Chapter Six

  555-582-5963: I just got If Nobody Talks. It’s a thriller. If you want to buddy read.

  That’s the first message I see when I wake up and it has me smiling ear to ear. I finally have a reading buddy.

  Me: Heading to the store today. I’d love to.

  It takes us three days to finish, and it’s been so much fun having someone to tell all my theories to as I read. He offered his own, one of which was similar to one of mine, but it turned out we were both wrong. After that, we read an obscure Sci-Fi book that neither of us liked a whole lot, but our next read was a spicy romance. I warned him but I don’t think he understood just how much sex would be in it until he started stumbling over his thoughts when he texted me.

  He never brings up his girlfriend, but we also never cross any lines. We’re strictly in a two person book club and we haven’t even exchanged names. Before I know it, almost two months go by and we’re still chatting about books.

  One day as I’m at the grocery store, I run into Julian.

  “Hey, stranger,” I say with a small smile. “How are you settling in?”

  His eyes widen and his smile grows. I don’t miss the way his eyes roam my body. “I’m pretty settled. How about you? Is it almost time for the new school year to start?”

  “Yeah, almost,” I reply, both happy and surprised he remembered my job as a teacher.

  “Big plans for tonight?” he questions, nodding toward my box of popcorn, bag of chocolate, and ingredients for homemade nachos.

  I chuckle. “Yeah. It’s movie night at the Cruz household. A new Netlfix movie is out and it’s based on a book series I read a while back, so I’m excited.”

  “Which series is that?”

  I bite into my bottom lip. “Uh. It’s about a woman who’s normally been very careful in life having a near death experience and then coming to terms with the fact that you only live once and should live life to the fullest.”

  His brows draw in like he’s trying to remember if he’s heard of it. Once his eyes widen, I know he has. His laugh is deep and husky. “Oh. The woman who finds a man to sleep with that meets every fantasy she’s ever had. The cowboy, the CEO, the stripper. Is that right?”

  I laugh. “I described it way better.”

  He lifts his chin, a wide smile on his face. “Mm.”

  “Did you read the books?”

  He shakes his head. “No, but I’ve heard about the movie. It sounds like it might be interesting.”

  I open my mouth and then close it again, my eyes breezing over his face before I pretend to search the shelf.

  “Do you want to come watch it at my place?” he asks. “I just have to ask you don’t judge my apartment. It’s not fully done yet.”

  “You sure?” I ask with a smile.

  “I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t sure.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay,” he says with a grin. “Let me get my own snacks and then we can be on our way.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Twenty-five minutes later we’re in his kitchen finishing the nachos. Almost two hours after that the movie is over and the tension is thick. We just watched at least an hours’ worth of sex scenes while we sat next to each other on the couch.

  He gets up to take some stuff to the kitchen and I excuse myself to the bathroom. Near the doorway leading to the hallway is his bookshelf which I, of course, have to look over. I’ve read a handful of these books, but it’s when I come across Stars Near Mars that I almost stop breathing. That’s the Sci-Fi book I read with my book buddy. It’s not a popular book and not that well-rated. Not many people would have it on their shelves. My eyes frantically scan the rest of the books and I find every other book I’ve read with my digital penpal.

  I rush to the bathroom and try to figure out how to find out for sure and what to do about it. My phone friend said he had a girlfriend but Julian doesn’t. At least I don’t think he does. He could’ve started a new relationship but why would he invite me over?

  After I’m done, I take my phone from my pocket and send Book Buddy a message.

  Me: What’re you doing?

  I wait at the end of the hall, watching him move around in the kitchen. Seconds later his phone goes off. It could still be a coincidence. I watch him type and then my eyes drop to my screen where a bubble pops up.

  I decide to come out of hiding and make my way to the kitchen. When he sends the message, he looks up at me and smiles and then my phone goes off.

  Book Buddy: Just got done watching a movie. You? Did you pick our next book yet?

  It doesn’t register right away. He smiles at me and says, “Want a drink?”

  I nod slowly, unsure of what to say. I respond to his message.

  Me: Do you have wine?

  When his phone goes off, he apologizes to me and then reads the message. His brows furrow and then he locks eyes on me.

  “You. You’re…who I’ve been talking to?”

  I put my phone down on the counter and wipe my palms down the sides of my jeans. “I guess so. And you’re Book Buddy.”

  He smirks at that. “That’s what you saved me as?”

  “What did you save me as?” I ask.

  “Sweet Fate.”

  I laugh a little. “Makes sense.” I take a second to think before I say, “You told me you had a girlfriend.”

  “Did I?” he asks.

  “I asked if a girlfriend was why you started reading romance and you said yeah.”

  “I said kind of, and that’s because it was my ex. Not because she told me to, but I was reading them to see if I could get more insight on women.”

  He blushes and my smile stretches across my lips. “So you’re not dating?”

  “I’m kind of on a date right now.”

  I grin, going silent for a while. “But you’re actually funny.”

  He crosses his arms and leans against his counter. “What do you mean actually?”

