Hold the Forevers

“I remember. I love you.”

“Make good choices.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I joked and then hung up.

I finished off my hair and makeup and went downstairs to the first floor of my new apartment. “Hey!”

Cole stood at the front door. We’d exchanged keys at the start of the semester, which felt like a big step. One that I reveled in. He was dressed to impress, changing out of his everyday athletic attire into khakis, a blue button-up, and dress shoes. He carried a bouquet of bright yellow perennial sunflowers in his hands. The head of the flower was so much smaller than what most people usually thought of when a sunflower popped into their head. They were almost more daisy-like. And also my favorite flower.

“Oh my God! These are my fav. How did you even know?”

He grinned. “I might have had help.”

“Well, stop it! It’s too much.”

I took the bouquet and drew in the sweet scent. I loved that these flowers bloomed for literal weeks. My mom had planted them in our garden when I was a kid, and I’d gotten to watch them grow year after year.

“They’re perfect. Let me put them in water.”

He followed me into the kitchen as I pulled down a vase. I filled it with water as I braced myself for the next conversation. Once I put the flowers in the water, I faced him. “So, I need to talk to you.”

He arched his eyebrows. “That sounds ominous.”

“It’s not!” I assured him quickly. “Promise. It’s just, this weekend when I was at Duke with Mars, I ran into my ex-boyfriend, Ash.”

“Okay?” Cole stilled, his face contemplative and cautious.

“His girlfriend wanted to come up to Georgia for the game this weekend and asked if she could crash at my apartment. I guess everything is already booked.”

“It’s Bama. That makes sense.”

“Yeah. So, I told her it was fine if they crashed here. Is that fine with you?”

Cole wrapped his arms around my waist and tugged me close. “I don’t know. Should I be concerned?”

“Definitely not.” I stood tall on my tiptoes and kissed his lips.

“Well, good. If there’s nothing going on between you and your ex and he’s showing up with his new girlfriend, then it’s not a big deal. It’s not like you’re still into him.”

I chewed my lip. Right. I wasn’t still into him. “I wanted to run it by you first.”

“I trust you,” he told me, lacing our fingers together. Music to my ears and also terrible nerves erupted in my stomach to be given the trust so easily, knowing how complicated things were with Ash. “Now, let’s go. My friend is only going to wait so long.”

I released a breath. I needed to let it all go. This wasn’t the same as before. I’d been worrying all weekend about Cole’s reaction, but it had been fine. It was fine.

“Okay. Remind me again what we’re doing,” I said once we were in his Jeep, heading out of town.

“A friend of mine is a photographer. She needed some models to take pictures for this idea she had. I kind of volunteered us.”

“All right. Not a problem. Do you know what the aesthetic is?”

He grinned like he was keeping a secret. Something I’d realized was that he desperately loved to surprise me. The flowers were one in a long litany of surprises that he’d planned and executed.

“You’ll see,” was his only response.

And I did see.

I nearly shrieked with delight when he parked his Jeep next to his friend’s Ford truck. The aesthetic his friend was going for was sunflowers. The perennial sunflowers he’d given me earlier was actually my clue. God, I loved him.

I jumped out of the Jeep and stared in wide-eyed wonder. The field before us was completely covered in the yellow blooms. Bright and bursting with life, like I could run for miles through the field of my favorite flowers.

“I see you approve,” Cole said, slipping his hands into his pockets with a self-satisfied grin.

“You volunteered us because of this.” My hand swept out to the field.

He nodded. “I knew they were your favorite.”

“I never told you though.”

“I pay attention. You freaked out about them in your mom’s garden on one of my visits to Savannah this summer.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Your mom told me they were your favorite.”

“Of course she did.”

“She totally winked at me, too.”

I practically cackled. “That is so my mom.”

“Hey!” a chirpy voice said as she hopped out of her truck. She was a curvy girl with waist-length curls, smooth brown skin, and makeup I’d kill to be able to put on. “I’m Annabelle Rodriguez. You must be Lila.”

“I am,” I said, shaking her hand.

“It’s such a pleasure to meet you. You two look perfect for this shoot. Gah, I can’t wait to get started.” She grinned up at Cole. “Thank God we took that photography class together a year ago.”