“Do flowers fix what happened last night?”

She shrugged. “They’re a start.”

My stomach knotted. I knew there was more that she wasn’t telling me, but I couldn’t force it out of her. Mom and I had never talked about her and Dale’s relationship. I knew that they started dating shortly after my father took off and Dale had whisked Mom away in a whirlwind romance. All my life, I’d watched Dale love her like I wanted a man to love me one day. Now, I felt like I had been standing in a thick blanket of fog that was suddenly being fought off by the sun.

“So,” Mom said, clearing her throat and tidying a stack of paper on the counter. “I heard Mason asked you out at Willow’s party.”

I scoffed. “First of all, how in the world are you hearing stories from a high school party? And secondly, no, he didn’t.” I shifted. “He may have said something along the lines of wanting me back, but he did not ask me on a date.”

“Natalie,” my mom said, crossing her arms over her chest. She was still dressed in her pajamas. That’s how I knew she’d had a rough night. Jillian Poxton did not lounge around in pajama pants and a t-shirt. She must have stolen them from my dresser. “That is essentially the same thing. And why are you telling me this story like you didn’t take him up on his offer?”

I shrugged, pouring myself a glass of water. “Because I didn’t.”

Mom’s mouth popped open.

“I don’t want to be with Mason anymore,” I explained, sipping from the glass. “I didn’t see it when it happened, but I think him breaking up with me was one of the best things that could have happened.”

“I don’t understand.” Mom shook her head, her blonde locks falling from the loose ponytail she’d tied. “Mason is from a good family, Natalie. He could make you happy. And you’d be comfortable.”

“I don’t want to be just comfortable, Mom. I want a love that makes me everything but comfortable. If it doesn’t drive me mad, if it doesn’t break my heart at the thought of losing it, if it doesn’t push me to new places and force me to grow — what kind of love is it, really?”

Mom appraised me for a moment, chewing the inside of her cheek. “You talk about it like you might have already found it.”

I dropped my gaze to my water, tracing the lid of the glass with my pointer finger.

She sighed. “Honey, as a woman, sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Sometimes you have to make choices about what you need in life and how to get it.”

“Did you have to make sacrifices with Dale?” I lifted my eyes to hers again.

She swallowed. “Yes. And with your father, too. But every choice I made was to better my life. And yours.” She cleared her throat, fingering the sweatpants she was wearing as if she just realized she was in them. “They weren’t always the easiest choices, but women don’t exactly have it easy when it comes to the battle of life versus love.”

Shrugging, I finished the last of my water and dropped the glass in the sink. “I don’t think the two have to be on opposite sides of the war line.”

Mom eyed me again, opening her mouth to say more before quickly closing it and standing up straighter. “I suppose it’s something you’ll have to learn on your own, sweetie.” She snapped her fingers. “Oh! That reminds me. I need to start a grocery list for Christina. You have any requests?”

I chuckled, watching Mom snap right back into business mode. “Life, love, and battle reminded you of groceries?”

She stuck her tongue out and I giggled again, but when my eyes focused on the notepad she was writing on, the laugh caught in my throat.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“You okay, sweetie?” Mom had stopped writing, but my eyes were still glued to the page.

Snapping out of my haze, I grabbed the keys to the Rover and jogged toward the door, grabbing my gym bag off the couch as I passed.

“Sweetie?”

“Fine, Mom!” I yelled over my shoulder as I blew through the front door. “Just late for training. See you later!”

Slamming the door behind me a little harder than I meant, I sprinted for the car and threw it in drive, tearing out of the driveway. My foot was hard on the gas pedal all the way to the gym and I parked across two parking spots before leaving my bag behind and running straight back to the training room.

Rhodes was spotting one of his clients as she benched just the bar. I was tempted to roll my eyes at the way she was drooling as she gazed up at him, but I had more important emotions rolling through me.

“I know where the note came from,” I blurted out. Rhodes’ brows turned in and he eyed me curiously. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was an hour early to training or what I had just said or both.

“What?”

“Just,” I stopped his question with my hand, motioning to the woman on the bench. “Wrap this up and come back to the office.”

“I’m in the middle of a session, Natalie,” he warned. Even though he had his new job at the restaurant, he still needed his training job and I knew that. But this couldn’t wait.

I gave him a pointed look to emphasize the urgency and he blew out a breath through his nose, motioning with a nod of his head for me to go back to the office. I heard him tell his client to take a water break and hit cardio. She whined, literally whined, and I ground my teeth. Before I acted on my annoyance, I closed the glass office door behind me and paced around the desk.

Rhodes opened the door moments later and I started rambling before he had the chance to close it again. “It’s from the marina. The note. It’s Dale’s stationery. I knew I had seen this mark before.” I unfolded the note and smoothed it out on the desk, pointing to the small orange markings where the tear line was. The note was torn at the bottom edge, like someone had tried to tear off the logo, but even with just the top of it there — I recognized it.

“I don’t understand.” Rhodes shook his head, brows furrowed.

“This is the top of Dale’s stationery logo. But see how it’s an ugly orange color?” Rhodes nodded. “It’s supposed to be red. Sometimes, the notepads like the one this paper came from get printed incorrectly. It drives my mom absolutely insane because she’s a perfectionist. But, she hates being wasteful, too. She won’t let Dale use them for anything customer-facing, so she takes all the misprints down to the Poxton Beach Dry Boat Storage Marina. They’re always writing notes and putting them on the boats so the employees know where to put them and what customer and such. Since it’s just them that see it, Mom figures it’s a way to get use out of the stationery without hurting Dale’s ‘brand’ or whatever.”