by Heron, Farah
I couldn’t look at him. I gazed out over the water. The pinks in the sky were dimming now, leaving the sky a dull gray. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” I said quietly.
“Tahira, please. You’re right. I’m sorry. I won’t go to the launch. I won’t see her again if you don’t want me to. We can make this exclusive. Just you and me.”
Unbelievable. “Let me guess. She doesn’t have as many followers as me. You’re realizing that you need me for my fashion platform more than you need this wannabe socialite for her invitations. Who else are you using to get ahead, Matteo?”
He glared at me, nostrils flaring. “Is that really what you think of me? After everything I did for you? All those photo shoots? Sending big influencers your way?”
I turned back to him. “You did nothing but use me. Nothing. If you honestly think those things are why I’m with you . . .” I shook my head. “Get away from me. In fact, get the hell out of this town.” I stood and pointed to his car. I was seeing red. I’d never been so angry. But I was at least clearheaded enough to add something else. “And by the way, I’m not giving you any of the pictures from today. And you don’t have my consent to post any photos of me on your Instagram again. Ever. If you do? I’ll report them. This relationship is over.”
“Jesus, Tahira. C’mon. Let me take you home. We can talk—”
“I’m not getting into a car with you. Get. The fuck. Out of my town.”
Matteo looked at me for a second like he didn’t want to leave me here. Finally, he shook his head. “You’re not who I thought you were. You’ll never get anywhere if you don’t learn to play the game. I’d be angry, but honestly? I feel sorry for you. What a waste of talent.” He headed down the path toward his car.
He drove away.
And me? I was alone in a park outside of fucking Bakewell. It was almost dark.
I sat back at the table and cried.
12
THE UNLIKELY KNIGHT IN T-SHIRT ARMOR
It took me about three minutes of sitting alone with my tears to regret banishing Matteo from Bakewell. I didn’t regret dumping his cheating ass, but maybe I should have let him take me home first, because now I was stuck here in this damn park in the middle of nowhere. How was I going to get back to town?
Think, think, think . . . not about how the person I thought knew me better than anyone had royally betrayed me. Not about how he was nothing but a social-climbing butt wipe willing to suck face with anyone who could kick-start his modeling career. He was cheating on me with someone for her . . . party invitations. Don’t think about that. Figuring out how to get home was a better use for my brain right now.
There were no Ubers in Bakewell—as far as I knew. I couldn’t call Shar because I didn’t want her telling Mom and Dad about this. They’d lecture me about choosing my friends wisely, and they’d suggest that if relationships were interfering with my ability to work, then maybe I needed to reevaluate my priorities. I didn’t want to call Gia, either, even though she could totally get her boo to pick me up. Gia was Matteo’s cousin, and a tiny part of me worried that she’d be on Matteo’s side since her family meant so much to her. But what worried me more was that Cameron would probably tell everyone I’d been cheated on. It was mortifying to think of everyone knowing my business, and I didn’t need gossip when I was so new here. I squeezed my eyes shut. If I were in the city, there’d be loads of people who could rescue me.
I sighed as I opened a call with Juniper. She didn’t drive, but she’d figure out how to get me home.
“Tahira! How was Niagara Falls? Did you go to that candy store I told you about? Last time I was there I bought this chai tea fudge that was to die for. I almost didn’t buy it because I totally get that ‘chai tea’ is redundant, but I’d never had tea in fudge before. I swear it was the best thing I have ever put into my mouth. Did—”
“Juniper, I’m stuck.”
“Stuck? Like with glue? LOL! Oh no, you’re not stuck at Niagara Falls, are you? That can’t be, because I just passed Gia at Hyacinth’s.”
“No, I’m stuck at that park near the nursery. The one with the pond?”
“You’re stuck at Bell’s Pond?”
“Yeah, Matteo and I were talking, and . . . he . . . left.” My voice cracked.
“Oh no, did you have a fight?”