  “You just didn’t seem so…” I trail off, not sure how to finish without coming off insulting.

  “Don’t they say not to judge people until you get to know them?” he teases.

  “You’re right. I definitely thought you were a cocky jerk.”

  “I’ve been both,” he says with a shrug. “But we grow, and like I said, that was a bad day to meet me. I tried making it up but you were intent on ignoring me and going after my best friend.”

  I slap a hand on my forehead. “Can we not?”

  He comes around the breakfast bar and grabs my wrist, lowering my hand and looking in my eyes.

  “I wanted to ask for your number before we left the mall. I thought about it all through lunch. I even almost asked for more information from you when we were texting. I thought multiple times that I had potentially found someone I could be friends with.” He strokes the back of my hand with his thumb. “I’ve never been the guy to have a friendship foundation, which is why all of my relationships haven’t worked out. And that night when I was being an idiot you said something that struck me. You said you didn’t care about my body and preferred that I had a good personality or sense of humor. You wanted someone to offer you something intellectually, and I’ve never been with a girl who said anything like that. My ex told me my body was all that I had to offer, but she didn’t see everything else I was giving her because she only cared about the things I couldn’t.” He sighs. “At the mall, I didn’t want to rush. I had some healing to do and you didn’t deserve the person I would’ve been then. I’m not saying I’m perfect now, but I’ve come to terms with a lot of things, and now that I know you’re the person I’ve been texting, it’s only more obvious we deserve to give this a chance.” He pauses. “If you want.”

  I laugh a little, shifting on my feet and holding onto his pinky. “I did find the book that brought us to each other in The Lucky Find.”

  “And I had just donated it because I dropped a lot off when I first got here. Plus, the book is called Sweet Fate.”

  “It’s almost like it was meant to be.”

  He leans in, bending slightly as his mouth descends onto mine. Our lips meet in a soft kiss, but it’s not long before our breaths come heavier and our hands begin to roam each other’s bodies.

  Epilogue

  “We’ve been together for six months today,” Julian says from the other end of the couch. “You know what that means, right?”

  I lower my book and look at him. “Please tell me you don’t want to move in here.”

  He squeezes my feet that are in his lap. “No,” he says with a laugh.

  I giggle. “What does six months mean?”

  He moves my feet off of him and slowly crawls between my legs, taking the book and gently putting it on the floor. Holding himself above me, he peers into my eyes and says, “It means I can say I love you.”

  I gasp, my heart racing in my chest. “I didn’t know we had to wait until six months.”

  “I didn’t want to scare you away.”

  “How long have you felt this way?”

  He gives my lips a peck. “A little while.”

  I wrap my arms around his back. “Me too.”

  His lips curl up. “Yeah?”

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  As he peppers kisses along my cheek, neck, and collarbone, he murmurs his plans. “So, to celebrate this momentous occasion, I’m going to cook a meal for us, then get you tipsy with your favorite wine, and finally I’ll take you to bed where I’ll make love to you until your legs are quivering.

  I cradle his face and bring his lips to mine. “How about you make love to me now, and then again later?”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  About the Author

  Isabel Lucero is a bestselling author, finding joy in giving readers books for every mood. Though born in a small town in New Mexico, Isabel currently lives in Delaware with her family. When not completely lost in the world of her next WIP, she can be found reading, or in the nearest Target buying things she doesn't need.

  Isabel loves connecting with her readers and fans of books in general. You can find her on almost every platform.

  https://msha.ke/isabel__lucero

  Yellow Roses

  BY: ROBIN ANDREWS

  Chapter One

  Lily Solomon turned the sign hanging on the door to the Come in we’re open side and tuned the lock on the door. If it was like any typical Saturday, their first customer of the day would arrive within the next few minutes, and his standard order was already set aside in the cooler.

  Oh, they never wrapped it in the tissue paper until he arrived, just in case. But not once had he missed a Saturday. Rain or shine, snow or heat wave, he was there to pick up the flowers. She had never asked him who the roses were for, but in her romantic mind, the yellow roses were probably for his wife while the single smaller pink rose was for their daughter. Lily assumed Sebastian most likely was a really great husband and a very special dad. He wanted the little girl to feel his love just as much as his wife did. At least that was what she assumed. She didn’t really know anything about him; she only knew his name because he used his credit card to pay.

  Someday, she hoped she would find a man as romantic as Mr. Trent. She had managed this shop for the last five years since her parents had retired and given her the deed to the property. She grew up working at the shop, though. When she was little, she would play here after school and on Saturdays. Her parents set up a place in the back room where she could play, as she gotten older, it had transitioned into a place that she could study and hang out with friends.

  Ever since her parents retired and moved to Florida, she had been the owner and sole proprietor of The Forget Me Not flower shop. It was kind of a silly name in Lily’s opinion, but her parents had named it that when they bought the shop shortly after they had married. They had owned the shop longer than she had been alive, so she couldn’t bring herself to change the name. Besides, everyone in town knew the shop. Most likely if she changed the name everyone would still call it what they had known it as for years. People were often set in their ways like that.

