For weeks, I handled birthdays, corporate events, and sympathy arrangements instead.
Anything except weddings.
Even hearing the word “fiancé” made my stomach tighten.
Eventually, though, bills forced me back.
Grief did not stop rent, supplier invoices, or shop expenses.
So three months after Adrian’s funeral, I agreed to take wedding jobs again.
I told myself work might help.
That morning, another florist I sometimes worked with called in sick and asked me to cover a wedding. Weddings
She sounded miserable.
“I know it’s last minute,” she said. “I wouldn’t ask unless I really needed you.”
I looked around my shop.
Buckets of roses stood beside the cooler. My assistant was already organizing deliveries.
Every instinct told me to refuse.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
A few hours later, I was arranging flowers at a reception venue I had never worked before when I noticed a familiar woman near the entrance.
Colleen.
For a second, I thought grief was playing another trick on me.
Then she turned.
It was definitely her.
I almost called out.
Then she saw me.
Her expression shifted—not into sadness or surprise, but something closer to fear.
She immediately turned and disappeared down a side hallway.
That made no sense.
Colleen and I had barely spoken since Adrian died, but why would she hide from me?
I followed.
“Colleen?”
She stopped and stared at me.
“Meredith?”
“What exactly are you doing here right now?”
She looked uneasy.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“I’m working. I’m the florist.”
“Here?”
“Yes. Why?”
Before she could answer, a wedding coordinator rushed toward us. Weddings
“Ms. Colleen, we’ve been looking everywhere for you. The groom needs his mother.”
I stared at Colleen.
For a moment, everything seemed to make sense.
Adrian had an older brother, Julian.
Of course.
It had to be Julian’s wedding.
