I flip the lights on and close my eyes, inhaling the waft of roses, jasmines, sweet alyssum, stargazers, and gardenias. I wish the aroma would last longer than a few brief moments before each unique scent becomes familiar and mute. As I place my keys down on the counter, the back doorbell buzzes. Gosh, this is early for a delivery, I think to myself while peering at my watch.

I open the back door to accept the delivery and Dax walks in, placing a box down beside my feet. “Sorry if this is too early, Ari, I’ve got a packed schedule today.” He runs back out to his truck and returns with a smaller box and hands it to me. “Just these two today.”

“Great, thank you!” I carry the box in my hands out front and place it on the counter then turn back for the second box, but Dax is in front of me…right in front of me. Like, two inches in front of me. “Hi,” he says, his voice soft and raspy.

“Hi,” I respond, questioningly, feeling as though the wind has been sucked out of my lungs. Being this close to him, I can’t help but notice a certain darkness in his eyes that doesn’t match the friendly grin stretching across his stubbly cheeks.

“I don’t really have a packed schedule today,” he corrects himself as his smile across his lips stretches wider. The vibe between us is causing the heart in my body to pound, reminding me it’s there and pumping at full capacity. “I actually wanted to ask you something.”

“At eight-fifty-five in the morning?” I hardly get out.

“I’ve seen the way you look at me,” he says, taking one of the two inches away from the space between us. “You’ve seen the way I look at you.” I didn’t think I was being obvious when I try not to look at him, or when I’ve tried my hardest to avoid staring with determination as I debate whether his eyes are a caramel or a cappuccino color. I’ve done my best not to look at his full lips when he asks me how my day is going every morning at nine-thirty on the dot, or when he every so often grabs my arm and tells me to smile. I’ve also done my best never to ask him anything more than his name. More questions lead to more answers, and more answers lead to more questions, and more questions lead to a friendship, and friendship with a man is never platonic, and the opposite of platonic is the definition of a commitment, and since my heart can never fully commit to me, I can never fully commit to it. Of course, this brings us back to this exact moment where the potential man of my dreams with dark, wavy hair and a smile that makes women sigh when he walks by, is standing less than one inch in front of me, waiting to ask me a question.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I take the free inch I just realized was behind me, pressing my back up against the cold counter, but it doesn’t take long for him to steal my last free inch.

“Can I take you out?” he asks as his breath fogs over my lips.

“You don’t even know me,” I croak back.

He snickers under his breath. “Sure I do, Ari. You own a floral shop. You like to read. You aren’t married. You have a friend named Piper. And Piper told me a lot about you. Piper is your one and only employee and in exactly one week, she’s leaving the country for the man of her dreams.” His grin grows wider. “So, can I take you out?”

“I don’t date,” I reply sternly, looking down between us. I hate saying it, but to be fair, I have to say it. This heart isn’t mine for the offering. It was given to a man who is heartbreakingly living without the love inside. This heart belongs to Ellie and Hunter, not me.

“Whoa, whoa. Who said anything about a date? Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself here? I just—wow. You like to make things awkward, huh?”

I shove the heels of my palms into his chest and push him away, taking the space I’ve needed for the past two minutes.

“Dax, what do you want?”

“Will you be my plus one at a wedding this weekend? Please?”

“Isn’t that a date?” I counter

“No, I’m trying to piss off my ex and you’re hot.”

I narrow my eyes at him and tilt my head to the side. “So you’d just be using me?” Actually, this works for my situation. I never swore off fake dates, so it could be okay.

“Well, I guess since I’m not paying you to be an escort, technically we can label it as me using you. Although, if that’s a complete turn-off, then, no, I would never dream of using you.” I can’t tell where the accent of his seriousness lies, but he’s making me fall for this ploy.

“Okay,” I tell him. “But this is for show. Only. Got it?”

“If that’s what you would like.” He leans in, moving his lips close to my ear, causing a chill to slowly trickle down my spine. “I apologize in advance.”

I pull away, slipping away from his invisible hold. “For what?” I ask, opening the box of flowers I had placed on the counter. I find myself using it as an excuse to move as far away from him as possible. If I don’t let feelings in, they can’t embed themselves inside of this heart.

“I look damn good in a suit and you might regret that our date is only fake.” The cocky smirk he’s giving me forces warmth through my cheeks—I’ve always known him to be cocky. He’s definitely the type of man who knows he looks good. He knows he can get any girl he swoons. Maybe that’s why he’s interested me. I’m not just any girl. Dating has never been at the forefront of my mind, and hot men are just now being noticed in this new life I’ve been given a chance at.

While I know almost nothing about Dax, he’s been making deliveries to my shop every morning for the past three years. We’ve shared many exchanges, and though all of them were friendly and mostly humorous, it has always stopped with that. It’s not to say he hasn’t tried his hand at twenty-questions, I’ve just become infamous for avoiding all things personal. This is why I have turned him down the twenty-two times he has asked to take me out. Each time, I wanted to say yes. Each time, I wanted to say yes more than the time before that. However, the heart in my body has said no, and I listen to this heart.

Dax disappears into the back room and returns a moment later with the larger of the two boxes. “Hey, Ari?”

I look up at him as I pull the first bunch of flowers from their wraps. “Mmhm?”

