“This is incredible, Fox.” She looks at him, awestruck. “You should be really proud of yourself.”

“Hmm.” But he’s smiling. “Let me give you the tour. This is the showroom, I guess. I don’t have a better name for it. There’ll be someone out here during business hours.”

“You have staff?”

“I have a sister and volunteers, for now.”

“Gotcha.” Joy laughs.

Fox guides her to the left into a room about half the size of the showroom packed with tables, equipment, and a projector screen. “This is the classroom. I’m going to teach here every other Saturday. Nothing major—a couple of rotating items for fun. You know how you can go take a pottery class? Same idea. They’ll get to make something small to take home with them at the end of class.”

“If you’re trying to impress me, it’s working.”

They leave the classroom, proceeding back the way they came and straight past the showroom. “This is the storage room, for overflow, duplicates, returns, that kind of thing. I was thinking about making it into a small break room at some point.”

It’s much smaller than the other two rooms, with all kinds of items haphazardly strewn about. Fox leads her to the back of the shop, where there’s a door propped open. “And this is the private back area.”

Joy stops in the doorway, eyes wide and feeling mighty suspicious. Three circular wooden tables with two chairs each are spread out under a canopy. Everything is covered in white string lights and what has to be hundreds of mini multicolored flowers—wound around the tent poles, hanging from the ceiling like wisteria, and sprinkled all over the ground.

She narrows her eyes. “What’s all this? This is very un-Fox-like.”

“That’s the point.” Fox is standing in the middle of the canopy. “I’m not very romantic. I don’t . . . This isn’t . . .” He huffs in frustration. “Speeches and talking about my feelings aren’t really my style. But very, very quickly you changed a lot for me, Joy. I know you love Malcolm.” He pauses, rubbing his palms along the sides of his pants. “So I’m here to plead my case.”

“Your case?”

“For why I think you should be with me.”

Joy’s hand shoots out, gripping the back of the nearest chair. She covers her mouth with her free hand to make sure she doesn’t embarrass herself because she’s absolutely on the brink of losing it. This is so close to Alleged Romantic Bucket List item number three she might burst into tears.

“Umm.” Fox wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “I’m a little nervous. Bear with me, please. Summer recommended I write everything down first.” He pulls out a piece of paper from a dark blue journal sitting on the table next to him.