I took a deep breath. “Sort of. I mean, if you call him telling me that he’s also seeing someone else a fight. Is there a cab company or any way I can get back into—”
“Shoot. I got you, Tahira. I’ll call Row. He probably just left the nursery.”
She hung up before I could tell her no, please anything but Plant-Boy. Ugh. Now Rowan Johnston was going to see me in this state. This day could go shove it.
I had no choice but to wait for my rescuer. And no choice but to think while I waited.
The sun had pretty much set, and the park was mostly empty, save for a few dog walkers and joggers. No sounds of people hanging out or talking, like if this were Toronto. Nothing to drown out my thoughts. Nothing to distract me from the realization that I was a complete idiot—at least when it came to guys.
This was on me. I mean, in hindsight, all the signs had been there from the beginning. Matteo slid into my DMs on Instagram only after I had a respectable following. Most of our conversations were about my fashion designs, or about his goals as a model and influencer. I hadn’t thought anything was wrong about that since it was what we had in common. We were both so committed to our goals—so why wouldn’t we talk about them?
But that wasn’t the only reason he was into me, was it? I hadn’t dated that much, but I thought I could at least tell when someone was sincere, and he seemed to genuinely care about me. I had no reason to think he didn’t consider us exclusive. I wiped away a tear.
This was the worst possible time for this to happen. How was I going to get through what was already proving to be an enormously hard summer without Matteo grounding me? Without him reassuring me that I could do this and keeping me focused on what was important—my Plan? I just didn’t have the mental bandwidth for a breakup right now. I took a long, shuddering breath. I needed to hold myself together. With or without Matteo, I needed to stay on course.
It was so weird to feel such relief to see Rowan Johnston, but my whole body relaxed when his old green car pulled into the parking lot. Hopefully he’d say something annoying and insensitive right away, which would distract me from how pissed off I was about Matteo.
I opened the door. “Hey,” I said. “Thanks . . . I mean, for coming to get me.”
He shrugged.
I got into the car. “I mean it: thank you for taking me home.”
“It’s no bother. I’m literally going to the same place.”
Rowan’s car was a clean older-model Subaru. Juniper had told me he’d bought it recently with his earnings from Wynter’s.
I buckled my seat belt. It was super weird that I knew so much about this family, thanks to Juniper’s chattiness, but Rowan himself was still mostly a mystery to me.
“Still . . . you didn’t have to turn around. Thanks,” I said.
He shrugged again and started the car. I leaned my head back against the headrest and cataloged all the blows life had thrown at me in the last few weeks. The bird in Paris. Losing my internship. Having to move to Bakewell. Shar rejecting my plan. And now Matteo cheating on me.
I wished I were home. Back in Toronto, not in the middle of nowhere in a car with a guy who hated me. If I’d never come to Bakewell, maybe none of this crap with Matteo would have even happened. Maybe we’d still be together.
That wouldn’t be a good thing, though. Because then I wouldn’t know he was using me. That he could be unfaithful just to get invitations to launch parties. I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want Rowan to see me cry.
I opened my eyes. “What’s on your shirt?” I asked, breaking the silence. I hadn’t noticed it when I got into the car, and I suddenly wanted to know what plant pun
he wore today.
“What?”
“Your T-shirt. What’s on it? An ironic cactus? Something floral?”
His eyes stayed focused on the road in front of him. “It says ‘Pothead,’ and there is a picture of flower—”
I snorted. “Flowerpots. I get it.”
I remembered Addison’s story from earlier about his family’s suspected grow-op. Clearly, it wasn’t that traumatic a memory if he was wearing a shirt that said “Pothead.” Or maybe he was a total badass and giving a subtle middle finger to whoever had reported him.
He was quiet for a moment before speaking. “You into my shirts or something? I wouldn’t have thought a fashionista would approve.”
“I’m intrigued. They seem out of character for you.”
I’d always found it fascinating when a person’s style didn’t match their personality. In my experience from working retail, it usually meant someone else was picking their clothes, which happened a lot at the boutique. Significant others or parents insisting they be the only ones to choose a customer’s clothes. It was that, or I hadn’t read the person as well as I thought I had.