  She heard the sound of the bell that hung on the door and looked up to see the man she had just been thinking about making his way to the counter where she stood.

  “Good morning, here for your usual?” Lily asked.

  “Uh, yeah,” Sebastian said, distractedly.

  It was odd. Lily never thought that he looked happy to be here picking up flowers, so she had never asked him about them. She was dying to know if she was right about who they were for, but it wasn’t really her place to ask, so she just made her way to the cooler. She wrapped them in tissue paper and took his credit card when he handed it to her. All in all, the transaction took less than five minutes. He always acted so far away to her. Like maybe he was really busy and didn’t have time to stop and smell the roses, as the saying went. He took the time to buy them, but he didn’t take time to smell them. Oh well, it absolutely was not her business, and she needed to move on with the rest of her day. A part of her wondered if he felt he was obligated to buy the roses. Like maybe he had started it years ago and now he felt like he had to do it or they would be disappointed. He never seemed like it was a fun thing for him and he never deviated from the exact same things. It could have been that he just bought them so whoever it was wouldn’t think he didn’t love them anymore. If that was the case, Lily felt sad for him. Buying gifts or flowers should always be a happy thing in her opinion, but he never seemed to live up to that thought.

  As Sebastian left, she heard her assistant Bethany come in through the back door. She came rushing through the doorway that lead to the back room with an apology. “Sorry I’m running late. The morning was crazy.”

  “It’s okay, I appreciate you coming in early to cover me,” Lily said. “I need to get over to the cemetery before too late. I usually try to go on Friday, but you know this week has been crazy with that huge wedding we had to set up for. I was just too tired to try to go last night. Besides, it would have been too dark to do the cleanup.” Anytime there had been a funeral during the week, Lily went to the cemetery to clean up any dead flowers that had been left behind. She usually tried to do it Friday after her shop closed so that visitors to the cemetery didn’t have to see all the wilted flowers. If there wasn’t a funeral that week, there was no reason for her to go. Most towns had a sexton or whatever to keep the cemetery tidy, but this town was so small that they didn’t have a full time person. They hired someone to dig a grave when needed and usually paid high school kids to do the mowing, but no one really tended to it on a regular basis.

  She had only been doing it for the last six months or so. She had often heard people in town remarking on how ugly it was to see the wilted flowers, so she had taken it upon herself to go and clean them up. After all, most if not all of those arrangements had come from her shop. Sometimes she could even repurpose a vase or basket. She never used them again in the shop, but she sometimes made decorations for her home. On a few occasions, when she knew that a spouse had purchased the arrangement, she tried to recreate it with silk flowers and then took it back to the cemetery so it could mark the grave for months to come.

  As Lily drove into the cemetery, she could see a lone car one lane over. She drove down the small path, the car looked familiar, but she couldn’t place it. It was a small town; it was probably someone that she knew. When Lily got out of her car, she noticed the solitary figure getting out of his vehicle and walking across the tombstone-filled lawn. She hadn’t really been in that section of the cemetery before. That section had been full, so no funerals had happened there since she had been coming to do her cleanup. She recognized the figure immediately though; it was Sebastian Trent, and he was carrying the flowers he had picked up from her shop. In the other hand, he had a cup of coffee from the local café.

  Lily tried not to be too obvious., but she wanted to know where he was going, she made her way to a large tree that would give her a hiding spot of sorts. Lily watched as he took the single pink rose from the tissue and placed it on a grave with an angel head stone. He then took the remaining flowers to the marker in the shape of a heart. He removed the tissue, wadded it up and put it in his pocket. He laid the flowers down, and then he knelt on the ground facing the two headstones and held his cup between his hands as if to warm himself with its heat. The morning was quiet and still, Lily could hear his words.

  “Hey, angel, hey Olivia.” He paused before continuing, “I came to see my two favorite girls. I miss you so much. My parents keep telling me that I need to move on and live my life again. But I don’t think I know how to do that. I stopped telling them that I come here on Saturdays. I think it makes them sad to know about it so I just don’t tell them. Anyway, I had a good week; I worked a lot of overtime. I guess I do that because I don’t want to go home to that big empty house.” He continued to talk and sip his coffee, but Lily felt like she was intruding on a private moment, so she quietly made her way back to the fresh graveside that needed to be cleaned and began loading the wilted floral arrangements into the small van.

  Lily found herself wiping away the tears that had pooled in her eyes. She had been right: The flowers were for his wife and his daughter, just not in the way that she had assumed. Lily couldn’t imagine the pain that he had to have felt at losing them both. She didn’t remember hearing about an accident or anything that had claimed the two lives—maybe they had been ill. Whatever it was that had taken them from him was a very cruel twist of fate in Lily’s opinion. She mentally added Sebastian to her list of people that she would pray for. She would pray that he could someday find peace and maybe even find love again in time. She knew that the best thing she could do was to pray for him, but she was also determined to try to at least become his friend. He seemed so alone kneeling there talking to their graves.