“Me either,” Ally put in, “more like, edible undies.”
“Ally!” Tod snapped. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”
“I’m just saying what everyone’s thinking,” Ally defended herself.
“They’re not from Vance,” I told them.
Everyone looked at me.
“They’re not?” May asked.
I reached for the card and shook my head. “They’re from my Uncle Nick. He knows pink roses are my favorites.”
I was a little surprised. Nick was super generous but a specially designed bracelet must have set him back a whack. A dozen pink roses especially roses like this, perfect, so pale pink they were blush, every bloom total perfection must have cost some serious cake. They weren’t even a traditional bouquet with all that baby’s breath in a heavily cut, glass vase. There were just the roses with thin spikes of green shooting out here and there bending around the blooms and a simple, cylindrical vase that was pure class. The bouquet was a work of art.
“Well, that’s damned disappointing,” Daisy muttered from beside me as I gently touched a rose.
“Your uncle is feeling generous this year,” Indy smiled at me.
“Probably thinks she won’t see another birthday,” Stevie murmured.
“Shh, Stevie,” Jet shushed him.
I slid my fingernail under the heavy cream paper of the card’s envelope and pulled it out.
Then I froze.
There was only one letter on the card, nothing else. In black, bold pen it said, “V”.
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
“What?” someone said (I was too freaked to distinguish voices).
“What is it?” someone else asked.
I swayed a bit, all of a sudden light-headed and someone else yelled, “Grab her! She’s going down!”
I was pressed into my office chair, my mind started clearing and I heard Roxie say, “Get her some water.”
Tod picked up a manila folder from my desk and started fanning me with it. “Deep breaths, girlie. Deep breaths. Do you think she should put her head between her knees?” he asked Jet.
May swiped the card from my fingers. She looked at it and a slow smile spread on her face.
“These ain’t from her uncle. Praise be to Jesus.”
“Let me see that,” Daisy snatched the card out May’s hand. “It just says ‘V’,” she told everyone, her eyes big and happy. She looked around the gang. “How hot is that? That boy’s got class.”
They were all looking at me grinning like fools.
“I told him,” I whispered and then stopped talking.
“What’s that, Sugar?” Daisy asked.
I cleared my throat and looked up at them. “I told him about Nick giving me pink roses on my sixteenth birthday and how they were my favorites. It was a few months after my Auntie Reba died and how Nick and I had the first good night since she…” I stopped again and looked around them. “I told him,” I repeated.
“Righteous,” Ally said softly.
I felt something hit me then, something terrifying, a delayed reaction. I grabbed my purse, pulled out my phone and shot out of the chair.