He ran his hand absently over the shirt. As we passed under a streetlight, I could make out that it was pale blue with rich brown print and lettering. The same shade of brown I knew his eyes to be.
“Leanne bought me a few funny plant shirts a while ago, when we started working at the nursery,” he said. “And then, I dunno. I kept buying them for work. They make me laugh.”
So it was a combination of both. Leanne totally seemed like the ironic-shirt kind of person, so that made sense. But honestly? I wouldn’t have expected someone as grumpy as Rowan to want so much whimsy in his life. “For someone who calls me Thirst Trap, I’m surprised you wear such attention-seeking clothes.”
He snorted. “I wear them to make myself laugh, not for other people. I’m sure your slick boyfriend wouldn’t be caught dead in something like this, right?” There was something in his voice. Contempt?
Still, though. He’d come out here to fetch me when I was stuck.
“I do like your shirts,” I said. I bit my tongue. I didn’t like his shirts. Why did I say that? “And anyway,” I said, leaning my head against the window. “He’s not my boyfriend anymore. That’s why I was stranded there.”
Rowan frowned for a second, then huffed a laugh.
“Laughing at my breakup. Nice, Plant-Boy.”
“I’m not laughing at you.” He shook his head. “I broke up with someone at that pond once. It’s a coincidence.”
“Addison?”
He nodded.
Huh. So he had dumped Addison, not the other way around. After spending the day with Rowan’s ex, I kind of understood why he’d dated her. Sort of. Until lunch, Addison had been easygoing, helpful, and actually pretty cool. That story she told about arranging for Rowan to see a vineyard that wasn’t open to the public? As a plant nerd, he would have loved that. I’d honestly thought that maybe I’d been wrong about her. She wasn’t the town mean girl, just a bit . . . brash. She just needed to learn to think before speaking.
But then at lunch. Oh boy, did I see who she really was. Definitely a mean girl and a bully. Rowan was much too good for her. Good for him for breaking up with her.
Rowan drove silently for a bit, then asked, “Were you the dumpee or the dumper tonight?”
I shook my head. “I . . . I don’t even know.”
“Never mind,” he said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t butt in.”
I waved my hand. “No, no, it’s fine. Actually, I could use a guy’s opinion on this.” I sighed. “He admitted he’s seeing someone else in Toronto. Going to product launches and that sort of stuff. He claimed he and I were never exclusive, anyway, so I couldn’t be mad, and that he wanted to give me the heads-up before I saw pictures of them together.”
“Were you exclusive?”
“I mean, I thought we were. We never discussed it, but he always said stuff like, ‘You’re the only one for me’ or ‘No one understands me like you.’ Do guys assume it’s not exclusive unless it’s discussed?”
“Well, I don’t know what guys in general think, but I think that guy is an ass. That sounds pretty committed to me. You’ve been in Bakewell, what, a week, and he’s already gaslighting you about your relationship? You sure this other fling of his hasn’t been going on longer than that?”
The first time I remembered hearing about Alyssa was after I’d moved to Bakewell . . . but he did say she was the one who’d referred him for the H&M job. He’d gotten the job at least two months ago. I sank into my seat, closing my eyes. “You think I’m an idiot.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t. This is his fault, not yours.”
I didn’t know why it was such a relief to hear that from Rowan. I stared out the window. I’d never get used to how dark it was out here. There weren’t even any streetlights until you got farther into Bakewell. “I’m pretty sure he’s been using me for my social media platform,” I said. “And he’s using this other girl for her party invitations. Honestly? I didn’t expect this from him.”
“If you’d expected it, you’d be as bad as him.”
“You do think I’m as bad as him, though. I’m just a self-absorbed influencer, remember? You probably think I deserve it.”
He shook his head. “No one deserves that. But I don’t think you’d use someone just to get ahead. Look, I don’t know you that well, and you seem a bit . . .”
