“S

tephanie, you’ll never know how grateful I am for you right now. I feel like money isn’t enough payment. What can I give you?”

Stephanie laughed as she placed my quadruple Americano on my desk.

“Your eternal gratitude is payment enough. After the bill is settled, of course.”

“Yes, and I tipped you generously too, which was the very least I could do. You’ll never know how much I need this coffee.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, I can’t tell you’re tired. You look amazing.”

Her compliment made my face heat and cheeks bunch into a smile.

“Thanks.”

She’d never know I took extra time that morning getting ready for work. Aiden’s promise of seeing me again but not telling me when had plagued me all night. How does one prepare for surprises? If I didn’t know when I’d be seeing him next, how could I make sure I was ready to see him? The answer, unfortunately, was that I had to be prepared at all times. So that morning I picked out my most flattering work outfit—a fitted, knee-length, black pencil skirt and a burgundy tank and black cardigan for the walk to work, and paired it with my best black pumps. My hair and makeup were on point.

There was a small part of me that was aggravated by my own eagerness to please Aiden. What if I put in all the work to look nice for a potential meeting and then he ghosted me?

“Whoa, why the frowny face all of a sudden? A moment ago you were all smiles and sunshine. What’s up, buttercup?”

I debated getting Stephanie’s opinion about the whole Aiden situation, feeling a strange and unnatural compulsion to tell her everything and verbally purge all the thoughts that had been pinging around in my brain for days now. But Stephanie and I weren’t really close. We were work acquaintances, not friends.

I thought for a moment about calling my friends in Arizona, but I hadn’t kept in good touch with them and now we only seemed to chat when big updates were announced—weddings, houses, and babies. Of course, I still considered them my friends, but I could admit it would’ve been weird to just call one of them to talk about a man. I wouldn’t even know where to start.

It suddenly hit me that I’d lost all my close, personal relationships.

“Okay, you’re worrying me, Rose. There are a million emotions all over your face. Do you want to talk about anything?”

Her voice had gone from playfully prodding to genuinely concerned, but before I could answer there was another person entering my office.

“Rose,” my receptionist, Krysta, said with a soft voice. “There’s a delivery for you. Should I bring it in?”

“Yes, please, Krysta. Thank you.”

She grinned and disappeared, and I gave Stephanie a small smile and held up a finger, trying to relay I would answer all her questions in a moment.

The next thing I saw was a huge plume of flowers floating through my door. Well, Krysta was carrying them, but you couldn’t see her behind the gorgeous flowers.

“Oh my God,” Stephanie gasped.

“What in the world...” My words trailed off as Krysta set the vase in the middle of my desk. I stood, taking in the spectacular display. There were so many different kinds of flowers in the arrangement, most I could name as an occupational hazard, but some were unfamiliar. All were beautiful, however. They were all white or different shades of light pink, purple, blue, and green. It was a soft-looking arrangement. Beautiful. Romantic.

“There’s a card,” Krysta said with a loud breath. The arrangement looked incredibly heavy.

I found the small card and opened the envelope.

Yesterday was the best meeting I’ve ever had.

Are you free for a dinner meeting tonight?

Aiden

His phone number was listed right under his name and I almost laughed. Of course he had the upper hand knowing more about me than I did about him. He knew where I worked, where I lived, he knew my employees. It had baffled me the night before when he’d walked away, but I realized then he’d had a plan all along. And it was beautiful.

“Who is Aiden?” Stephanie asked from behind me, where I hadn’t realized she’d moved to read over my shoulder.

I pressed the card to my chest to hide it, as if I could erase what it said from her memory.

I looked up and noticed that the floral parade hadn’t gone unnoticed by the office either. Everyone was looking through my glass walls while pretending not to, and they all sucked at hiding it.

“Krysta, that will be all,” I said, giving her a tight smile to ease the dismissal.

I stood up and walked around the perimeter of my office, pulling the tall drapes closed to add some privacy. Clearly, I didn’t get flowers delivered often and all my employees were taking notice. I didn’t like being the center of attention.

Just as I was closing the final curtain, Riley knocked gently on the door. I motioned for her to enter and watched as she shut the door quietly behind her.

“I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful delivery you’ve received,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant and completely failing. “And, not that it’s connected or anything, but last night Camden couldn’t get a hold of Aiden until late and then couldn’t get a straight answer about where he’d been.”

“Aiden?” Stephanie piped up. “That’s the name on the card!”

