Chapter 5 In a Small Town, Whispers Travel Faster Than Wind

By the time Friday arrived, the flower shop no longer smelled like dust and regret-it smelled like possibility. The countertops gleamed from hours of polish. The windows shone with fresh glass Lucas had installed the night before, and new paint trimmed the display shelves in soft lavender, just like her grandmother used to keep it.

But it wasn't just the shop that had changed.

It was the way people started looking at Olivia when she walked down the street.

"Morning, Olivia," said Mrs. Willoughby from behind the bakery counter, her smile a little too eager.

"Back for good this time?" added Mr. Chen as he handed her change at the hardware store. "I heard Lucas is helping you fix the place. Good man."

Everywhere she turned, eyebrows lifted in suggestion. Necks craned from porches. Someone had apparently spotted her and Lucas in the back of the flower shop at dusk, arms brushing, laughing about paint streaks on her cheek.

And in Rosebay, a laugh was a declaration.

By noon, the whispers had bloomed into something louder.

She stopped by the local café for a coffee and nearly tripped over a familiar face.

"Olivia Summers," said a voice sharp with amusement. "I almost didn't recognize you without city heels and a latte the size of my ego."

She turned to find Mia Langston, her childhood best friend-turned-high school frenemy, now perched in a corner booth wearing oversized sunglasses and sipping iced tea like it was gossip.

"Mia," Olivia said with forced brightness. "You're still here."

Mia smirked. "And you're not just a ghost anymore."

"I guess not."

Mia patted the seat beside her. "Sit. I need the full download. You know how Rosebay is-if you don't tell your story, someone else will."

Olivia hesitated, then sat.

Mia leaned in, lowering her sunglasses. "So. You and Lucas Hale."

Olivia's stomach flipped. "There's no 'me and Lucas.' He's helping with the shop. That's it."

"Oh, honey. You can't just return to town and fix up the place with Rosebay's most eligible carpenter without tongues wagging."

"I didn't ask for that."

"No one ever does," Mia said with a wink. "But here we are."

They chatted for twenty minutes, mostly surface-level-how Mia had taken over her family's boutique, how the town's annual tulip festival had moved to fall, how nothing ever really changed in Rosebay.

But as Olivia stood to leave, Mia touched her arm.

"You know, for what it's worth," she said quietly, "I'm glad you're back. Even if you left messy, you had a reason. We all did things we don't talk about."

Olivia nodded slowly.

"Yeah," she said. "But sometimes I think the things we don't talk about echo louder than the ones we do."

She returned to the shop mid-afternoon to find a small bouquet waiting on the counter-wildflowers tied in twine, no note.

Only Lucas would do that.

A peace offering?

Or a quiet reminder he was still here.

She inhaled the soft scent and smiled.

That evening, as she swept the front steps, she saw a familiar red truck pull up. Lucas stepped out, toolbox in hand again.

"I didn't call you," she said automatically.

"I know."

"You just keep showing up."

He walked toward her, stopping just short of the porch. "You sound surprised."

She leaned against the doorframe. "I'm not used to people staying."

"I'm not people," he said simply. "I'm me."

She didn't have a reply for that. Not one that didn't sound like fear dressed as sarcasm.

Inside, they worked in tandem again. He repaired the side window bracket while she arranged a new display of hydrangeas and lilies. The silence between them was different now-less heavy, more curious.

"People are talking," she said without looking up.

"Let them."

"Easy for you to say. You never left."

"Exactly," he said. "They know me. They don't know you anymore. That scares them."

"Doesn't it scare you?"

He looked up then. "No. You've always scared me a little."

She laughed. "Gee, thanks."

"I mean that in the best way. You've always had this way of making people feel like they should be more than what they are. That's terrifying."

She turned to him, serious. "I don't want to be terrifying."

"Then stop apologizing for who you became."

Later, while packing up, she glanced toward the door. "Hey, Lucas?"

"Yeah?"

"If I asked you to stop helping... would you?"

He paused, then turned fully toward her.

"Do you want me to stop?"

She hesitated. "No."

"Then I won't."

It was the gentlest contract she'd ever made.

That night, Olivia sat on her grandmother's old rocking chair, the bouquet of wildflowers in her lap.

The town could gossip. Let them.

For the first time in years, she didn't care who was watching.

Because maybe Lucas Hale wasn't just fixing her flower shop.

Maybe he was helping her rebuild something far more broken.

Herself.