3. Chapter 3

I was glad the next day was Monday, my only full day off this week. After all the last-minute work that had to be done for the wedding, and the wedding itself, I was beat. Of course, with fresh flowers, besides the planning and organizing, most of the work was last minute. But it had been a frenzy when my load came in from the local farms last week, rushing to get all the arrangements done in time.

No amount of planning changed the fact that a wedding was a lot of work. As an independent florist, I didn't do them very often because of that. Not that I was afraid of the work, I wasn't, but it was very time-consuming, and I had a lot of regular work to keep up with as well. When I did do them, though, I poured my whole heart into them, and it was always worth it. Especially when I got to see the joy it brought to the newlyweds .

Carmen's wedding had been a blast and it was so nice of her to invite me to stay. She was a beautiful bride, and the ceremony brought tears to my eyes. We had been at the winery at the crack of dawn setting up, so I didn't stay through the entire reception, just long enough to eat and enjoy a little dancing.

Next to flowers and plants, dancing was my favorite thing. I loved music and the way it moved through my body. I often sang to my plants if no one was around, because I'd heard it had positive influences in their growth. Though, I didn't know how positive the influence could be when you can't sing, because even if I loved music, my voice was not equipped for it. I knew my singing voice was…bad. Really bad. Which is why I only sang in front of my plants who couldn't judge me.

Dancing, however, was an entirely different thing. Where my voice failed to translate the songs I heard, the rhythm of the music flowed through my veins into every part of my body. There was such freedom, expression, and joy that came with dancing. When I was in my shop, I had music playing all day and often found myself shaking my ass and dancing along while I arranged flowers or cut stems. Music was magical. Add in music at an event with love as the backbeat, and I was all in.

While dancing, I'd caught a glimpse of a man in a stylish sage suit sitting alone at a table looking far too serious. How could anyone be so upset at a wedding? Especially one with the kind of energy this one had. I got swept away in the song, my eyes wandering over to him on occasion, until I looked and he was no longer there. I'd hoped he'd found something that would cheer him up.

Carmen had been stunning when she gave her vows, but when she danced with her new husband, there was nothing in the world more beautiful. I'd had a lot of fun, grateful to be included, and after I'd danced with the bride, I finally said my goodbyes and came home to crash.

Now, I was preparing for a nice, relaxing day, which started with watering my orchids and checking the small, raised garden that housed my two cherry tomato plants and my small sweet pepper plant. In preparation for the summer heat, I'd put up a shade cover over my garden, which allowed morning sunlight to bathe the plants but protected them from scalding in the direct summer sun all day. I picked several orange-tinted tomatoes and couldn't wait to rinse them and pop them into my mouth. Nothing topped fresh tomatoes right off the plant.

I loved my little garden. It was about two feet wide by eight feet long and ran along the length of my fence in my small, narrow yard. If I had the room, I would love to do more. There was nothing like growing your own food. And flowers, too. At the other end of my garden, I had a prolific rose bush that allowed me to cut fresh flowers to decorate the house .

Inside, I had both hanging and potted plants that helped brighten up my already colorful home. They were also natural air purifiers, and I loved the way they made me feel. Sure, I was surrounded by flowers and greenery all day, but it still made me happy to come home to see them.

While I loved my plants and enjoyed caring for them, the routine it gave me, and they made for great scenery, they didn't make the best company. My house, though vibrant and full of character, was quiet. Too quiet.

" Alexa , play music."

My pop hits playlist burst out of the smart device, filling the small space with sound. I danced as I continued watering and checking all my green babies. The music helped, and I loved to dance, but it didn't change the fact that I was here alone. I liked being independent, loved that I had my own place; it was something I had worked hard to save up for. Being home by myself, though, wasn't always easy.

That was why I stayed busy. I liked being busy anyway, especially getting to work with people. I got to meet so many amazing folks doing what I did and it made me happy, truly. However, I could admit that I longed to have someone to come home to, especially after seeing so many of my friends settle down.