“High maintenance?”
He shook his head. “Tunnel minded. Focused. Like me, actually. We’re so focused that maybe it’s hard to see what’s in front of our nose until someone spells it out for us.” He hesitated. “Or it’s broadcasted on a shirt.”
I snorted. “Are you telling me you’re really a pothead?”
He shook his head, chuckling. “Only into the terra-cotta variety.”
I guess we kinda had a truce for a few moments, so I decided to go in for the big questions. “Is that what happened with you and Addison? You didn’t realize she was such a . . .” It was totally bad manners to call his ex a bitch while he was driving me home, so I didn’t finish the sentence.
He exhaled. “It took me way too long to notice she’d changed. She’d started putting other people down to make herself look better.”
Yup, she was doing exactly that about him and Juniper at that burger place. “It’s not the same thing, then. Matteo didn’t change—I just never realized how big a dick he always was. I should have seen it.”
“He manipulated you, and none of it was your fault. You’re a driven, determined, focused person, and he took advantage of that. Don’t beat yourself up over it; he’s not worth it. He doesn’t deserve you.”
I turned to him sharply. Really? Rowan Johnston being kind? “Did you just compliment me?”
He frowned. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
I narrowed an eye. “Seriously, though. You’re good at this. I’d never peg you as a relationship/self-esteem pep talk kind of guy.”
“Why, because I’m not talkative? I may not have a lot of close friends, but I’m there for the ones I have. Plus, I’ve been in therapy, so I know my psychobabble.” Rowan’s eyes never left the road in front of him.
I wasn’t used to this kind of realness from my friends—not that Rowan was a friend or anything. But still. He was being so honest and open, telling me what went wrong with Addison, telling me that he saw me as focused and driven. He was more like Juniper than I’d noticed. It was disconcerting. Just like with his shirts—I’d judged him on those, and I was wrong, too.
But then again, I’d thought Matteo was being real with me. Maybe I had no concept anymore of what “real” actually was. I leaned against the cool glass of the window.
“How did you deal?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“When you and Addison broke up. What did you do to get over it . . . so you could go back to being so focused?”
He
chuckled, watching the road in front of him. We were almost home—the wide stretches of nothing had been replaced with the houses of our neighborhood. “I kept my mind busy. I immersed myself in my job and school. I filled three sketchbooks. I relied on my friends. I ignored people who talked about it.”
“Gossip, you mean?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I love Bakewell, but seriously, this town knows how to talk.”
I was quiet for a bit. “Where are you going to school in the fall?”
He didn’t look at me. “University of Toronto.”
I chuckled. I really couldn’t imagine Rowan in my city. He pulled into his driveway.
“Thanks,” I said as I unbuckled the seat belt. “For, you know, the talk. And the ride home.”
He got out of the car without saying anything, so I did the same. The sky was pretty black by now, but there was a light on above the Johnstons’ garage door, so I could finally see his shirt clearly. The flowerpots each had cutesy plants in them with happy faces on the flowers. I shook my head, laughing. “Cute,” I said.
He smiled, then looked up. “Clear night,” he said.
I frowned. “It’s too dark. There are too many stars here.”
He snorted as he walked around the car toward his front door. “This is nothing. Give it a few hours, and it will seem like there’s less sky than stars. I love the night skies here.”
“You’re not into astronomy, too, are you?”
“Nah. I don’t know what they’re all called, but I like stargazing to clear my head. One of the benefits of living in the country.” He climbed the steps to his front porch. “Night, Tahira.”
I headed toward the backyard and the tiny house. “Night, Plant-Boy.”
13
SUCKY NIGHT WITH SUCCULENTS
I texted Shar as I walked through the backyard, letting her know I was home from Niagara Falls. She hadn’t given Gia and me a curfew or anything, but I didn’t want her to worry.
Gia wasn’t in the tiny house when I got there. I kind of wished I had my best friend to talk to right now, but she was probably still with Cameron.
