Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 138881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138881 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 694(@200wpm)___ 556(@250wpm)___ 463(@300wpm)
I stop maybe a hundred feet away and try to think.
Corbin strides out, says something to the guys, then laughs, but the sound cuts off when he turns my way.
“Just set it up in the corner,” he tells someone. “Back in a minute.”
He jogs to me, concern etched in his thoughtful eyes, like he already knows everything that’s happening in my head, like he can read all my feelings on my face.
“What’s wrong, Firecracker?” he asks when he reaches me.
The new nickname settles some of my spiraling thoughts. “Did you just call me firecracker?”
“Seems about right for you.” His eyes narrow as he assesses me, then he reaches for my shoulders, squeezing them. His gaze burns, intense, like he’d destroy anybody who hurt me. “Mabel? What happened?”
The question is urgent, insistent.
“It’s stupid,” I say quietly.
“It’s not stupid.”
“It is. I’ll be fine,” I say, trying to swallow the hurt—a hurt I brought on myself.
“Mabel,” he says, his voice a warning.
“I swear.”
He glances over his shoulder then back to me, his eyes alight with a plan. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
22
HE HAD IT BAD
MABEL
He jogs to the firehouse, ducks his head in, and then returns to me in less than a minute. “There’s something I want to show you.”
“What is it?”
“Something I think you’ll enjoy. Seems like you need it right now.”
My chest warms. “I do. Thank you.”
He rubs my arm. “I had a feeling.”
I push the knitting club and my mother out of my head as we get in his car.
He drives to a little flower and plant store on the outskirts of town. Its face is made of white bricks, and the name, Enchanted Blooms, is written in a wistful script on the gleaming window.
When we reach the door, Corbin pauses, then swallows like what he’s about to say is uncomfortable for him. “It’s…wisteria. The color of the door.”
I stare at the color…and he’s dead on. The door is painted a soft, delicate shade of purple. “How did you know?” I ask, my voice pitching up with wonder.
“The owner is a friend of my mom’s. I went in here the other day to pick up a plant.”
That doesn’t explain how he knows, but I keep listening.
“And I could tell that everything in here was some kind of…” He pauses, waves like he’s casting about for what to say next. “Pretty color. But I didn’t know what. I just knew you’d probably want to see it. Do you want me to show you?”
My breath catches. “Yes.” I’m more eager than I’ve ever been to bake, to read, to spend time with friends.
I want this color tour badly.
He takes me inside the little shop, where a big orange tabby sleeps lazily in a sunbeam on the floor. An elegant, older woman with Black braids gives a warm nod from the counter.
I smile back, then look around. There are kelly green, emerald green, and forest green plants hanging from shelves or sitting on little tables with mosaiced tiles on them. Corbin guides me to one in the corner. Like foreign words he’s practicing for the first time, he says, “That’s robin’s-egg blue.”
“It is,” I say, breathless. “Like the—”
“Mirror in the hallway in your apartment.”
He remembered the shade he couldn’t really see. “Yes. Exactly,” I confirm.
With a pleased nod, he gestures to another plant table. “And this is sunshine yellow.”
I’m stunned. “Yes. It’s bright and happy.”
He gives a faint smile. “I’ll trust you on that.”
He sets a hand on the small of my back, sending a hot shiver up my spine as he leads me a few feet to a shelf full of terracotta pots.
“I had a feeling you’d love this place, so I asked Annabelle,” he says, tipping his forehead to the woman at the counter, “the color of everything in the store. I wrote them all down to remember them, and where they were. I wanted to give you the tour myself so I needed to learn the colors to show them to you.” His smile is warm and kind. “I was going to do it soon, but it seemed like maybe you needed to see it today.”
My heart stutters, then speeds up to double time. He did this for me. Learned and memorized so he could share it with me. Just because I love places like this, colors like these. Emotions rise in my chest, climb up my throat. “I really do. Thank you.”
He shows me a pot at the end of the shelf. “This is teal blue.” The one next to it. “Baby pink.” Another one. “Cherry red.” He lowers his voice to a deadly whisper. “Like the paint.”
The memory slams back into me, hot and sharp. “Just like the paint.”
He takes me around the shop, showing me a sign for a wall that says All My Friends Are Plants. “Sage green.”