“What made you say yes this time?” A smile teases my lips and I try to stop it from happening as I refocus my attention on the roses I need to prune. “Is it the new cologne I’m wearing? Because I got it last night and the lady at the counter said it would definitely attract women. I guess she wasn’t lying.” I always notice his cologne, mostly because it lingers in the shop for more than a half hour after he leaves every day. Today, though, he has me so wound up, I might have forgotten to breathe during the entire ninety-seconds he more or less had me pinned against the counter. The scent of his cologne may not hit me until after he leaves and I realize what I agreed to.

“I said yes because this isn’t a real date. Remember?”

“What’s not real to you may be real to someone else; it’s like the difference in the way people say tomato.” I shouldn’t be surprised at what comes out of this man’s mouth at this point, but as always, I’m left without a witty response.

“Fake is fake, Dax.”

“And a tomato is a tomato, so I don’t get your point?” He walks over to me and snatches the empty box off the counter and folds up it up under his arm. “So, I need your address, and your phone number would be helpful too.” With patience in his eyes, he looks at me and waits. “You just need to get a piece of paper and grab one of those pens over there in that rose-colored glass, then write it all down.”

Since I don’t make an effort to lunge for a piece of paper or a pen, Dax does it for me. He places a piece of receipt paper down on the counter in front of me and hands me a pen he retrieves from his pocket. With reluctance, I place the flowers down and reach across the counter for a business card. “Here’s my number and address.”

“This isn’t your real address or phone number. It’s your place of business.”

“And our date isn’t a real date, so it seems appropriate.” He takes the card from my hand and drops it into his back pocket. “Why would anyone want to make an ex jealous on their wedding day?” Not sure why the thought didn’t cross my mind originally, but now I’m kind of curious about what I’m getting myself into.

“Well, if the love of your life cheated on you and left you for your brother, you’d want to come fully armed to his wedding too.” Ouch. Now I guess I know something about him. “Oh, this happened on our wedding day. I figured I should add that in there.”

“Well, I’ll dress the part then. For the sake of revenge, I think I can put some effort in.”

“Guess I should have just started with my sob story,” he says. He leans over and wraps an arm around my neck, pulling me in against him. Don’t do that. You smell too good. “I’ll pick you up at six tomorrow night. Here, at your fake place of residence.”

“I’ll be here with my fake dress on.”

“Does that mean—?”

“Go!” I laugh.

Dax makes his grand exit, slapping the exit sign with the palm of his hand on the way out. What did I just agree to?

“Sorry I’m late, Ari!” Piper flies in through the front doors, tossing her purse onto the side counter. “I know we have three weddings tomorrow. I’ll get it all done. I swear.”

“Were you just at the hair salon?” Her dark hair is loosely hung in barrel curls and her face is made up as if she were heading out for the night, rather than a full eight-hour day here.

“Yes, I told my hairdresser I had to be here at nine, but...yeah. I’m having dinner with André tonight,” she grins, biting down on her bottom lip.

“André, as in the man you are fleeing to France with next week?” I groan and slap her arm.

“Well, he’s leaving tomorrow and then I’m meeting him in Bordeaux next week Wednesday. I’m going to miss him something fierce,” she croons.

As ridiculous as her relationship with André has been, and as short as it’s gone on, I’m still happy for her. Four weeks ago, who would have thought the man of Piper’s dreams would end up here in our flower shop to buy flowers for the date he was going on that night, only to end up falling in love with Piper and asking her to move to France with him two weeks later? It’s insane and wild, and something I could only dream of doing.

Changing the subject before I try to talk her out of moving again, I bring out the list of to-dos. “The bouquets for the Kyle wedding are first. The bride is coming to pick them up at three today.” I grab the heavy box Dax left on the back counter and bring them up to the front so we can unpack it. “Then there’s this assortment for the Laurie retirement party tonight.”

“Dax was already here?” she asks.

“Yeah, uh, he came by early today. He wanted to ask me something.” Again, the smile I can’t seem to hide threatens to unfurl over my lips.

Piper drops the ribbon she had been unraveling and grabs me by the arms. “Tell me you said yes this time. Ari, you can’t remain a hermit forever.”

“Forever isn’t as long as it is for you,” I say, holding my hand over my chest, “This loaner is only going to last another ten years, at best, and I don’t want to put it through any unnecessary aches or pains while playing relationship musical chairs. There is no future worth planning, and it’s like planting a seed, knowing you’ll never get to see it fully bloom. What’s the purpose?”

She grumbles with an exhausted sigh. “Yeah, I’ve heard the same lines over and over from you, and as always, you’re still wrong. No one said you were dying in ten years. No one! So why do you feel the need to live like you’re freaking dying, Ari? Cut the shit.” Her hand squeezes around my arm a little tighter. “I don’t want to hear this anymore. Do you understand?”

“I told him I’d go to a stupid wedding with him, okay?” I expel quietly.

Her arms loop around my neck as she squeezes me tightly. “Really?” she whispers into my ear. “You’re going to take a night off from writing to Hunter to leave your house and act like a normal human being?”

Am I that transparent? “Yes, I’m going.” I’m doing exactly what I’ve refused to do for so long. Live as if this heart is actually pumping blood through my veins and allowing me to inhale oxygen while also existing as a person I’m pretty sure I was never meant to be.