I freeze on the spot by the kitchen door. “Say again?”
“Jesse Lee. You’ve gone and fallen in love with him, despite all my warnings.”
I turn slowly toward her. “Shut up, Kay.” I sit back down, my vision blurring. Awesome. And here I thought I had no more tears to shed. “I’m not in love with him.”
“Not what the cup tells me.” If she’s noticed my tears, she doesn’t give any signs. She turns the cup in her hands slowly. “Here is the heart, and it’s a double one. Man, I really wish we had Turkish coffee, this filtered stuff is crap for reading fortunes.”
I laugh, choking on tears. “Whatever.”
“It’s fuzzy. Not easy to work with. I mean, look here.” She points with her little finger at a smudge inside the cup. “See that? I can’t be sure, but it looks like a cat.”
“A cat.” This is stupid, but it’s a good distraction. “Really.”
“Yeah. See the tail? And I think…” She gasps. “No, it’s not a cat. It’s a lion.”
My turn to gasp. That’s a funny coincidence. I think again at the pendant I wanted to give Jesse, still tucked inside my purse—the stone lion I carved.
“No idea what a lion means,” she muses, frowning, twirling one pigtail around a finger. “Anyway. I also see a conflict. A collision. See here, this explosion thingy. You will collide with something from your past. And here… I see flowers. Roses, most probably.”
“Most probably?” I arch my brows, suspicious. “What are you up to, girl?”
“Me?” She does a terrible show of innocence, fluttering her lashes, widening her eyes and pressing her hand to her chest. “How low you think of me.”
“And enough of historical series, or whatever it is you’re watching.” I finally gather myself together and stalk out of the kitchen, thinking to grab a shower and do something productive for a change. Take my mind off things.
Off him.
“The flowers are already here!” she yells after me. “They arrived earlier this morning, and I had nothing to do with them.” A pause while I turn back around. “But I did see them in the cup. Oh ye of little faith.”
***
“Who would send me roses?” I grumble as I trail after Kayla into the living room.
“Jesse Lee?”
“No. Jesse has trouble shopping.”
“Seriously? He doesn’t have to go out and buy the flowers himself, only call and give his credit card number.”
But he said he doesn’t have a bank account. He said he keeps his money in his room.
“And they’re white roses,” she says, lifting the bouquet from the sofa. “Who’d buy you white roses?”
My hands tremble as I grab the small envelope stuck on the bouquet and tear it open. I withdraw the small white card.
“Embers,” it reads in scratchy, crooked handwriting that I doubt belongs to the florist’s employee. “You’re the only girl I’d ever kiss.”
Holy crap. It’s from him. Which means he went out and shopped… Which means he wrote this note.
Which means he remembered what I told him at the wedding.
My head hurts.
“Are they from him, then?” Kayla appears behind me, and I yelp and manage not to drop the roses in the last moment. “Jesse?”
“Yes.” I hand them to her, not sure what I want to do with them. With his note. His gesture.
“Well, see? I told you. Double hearts.” She smells the roses. “I guess we should expect snow.”