Devin. He’s here. He’s real. He’s—
My head goes fuzzy. The room spins. And the floor rushes up to greet me.
“Hey. Hey! Are you okay?” A hazy form hovers above me.
Hope leaps in my chest. “Devin?” I blink several times, and the man’s features solidify. It’s not Devin—it’s the florist, the one who made me the flower arrangement. Beyond his pale cheeks and pinched frown, a white ceiling fan drifts in lazy circles above him.
A grunt snorts in my ear before a wet tongue licks my chin. I look over to find myself at eye level with a dog’s snuffling snout.
Wait, I’m on the floor. How did I get on the floor?
“You fainted,” says the florist.
I scrunch my nose. I must have said that last part out loud. A dull ringing fills my ears, and my head throbs as I push myself into a sitting position. At least a nearby display of chunky-knit blankets cushioned my fall. The last thing my Swiss cheese brain needs is a concussion. The dog wags its tail as he nudges my hand. I pat him absently.
“I—what? Where’s Devin?” I whip my head to look around the shop and immediately regret it. The pain intensifies, and I rub my aching skull. Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought.
The man’s eyes narrow. “You know my brother?”
“Brother? Your brother is Devin Bloom?”
“No, he’s Devin Szymanski. I’m Perry Szymanski, and you’re in Blooms & Baubles,” he says slowly.
“Devin Szymanski. Blooms & Baubles. Devin Bloom,” I mutter under my breath. Fantasy and reality come crashing together into an incomprehensible tangle. My vision turns blurry as I stare sightlessly at the floor. “I dreamed of Devin. But Devin is real. What does it mean?” I whisper.
“It means you hit your head pretty hard. I’m calling an ambulance.” Standing, the florist—what did he say his name was, Gary? No, Perry—strides toward the counter.
“Wait!” I shove roughly to my feet. Gravity is not my friend today though, and I lurch to the side.
Perry lunges for my forearm, steadying me before I topple over like a domino. “Whoa, there. Take it slow.”
I wave him away. “No more doctors. I need to find Devin.”
His expression clouds as he studies me, suspicion crowding out concern. “You need to sit.”
A heady mixture of panic and desperation wells up inside me, and I snatch two fistfuls of Perry’ T-shirt at his collar and jerk him toward me until we’re nose to nose. His eyes widen and he sucks in a shocked breath.
“You don’t understand,” I enunciate. “I need to talk to Devin. When will he be back?” I fight the urge to shake him like a rag doll.
Nostrils flaring, Perry peels my fingers off his shirt one by one. Once he lets go, he backs up, putting a good five feet of space between us. “I don’t know.”
My knees threaten to buckle at the loss of contact, or maybe because my head feels like pudding and I can’t quite grasp this new reality—the one where my imaginary boyfriend actually exists. I shuffle toward the counter, intending to lean against it for support, but before I can reach it, Perry procures a stool from God knows where and shoves it underneath me. I slump onto the circular seat, the panic leaking out of me as quickly as it came and confusion taking its place. Burying my head in my hands, I dig my fingers roughly through my hair.
Perry’s jaw tenses as he studies me. “He did it again, didn’t he?” Cursing, he rubs his temples like he can scrub away a memory. “Look, I’m sorry if my brother gave you a fake name at a bar or something, but just so you know, he recently got out of a bad relationship and isn’t looking for anything serious right now.”
“What? No, that’s not it at all. Wait—was he in a relationship with a woman named Cassidy?”
“No.”
“So you’ve never seen me before?”
“Not before you walked into my shop and started freaking me out with the fainting and the psychokiller stare.”
I ignore the dig. “But that was Devin Bl—Szymanski.” I try the name out, and it tastes foreign on my tongue.
“Yes.”
“I’m going crazy.”
“If you say so.”
I scramble off the stool. “I have to go.”
He straightens. “What?”
Stooping down, I gather up my shoulder bag from where I dropped it on the floor. My wallet, phone, and several bags of M&M’s have spilled out, and I shove everything back inside.