Maybe This Time(23)

I pointed to Micah. “Just the one, really.”

He laughed.

Micah shoved my shoulder and shook her head. “No, really. I’ve already added you to the friend column on my spreadsheet, so it’s set in stone.”

“Spreadsheet?” he asked.

“Yes, it helps me keep track of people. There are a whole one hundred fifty-three students in the ninth through twelfth section of our school. I like to keep them organized.” She smiled. “There’s the friends-only category. Then there are students who are good at certain subjects and willing to take notes. The guys I’ve already dated and the ones I can’t date because my best friend has dated them.”

I was 99 percent sure this spreadsheet didn’t exist and she was just being funny.

Andrew turned his gaze on me. “In a town this small, you still have the best-friend’s-exes-are-off-limits rule?”

“Of course.” Micah looked back to the yellow paper and then at me, and I was suddenly wondering why I had agreed to this.

“Soph, how do you react when angry?”

Andrew let out a scoff. “I got biggest fear and she gets that question?”

“Everyone reacts differently when they’re angry,” Micah said. “It can say a lot about a person.”

“I think I’ve seen her angry enough to know exactly how she reacts,” Andrew said. “I say she has to answer the fear question too. Both of you do.”

“No,” I said at the same time Micah said, “Okay.”

“Traitor,” I shot at her.

“He’s right. It’s fair. Biggest fear, Soph.”

“Yes, spill it, Soph,” he said.

There was a pounding on the back of the van door and I jumped. The doors were flung open and Jett Hart stood there. First, he gave me the coldest look in the history of looks, then he said, “Drew, let’s go.”

Andrew didn’t argue or try to score an extra few minutes. He just slid out of the van and walked away.

As they got into an expensive black car and drove off, Micah sighed. “Is he your biggest fear?”

“Jett Hart?”

“No, the younger one.”

“Absolutely not. He’s my biggest pain.” I stared out at the now-empty parking lot. “My biggest fear is that I’ll never get out of this town.” That I could never make it anywhere else but here.





ROSE

Hands down the most recognizable and popular flower. Maybe it’s its intoxicating scent or velvety texture that inspires hundreds of poets to compare it to love and beauty, but whatever the case, it’s overrated, just like its comparisons. People seem to forget about the thorns.





I stood in the master bedroom of an old colonial-style house. The Stanton Estate was the only wedding location in town that wasn’t a church … or a barn. I watched as Minnie made a last-minute alteration to Janet’s wedding dress while Janet sat on a chair in her white silk robe. Minnie was sitting at the desk with her sewing kit and the classic white gown spread out before her. My fingers itched to do the alteration myself, because I would’ve been a lot faster. But instead I gripped the box that contained Janet’s bouquet and waited my turn.

“Are you giving Minnie a dirty look?” Micah whispered from next to me. She was also waiting her turn. She had a question to ask about the menu and we’d realized quickly that Janet couldn’t focus on more than one thing at a time. Considering the ceremony was supposed to start in less than two hours, I understood. But also, Minnie wouldn’t let us get a word in edgewise. She was talking and talking about whatever seemed to pop into her brain—the tractor that had been sitting on the side of Holiday Road for days, the graduation ceremony at the high school two weeks ago, how the Harris boy who’d received Mr. Washington’s scholarship was going to Alabama State, and how good of a football team they had.

“Yes, I am,” I said.

“She’s like seventy,” Micah said.

“There’s an age requirement for who I can give dirty looks to?”

“Yes. Besides. I thought you were over that.”

“She is the only person in town with any clothing-design experience and she wouldn’t give me a job. I will never be over it.”

Micah laughed, and then threw her hand over her mouth when Minnie looked back at her. “Sorry,” she said, and Minnie got back to work. Micah lowered her voice again. “She already has an employee who has worked there for a hundred years and it’s not like she does anything more than alterations. You can do those in your sleep.”

“I know … but it would’ve looked good on my applications.” I sighed. And I could’ve sat at a sewing machine all day instead of staring at flowers. I lifted the bouquet box. “It would’ve given me inspiration. I need inspiration.”

“Is your portfolio giving you issues? Maybe if it wasn’t a huge mess of jumbled pages and random pieces of trash, you’d have a freer mind.”

I gasped. “Trash? There is no trash in my notebook. And that’s how I work best. In chaos.”

“Sophie?” Janet said when Minnie paused in her talking. Janet was staring out the window into the backyard, where workers were scurrying about, preparing for the event. “I think it’s going to rain. It’s not supposed to rain. The sun is supposed to be setting, the heat is supposed to be evaporating, and this is supposed to be the perfect wedding day.”