Julian Covington felt a phantom ache in his shoulders, the ghost of tension from the day’s challenge. He had made it.
By the skin of his teeth, by some miracle of timing, he was in the finale.
His delicate cascade of ghost orchids and moonflowers had been saved from the encroaching puddle of bleach-water, a puddle he’d only noticed because of the commotion Rev had caused.
He’d been annoyed at her then, another clumsy display of her chaotic energy disrupting the meticulous peace of his workspace. But his annoyance was a distant hum beneath the thrum of victory.
He was packing away his tools, lining them up in their velvet case with the precision of a surgeon, when a hand landed on his arm.
He turned to find Leo, one of the senior camera operators, a man with kind, weary eyes that had seen a dozen seasons of this show come and go.
“Got a second, Covington?” Leo asked, his voice low. He gestured with his head toward a dark corridor behind the main set.
“Your mic pack was cutting out during that last bit. Wanna check the playback, make sure we got your audio for the judges’ critique.”
It was a plausible excuse, but something in Leo’s gaze felt…significant.
Julian nodded, a knot of unease tightening in his stomach, and followed him away from the bustling crew and into the relative quiet of the production hallway.
Leo didn’t lead him to an audio booth. Instead, he stopped at a small, wheeled monitor, its screen glowing with raw, unedited footage.
“Audio’s fine,” Leo said, not looking at him. “But I figured you might want to see this. Angle three. We don’t miss much.”
He tapped the screen. The footage began to play.
It showed Julian’s station from a high, wide angle. He saw himself, a portrait of intense concentration, his back to the aisle.
Then, Giselle entered the frame. She moved with her usual slinky confidence, carrying a bucket
But as she passed behind him, her movements became anything but accidental.
Julian watched, his breath catching in his throat, as she paused, glanced left and right, and then deliberately, with a sickeningly precise tilt of her wrist, angled the bucket.
A clear, chemical-smelling liquid sloshed over the rim, forming a creeping, insidious puddle that began its slow march toward the crates holding his priceless orchids.
A cold dread washed over him. He had been seconds from ruin.
“I don’t understand,” Julian whispered, his own voice sounding hollow in his ears. “I would have lost everything.”
“You would have,” Leo agreed quietly. “Now watch the other side of the frame.”
He rewound the footage. This time, the camera was focused on Rev’s station.
Julian watched her work, her movements a whirlwind of creative fervor. She was twisting black calla lilies into a thorny crown of ivy when her head snapped up.
Her eyes, usually so full of fire and mischief, were sharp with alarm. They weren’t looking at him, but at the floor behind him.
At Giselle. At the bucket.
Julian saw the flash of comprehension on her face, followed by a flicker of pure panic. She looked at the judges, the cameras, and then back at the creeping disaster.
She couldn’t yell, couldn’t point it out without making a scene that producers would either cut or twist into some melodrama.
So she did something else.
The footage showed her grabbing a tray of potting soil.
She took two steps forward, her body angled away from him, and then, with a theatricality that was just believable enough, her foot “caught” on a cable.
She let out a loud, frustrated gasp as the tray went flying, dark soil scattering across the pristine white floor in a wide, messy arc.
The effect was instantaneous. A producer yelled, “Hold! Clean-up on set!” The judges looked up, annoyed.
And Julian—on the screen, he saw his past self turn, irritation etched on his features as he finally looked down and saw the danger.
He saw himself frantically moving the crates of orchids just as the first tendrils of bleach-water reached the spot where they had been.
The air left his lungs in a painful rush.
It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t clumsiness. It was a shield.
A brilliant, selfless, messy act of grace performed by the one person he had treated with nothing but disdain. He had called her a weed, a chaotic force he needed to tame.
And all along, she had been protecting his garden from a poison he hadn’t even seen.
The shame was a physical weight, pressing down on his chest, stealing his breath.
Every cruel word he’d ever said to her, every condescending glance, every time he’d dismissed her wild brilliance in favor of his own rigid perfection—it all came crashing back, colored by the stark, undeniable truth on the screen.
“She saved you, kid,” Leo said softly, snapping the monitor off. The screen went black, but the images were burned onto the back of Julian’s eyelids.
“Giselle plays dirty. Rev… she just plays. Thought you should know who your real competition is. And who it isn’t.”
Leo squeezed his shoulder once and walked away, leaving Julian alone in the darkened hallway, utterly shattered.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, but when he finally moved, it was with a desperate, singular purpose. He had to find her.
He strode through the set, past the other contestants offering him terse congratulations, past Giselle who shot him a triumphant, venomous smile that he now understood completely.
He ignored them all.
He found her where he should have known she’d be: the main greenhouse. It was their space, the humid, fragrant air a silent witness to their entire tumultuous history.
Moonlight and the distant glow of the studio lights filtered through the glass panes, silvering the edges of the enormous leaves and casting long, dancing shadows.