“I knew it!” Riley practically squealed as she jumped up and down, clapping like I’d just won an Olympic medal.

“Shhh,” I scolded both of them. “I do not need the entire office to hear about my personal life.”

“Sorry,” they both replied in unison, both trying to hide excited smiles

I let out a heavy breath and then decided to take a risk and talk to Stephanie and Riley.

“Do you guys have a minute?” I asked.

They both nodded eagerly and took seats in my overstuffed chairs. My first instinct was to sit at my desk, but the flower arrangement was too large and I wouldn’t have been able to see over it, so I sat on the couch between their two chairs.

I had no idea where to start.

“The flowers are from Aiden.” I thought maybe I’d start with the obvious. “I spent the afternoon and evening with him yesterday.” As I said the words I could literally see the excitement about to burst out of Riley, but I held a hand up to stop her. “Just the afternoon and evening. We did not spend the night together and I did not sleep with him.”

Yet.

I watched her deflate before my very eyes.

“Okay, who is Aiden?” Stephanie asked with a little irritation.

“Aiden is this really great guy I met through my best friend and we’ve sort of adopted him into our group. He’s tall, rugged, handsome, super nice, and just very put together. He owns his own very successful business and he’s just a great catch.”

Stephanie gave me the side eye.

“Sounds suspicious.”

I narrowed my eyes and nodded at her.

“That was my first impression as well. Too good to be true.”

“Well, what happened yesterday to warrant the enormous flower arrangement sitting on your desk at this very moment? Hmmmm?” Riley inquired.

“He kidnapped me.”

“See,” Stephanie said, shaking a finger at me. “There’s all the red flag I need.”

Riley rolled her eyes. “Seriously.”

“He seriously kidnapped me. I fell asleep in his truck, thinking we were going to a lunch meeting, and when I woke up we were at the beach.”

“Awwww,” Riley and Stephanie both cooed, again in unison.

“Did you have fun with him? What all did you do?” Riley asked, leaning forward with interest.

“We went to lunch, then he took me to an aquarium, and then we walked on the beach a bit.”

The description of the day, while accurate, wasn’t all-encompassing. I left out all the sweet hand holding, all the laughing with the seals, the sweet gifts he’d gotten me. My eyes flashed down to the ring on my finger. It didn’t go with my ultra-posh business attire I was wearing, but I couldn’t bring myself to take it off.

“So, it was a date, not a meeting,” Stephanie concluded.

“Yes.”

“And how’d it go?” Riley implored, eyebrows arched toward the sky.

It was time to fess up. If I was really going to open up to these women, it was now or never.

“It was amazing,” I said, slumping down into the couch and frowning.

“You seriously need to work on expressing your emotions more accurately,” Stephanie noted.

“It was amazing? Or amazingly bad?”

“Absolutely out of this world amazing. Best date I’ve ever been on.”

“Hence the flowers,” Riley practically cried out, clasping her hands in front of her chest.

“I’m just really confused.” I tried my best not to sound like a whiney teenager, but I was out of my element. “He sends really confusing signals.”

“What do you mean?” Stephanie inquired.

“He seems really interested one minute, but then he purposefully puts distance between us. I can never tell where he’s headed—both literally and figuratively.”

“Do you think maybe you just feel overwhelmed because of...” Riley’s eyes moved over to Stephanie and then back to me. “Your inexperience?”

It was time for transparency.

I looked over at Stephanie.

“I’m a virgin.”

To her credit, Stephanie’s face remained completely passive.

“Okay, I can see how that would affect the situation.”

“I thought we really hit it off yesterday, you know? But then at the end, when I invited him in and alluded to what would happen, he turned me down.”

“Hmmm,” Riley hummed, leaning back in her chair, her face scrunched with concentration.

“Wait,” Stephanie interjected. “Does he know you’ve never...” She motioned in the air, poking a single finger through an ‘O’ made with her other hand.

“Of course. I would never invite someone in for sex without telling them they’d be the first.”

“Oooohhhhhh,” Stephanie and Riley said in unison again, as though I’d revealed all the secrets of the universe.

“How does that explain anything?” I asked, mystified.

Riley and Stephanie exchanged knowing looks.

“Rose, sweetie, he’s being careful with you. He doesn’t want you to rush into your first time and regret it. At least, knowing Aiden, that’s how I read the situation,” Riley added.

