Mack stood and ruffled his ears. “My boy always gets an ice cream, don’t worry.”

Mack winked before walking away and made Flora’s heart flutter. What was happening to her?

This was new territory for Flora.

* * *

Mack and Flora spent a few hours at the park, then began to stroll back to Flora’s house. It had been as nice an afternoon as Mack could remember. When she had lain in bed at night, while in jail, it wasn’t nights at The Deep that she’d longed for. It was something like today, with Dexter and someone special.

Flora was special. She was beautiful, and she didn’t even know it, which made her even more special. Dexter was tired, and Flora carried him home in her arms, and that made Mack feel things she never had before.

But maybe Flora could only be her friend. Would Flora ever want someone like her?

Mack made a joke and Flora laughed at her bad humour, as they walked into the driveway of her house. Mack stopped by the entrance to the driveway to let Dexter have a sniff around. She spotted something on the windscreen of Flora’s car.

“What’s that?”

Flora walked over and looked at the paper, then up at the windows of the house. Mack followed her gaze up and saw two young guys at the open window. They jeered, said some disgusting things, and then one of them with darker hair used a Super Soaker water gun to shoot at Flora’s head, while the other filmed it with his phone.

Flora stood, clearly paralyzed with fear, and then ran to her door, opened it quickly, and ran in crying. Mack felt a cold fury rise up inside her. She caught the eye of one of the laughing students, and Mack was sure he could see the ice in her eyes as he stopped laughing immediately, pushed his friend back, and shut the window tightly.

Was this the intimidation Flora was going through? Mack hated bullies, detested them, but doing that to someone as gentle and kind as Flora was a different level of disgusting. She would be dealing with them, but first of all she had to check on Flora.

“Come on, Dex. We need to look after Flo.”

She walked through the front door and found Flora sitting on the floor with her hands over her ears and her heart breaking. It was a shock to see Flora so upset. Her heart broke for her, and she hurried over to Flora and fell to her knees. She put her arms around Flora and pulled her head underneath her own chin.

“I’m here, Flo. You don’t have to worry. I’ll keep you safe.”

Flora grasped on to her frantically, as if trying to hold on to the safety that Mack offered.

“Take deep breaths. No one can hurt you,” Mack said.