Rowan didn’t answer me. He instead put down the tools he was using and strode over to me, taking my face in his hands and kissing me hard and quick.

“Hi,” he mumbled against my lips.

“Hi,” I whispered, forgetting myself for a moment.

“This is your gentle reminder that you have an audience,” Kip called from somewhere behind us.

I stifled a groan and tried to step back, having in fact forgotten that Kip was there.

Rowan’s palms moved to my hips, keeping me in place, close to him.

I knew trying to fight him wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Plus, I liked his hands on me. I’d missed him. In the scant few hours we’d been apart, I’d already begun missing him. A lot.

That scared me. Polluted the warmth that had settled deep in my belly. I’d learned that good feelings were fleeting, unable to be trusted. Something bad was always on the horizon. That’s why I worried. If I didn’t have something to worry about, it meant something bad was coming soon. So, I always had something to worry about, even if it was a made-up terminal illness.

“What are you doing?” I asked again, doing my best to push those fears away.

“Building your Practical Magic greenhouse,” he answered, as if it were obvious.

I blinked at him. “You’re building my greenhouse?”

He hummed in confirmation. “Kip’s got the plans. You want to alter them, let me know. But it’s gonna get cold soon, so I want this done for you before winter sinks its teeth in.”

He squinted at the house. “Got as close as I could to the layout in the movie, having made some adjustments.”

I struggled to comprehend this. “I told you about this last night.”

His lip twitched. “I was there.”

“I told you about this last night, and today, the next day, you’re just… building me a greenhouse?” I needed to ask the question out loud.

“Not gonna take too much time,” he shrugged. “Maybe a week. Two. We’re gonna spend a few hours after work each night, a full day on the weekends, an hour here and there whenever we’re between jobs.”

I just stared at him.

“You’re building me a greenhouse,” I repeated, but this time it wasn’t a question.

Rowan’s expression softened. “Yeah, cupcake. I am.”

I battled against the tears filling my eyes. I battled against the numerous emotions fighting for supremacy in my body right then.

The man I was kind of dating, the one I’d been attracted to for years, the one who had fucked me on the counter of my bakery earlier that day was now at my house. Building me a greenhouse.

How did one even begin to process that?

“I’m going to get a glass of wine,” I blurted out, turning then all but running from the area.

Rowan’s chuckle followed me.

* * *

Once the wine was opened and I’d downed the first glass in record time, I did the only thing I could do. I called the person I always reached out to when I didn’t know how to feel. When I was off-kilter, outside of myself.