“And I don’t know Aiden, but I’d agree. If he seems into you, and he’s sending you gorgeous flowers, he definitely cares about you and probably just wants to take it slow. And even if it’s not for your sake, you can’t bash a guy for not jumping your bones at the first opportunity. That’s quite literally the thing single women complain most about.”

I thought about what they were saying, but it did little to ease my self-doubt.

“I don’t know, you guys. That was the first time I’d ever invited a man into my home with the intention of sleeping with him, and I’m not going to lie, it burned when he rejected me.”

“What, exactly, did he say?” Riley asked.

My eyes started stinging at the thought of the rejection I’d been dealt the night before. I felt silly and stupid, but the emotions weren’t something I was used to dealing with. I sucked in a quick breath and dabbed at the corner of my eye, trying to maintain my composure.

“He said something about not wanting it to be just sex. That he wanted more for us, for it to be meaningful. That he wasn’t blowing me off.”

“Oh, honey,” Riley said soothingly as she came to sit next to me. Clearly, I wasn’t doing a great job of hiding how upset I was about Aiden. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about men, especially the good ones—which I’m pretty sure Aiden is—it’s that they don’t lie. They don’t make things up just to appease women. If that’s what he said, it’s more than likely that’s what he meant.”

“The way I see it, you have two things that could be going on. Either he really likes you and doesn’t just want sex, or he doesn’t like you and he was trying to let you down easy. But the second scenario doesn’t make sense with those flowers sitting on your desk. If he didn’t want you, he wouldn’t have sent those,” Stephanie said softly.

“Exactly,” Riley added, rubbing a hand on my knee, trying to comfort me.

“I’m so out of my depth, you guys. Dating sucks.”

The girls laughed.

“It sure does,” Riley said, smiling at me. “But I hope you trust me that Aiden really is one of the good ones. The entire time we’ve been friends I’ve never seen him bring a woman around. He doesn’t just sleep with women. He’s not a player.”

“So, I should follow his lead?” I asked, desperate for advice on how to navigate this new, stupid road. “I always thought when I finally wanted to have sex with someone, it would be fairly easy to accomplish.” I couldn’t keep the exasperation out of my voice.

“Yeah, and you probably could go to any bar in this city, find a random guy, and he’d totally help you out with that issue, but it wouldn’t mean anything and you’d never hear from him again. It sounds like Aiden wants more than just sex,” Stephanie offered.

“Sounds like maybe you need to think about what you want.” It was the softest I’d ever heard Riley’s voice. “If you guys aren’t on the same page, then this will all be for nothing and someone will end up getting hurt.”

“Yeah,” I agreed with a large sigh. “I never imagined I’d be in this situation.”

“What situation?” Stephanie asked, confused. “You never thought a nice man would find you attractive and want to start a relationship with you? That’s ridiculous, Rose. You’re a catch.”

“I think I’m good on paper, but in reality, I’m a mess.” I didn’t realize how much I believed those words until they tumbled out of my mouth. I’d built a comfortable, safe bubble around myself and pushed everyone out. I’d been so focused on making sure I made something out of my life, I hadn’t actually built a life. Now I was floundering around, drowning while trying to keep my head above water.

“We all feel that way sometimes,” Riley said, her hand tapping my knee again. “Drink some wine, have a good cry, and get it out of your system.”

“Yeah, sounds like you need a girls’ night.” Stephanie’s voice was sweet and encouraging.

“Oh my gosh, that’s exactly what you need. A girls’ night! We should totally do that at my house. Stephanie, you should absolutely come too. You’d fit right in with us!”

Stephanie shrugged and smiled. “I don’t have anything going on tonight.”

All eyes landed on me.

“How ’bout it, Rose?” Riley asked, smiling wide.

I thought about Aiden’s invitation for another meeting that evening but didn’t think seeing him before I got my head on straight would be a great idea. Riley and Stephanie were right. I needed to figure out what I wanted before I continued anything with him.

“I’ll bring the wine,” I offered, my voice still defeated, but a smile trying to spread across my face.

“That’s the spirit,” Stephanie said, pumping a fist in the air.

“And hey,” Riley said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Worse comes to worst and Aiden turns out to be just another guy you once dated with whom it didn’t work out.”

“You’re right,” I agreed. But the problem was, I didn’t agree. I wasn’t sure Aiden would ever be just some guy. Every day that passed, every time he crossed my mind—which was far too often—I was becoming worried Aiden was the guy.