Flower by Shea Olsen

Author:Shea Olsen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

“THIS IS A BAD IDEA, Charlotte.” Grandma stands in the doorway as I sit on my suitcase to zip it up.

“You can’t change my mind,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice gentle.

“After everything you’ve worked so hard for, you’re just going to fly to Colorado with some boy you hardly know? Some celebrity who lives in a completely different world from you? What about your promise not to date, to focus on your future—you’re just giving all that up now?”

“I’m not giving up anything.” I grab my phone from the bed and shove it into my back pocket. “Nothing’s changed, except there’s someone in my life who I care about, and he cares about me—obviously enough that he wants me to meet his parents. I thought you’d be more understanding.”

Grandma met Tate the other morning, after he surprised me with the snowy invite to Colorado. Mia had stood in the kitchen doorway holding Leo, tongue-tied for once in her life as she eyed Tate like he was some foreign species she’d never seen before. I thought she was going to start snapping photos of him right there. And even though Grandma was polite and shook his hand, offered him coffee and breakfast, and smiled sweetly, as soon as he left, she began grilling me with questions, telling me I had completely lost my mind. She scoured various gossip sites, studying up on his history of bad behavior. “He’s not like that,” I told her, but I can tell she doesn’t believe me. She thinks his every documented mistake is the whole of who he is. But of course she can’t see what I do.

“How do you expect me to understand you throwing your life away?” she says now.

“I’m not throwing it away.” I sigh. “And if you choose not to support me, it’s won’t change anything. I’m doing this whether you like it or not.”

“I didn’t want it to come to this, but you’re not leaving me a choice. My house, my rules.” It’s the first time she’s ever spoken to me this way—her voice laced with a combination of frustration and futility I’d thought was reserved for Mia and, when we were younger, our mother. “I won’t let you make the same mistakes the rest of this family did. You’re not going with him to Colorado, and we’re done discussing it.”

I lift my suitcase from the bed and meet her gaze. “I’m eighteen, so you can’t stop me from doing anything.” I regret the statement almost as quickly as I’ve said it when I see the look on her face. But I don’t allow myself to back down. This may be her house, but it’s my life. “Please just trust me, okay?” I add more softly, hoping she’ll see how important this is to me. “I’m smart, remember? Trust me enough to make my own decisions.”

“You can be brilliant and still be stupid at love,” she says. “The women in this family always are.” It’s

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