Nope, enough of that. Cranking the music up loud enough to block out my thoughts, I jumped in on cleaning after all the plants had been taken care of. Cleaning and dancing. My broom made a great dance partner sometimes. A sweep, a swish, a twirl, a dip. When the song challenged me to drop lower, lower, lower , I held onto the broom and squatted in front of it, like it was a pole, as I twerked to the beat.

A notification rang out from my phone, so I leaned my dance partner against the counter to check it. Instagram was telling me I had a new follower. I always checked out my followers' profiles. Sometimes, they were scammers trying to tag me in a post to win a Tesla or something equally ridiculous, but often they were people who either found me at Heartcraft or were referred to me by a customer.

Having both my permanent flower shop and my booth in the farmer's market provided two completely different audiences. Aside from my regulars, the shop had far fewer customer interactions since most people ordered flowers online. A lot of my customers from the shop were nameless faces that I packaged up arrangements for and had them delivered.

With my shop on a small street in the old town district that featured a few local businesses, I did get some foot traffic of people passing by on their way to the bakery or antique shop. But those folks were usually there to browse, with comments of not knowing there was a florist there, even though my shop had been in place for a few years. They would take a business card or use the QR code I had in the window for future reference. That was okay, though, because sometimes they do remember that ‘ cute little flower shop ' and give me a call when an occasion arose.

Heartcraft was an entirely different beast. People came there to shop local, buy fresh produce and, yes, flowers, as well as all the artisanal goodies and handcrafted items. I loved my shop and was proud of what I'd built, but the market made for a nice change of pace twice a month.

I was always curious to see if I could find any clues about where or how people found me on social media. When I first launched, I paid for advertising to get my name out there, but eventually, I had enough presence and word of mouth that it helped sustain my business without needing to put ads up all over social media and local news resources.

Clicking on the profile, which had a very generic name— dmarten1 —there was exactly one post on their page from over a year ago. A man in a sharp suit, adjusting his tie, while looking down, so all you could see was a top profile of him, not enough to see his face. He followed four people and had the same number of followers. Yup…seems fishy to me .

My first instinct was to block this person, but when my account was also my business, I couldn't simply block random people; you never knew if they might be potential customers. I'd learned a long time ago that I was under no obligation to follow back. If I got a creepy message or anything that felt off, I could block him then .

Leaving the spammer's page, I spent a few minutes scrolling, watching some of my favorite floral artists. There was one guy that I loved to watch. He made all kinds of arrangements based on different themes. Flowers to match certain books, shows, and characters. He came up with some incredible combinations that were stunning and matched so perfectly what he was trying to convey. There really was no end to what you could create with natural materials.

I got another notification, and when I checked it, it was a like from dmarten1 . Out of curiosity, I clicked on the post that he liked and was baffled when it was one from a few months back. Me, standing in front of the Sea of Sunflowers at the Carlsbad Flower Fields . Harper insisted he take me. Having grown up in San Diego, it was somewhere he'd been a few times and knew I would love it. And I did; it was absolutely breathtaking to see in person. I'd only driven past it, but I had never stopped or inquired about admission.

The photo was one of my favorites; there I was with my magenta hair blowing all over the place, but my smile was a mile wide, just overcome by the beauty of the thousands of tall sunflowers behind me. I scrolled up on my account to see how many other posts he had gone past to get to this one. The answer? A lot. I gave up on thumbing through posts. I'd tried to make it a habit to post regularly, if not every single day, at least five times a week .

A mix of caution and a strange swirl of excitement ran through me as I thought of this as the single picture that caught the man's attention enough to react to it. I waited and waited to see if there would be another random like in my old posts, but nothing else came from that account.

Was it a red flag? Maybe. But I decided to leave it alone for now. After allowing myself fifteen more minutes for a social media break, I got back to cleaning. I'd left my dance partner alone for too long.