitement.

“Once you’re mine, there won’t only be food and flowers and dates and trips. I spoil the shit out of my girlfriends, and sex is a big part of that. Think about it. I want to undress you every day and make you tremble.”

“Ciro, you all cleaned up? Donnella’s here, excited and waiting.”

“Be right there,” he calls away from my ear. That sigh again.

“You don’t like starring with that woman,” I say. There’s some nugget in me that doesn’t like that she’s excited and waiting. Excited. And waiting. What does that even mean? How is she waiting for him?

“You noticed that, huh?”

“Yeah, well, your agent—Sharon?—had you sign a contract with her at Mintrer’s the first time I saw you.”

“Oh right. Eh, it’s just work. It’ll be fine. Short and sweet.”

“Is she in love with you?” And why did I ask that?

“Who, Donnella?” He sounds legitimately surprised.

“Yeah. Stranger things have happened than co-stars falling in love with each other.” Okay, I’m the jealous non-girlfriend.

He snorts. “I don’t think so. Although honestly, I couldn’t care less if she was.”

“You should go now,” I tease. He doesn’t know me well enough to realize I sound fake when I finish, “Donnella is excited and waiting.”

“That she is, the only good part.” He lets out a small laugh. “Listen, Savannah.”

“Yeah?” I say, breathless.

“I’m flying back Saturday. Can I see you then?”

My heart has been doing a lot of weird things since it met Ciro. Now it constricts. “What were you thinking?”

“We could do the boardwalk.”

I gasp with excitement. “Okay.”

“Pick you up at six.”