She was standing by a bench of night-blooming jasmine, her back to him, gently touching a petal with one finger.
She didn’t seem to hear him approach. All the fire from the competition floor had banked, leaving behind a quiet, weary stillness.
“Rev,” he said. Her name felt foreign and holy on his tongue.
She flinched, her shoulders stiffening. She turned slowly, her expression guarded.
Her eyes were shadowed, her arms crossed over her chest as if to protect herself from whatever barb he was about to throw.
The sight of that defensive posture, a posture he had put there, broke something deep inside him.
“If you’re here to lecture me about the potting soil, Julian, save it. I’ve already been reamed out by the producers. I’ll be more careful with my ‘disruptive energy’ next time.”
Her voice was flat, devoid of its usual spark.
“I saw it,” he said, his own voice cracking. “Leo showed me the footage. All of it.”
Her guarded expression faltered, replaced by a flicker of confusion, then alarm. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Stop,” he pleaded, taking a step closer. He could smell the jasmine and the rich, damp earth. “Please, just… stop. I saw Giselle. And I saw you.”
Her lips parted, but no sound came out. The truth hung in the air between them, shimmering and undeniable.
He closed the remaining distance, his heart hammering against his ribs. He had to make her understand.
“All this time,” he began, his voice raw with a pain that was entirely self-inflicted, “I’ve been acting like… like a monster. I’ve called you reckless, a liability. I’ve treated you like you were something to be managed, something that threatened my perfect, ordered world.”
He shook his head, the self-loathing so thick he could taste it.
“The truth is, I was terrified. Not of you, but of what you represent. This… incredible, untamed talent. This wild beauty. I saw it, and it made me feel like a fraud.”
Tears pricked at his eyes, and he didn’t bother to hide them.
“I’m a Covington. It sounds like a title, but it feels like a cage. It comes with a rulebook. Every stem must be perfect, every petal flawless. Anything less is a failure. And I looked at you, with your beautiful, chaotic arrangements that broke every rule and were more alive than anything I’d ever created, and I panicked. I thought if I got too close, your chaos would expose the fact that my perfection is… fragile. That it’s built on fear.”
He reached out, his hand hesitating just before he touched her arm.
“I pushed you away because I was falling for you, Rev. And it scared me more than anything. It was easier to see you as an adversary than to admit that my perfectly structured life felt empty until you stormed into it and scattered potting soil all over the floor.”
A single tear traced a path down her cheek. She didn’t wipe it away.
“You saved me today,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.
“You saw a threat I was blind to, and you protected me, without any thought for yourself, without needing any credit. You just… did it. And I… I’m so sorry, Rev. For everything.”
The apology felt laughably small, a pebble tossed into a canyon of his own making. But it was all he had.
Rev finally uncrossed her arms. Her gaze searched his, looking for the lie, the angle. She found none.
“Why are you telling me this now?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Because I’m done being afraid,” he said, the certainty of it settling deep in his bones.
“I’m done letting the Covington name dictate who I am or who I’m allowed to care about. I’ve been trying to build a legacy of perfect flowers, but the only thing I care about building now is a life with you.”
He finally let his hand rest on her arm. Her skin was warm, electric.
“I love you, Rev. I love your chaos. I love your wild hair and the dirt under your fingernails. I love that you see beauty in the thorns and the weeds. I was a fool to ever think that was something to be tamed. It’s something to be cherished.”
She let out a shaky breath, a sound that was half-sob, half-laugh. “Julian…”
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said quickly. “I don’t deserve it. I just needed you to know.”
She shook her head, and her hand came up to cover his on her arm. “No,” she said, her voice growing stronger. “You needed to say it. And I needed to hear it.”
She stepped into him then, her body fitting against his as if it were made to be there. Her hands came up to cup his face, her thumbs gently stroking his jaw.
She looked into his eyes, and for the first time, he saw no walls, no defenses—only the reflection of his own desperate hope.
“I was starting to fall for you, too, you infuriating, arrogant, brilliant man,” she murmured. “Despite my best efforts.”
And then she kissed him.
It wasn’t a kiss of fiery passion or tentative exploration. It was a kiss of homecoming.
It was forgiveness and acceptance and a silent, solemn promise.
It tasted of jasmine and salt and the undeniable truth that they were two halves of a whole—his structure her strength, her wildness his inspiration.
When they finally broke apart, they rested their foreheads together, breathing the same humid air, their heartbeats synching up in the quiet of the greenhouse.
The world outside, with its cameras and its competition and its treachery, faded into a distant murmur.
“So what now?” she whispered.
Julian looked at her, his heart full of a fierce, protective love.
They were stronger now. More certain. A team.
An idea, wild and reckless and absolutely perfect, began to bloom in his mind.
“Now,” he said, a slow smile spreading across his face. “We give them a finale they’ll never forget.”