Myla Kozak was a girl of simplicity and routine. Wake at four. Toast and tea. Dress and flats. Blush and liner. Pick up Jazz. Work. School. Homework. Sleep. Occasional free time in-between, but only when she could make the time.

For as long as she could remember, it was always how she'd preferred things. There was a great comfort to be found in the sense of normalcy these little facets of her life provided.

Weeks passed and the temperature cooled. The summer dressed found themselves being pushed toward the back of the closet, making way for darker shades of lace and thick skirts to be paired with oversized sweaters and patterned tights. In the mornings, Myla would pull her hair back into a bun or ponytail to keep it from blowing all about when she left the apartment.

And she had all but forgotten about that warning conversation with her cousin when the first of the roses came.

At the time, she didn't know it was for her – but rather thought someone had dropped it, as it wasn't marked for her in any way. The rose was a simple treasure, a welcome start to the long day ahead of her as she arrived for work that morning. It wasn't until three more appeared in the same fashion that she began to consider someone might be leaving them on purpose. A basic run of asking the shop revealed that the flowers were only ever there when she came in – never on her days off. On the fourth day, she noticed it was placed much too close to the door to have been dropped there by accident.

The realization was only a mild concern at first. Maybe if they had been showing up at her apartment rather than her work she would have panicked, but really anyone can find out where someone works. Myla didn't think to tell anyone, or report it – they were just flowers, after all. Who takes a stalking claim seriously when all the person was doing was leaving flowers? Instead she made the best of them: she would place the solitary rose in a glass of the counter for the day, and at home she strung it up over her windowsill to dry out.

As for who might be doing all this, well, Myla didn't have any ideas. The shop's clientele was almost exclusively engaged couples, and honestly, the idea of an engaged person attempting to woo her was somehow worse than the thought that she was almost definitely being stalked. In her handful of classes at the University, she hadn't noticed anyone in particular checking her out. Maybe it was a new neighbor, or someone who worked in another shop near the bakery. As long as they weren't married, she could appreciate – a little – the fact that this person had something of a sense of romance.

On day eighth day she received a bouquet. It was simple: white roses, the stems wrapped together with twine. Myla brought them home, placing them on the kitchen table for her aunt to enjoy.

That was the day Jasmine noticed, asking "What's with the flowers?"

"I think someone's been leaving them for me." Actually she was positive at this point that someone was leaving them for her, but didn't want Jasmine to act weird about it.

"What? Who?" Despite the effort, Jasmine still became uncharacteristically nervous at the news.

"I don't know." Myla shrugged. "If I knew, I wouldn't call them 'someone'."

And that was the end of that conversation.

But it wasn't the end of the flowers. The bouquets kept coming, and getting increasingly more elaborate. They came in lush bunches of roses and ranunculus' and anemone embellished with feather plumes and fiddleheads, their stems tied up in strips of lace or satin ribbons. They were beautiful, but Myla stopped bringing them home – while she didn't bother to ask about them anymore, they still made Jasmine uneasy, and she complained that they made the apartment smell like a funeral home. Now they stayed the bakery, where her bosses and co-workers found the sudden influx of floral arrangements amusing more than anything. She would hand out single flowers to customers: a lot of girls from a school nearby frequented the shop after class, and many brides-to-be had begun requesting the flowers to show as an example to their planners and florists, which Myla happily obliged.

But Myla couldn't say that Jasmine's weirdly terrified attitude toward the flowers wasn't beginning to rub off on her; another week of them had definitely left her wary of the daily gift. She had seen enough wedding notebooks at her job to know a bridal bouquet when she saw one – and she also knew that the quality of the ones she was being sent meant these ones were not cheap. Who could afford such a frivolous expense like that every day? Not anyone she knew, that was for sure. Once again, the question as to why this person hadn't revealed themselves was brought to her mind, front and center. This was overkill – a few days of the single roses would have been plenty sufficient to get a yes on a date.

When she clocked in on Thursday, however, she was surprised to find no flowers to greet her at the start of her shift. An unexpected change that left her unsure whether she was relieved or disappointed, because despite it all, Myla had been slightly enjoying the new, bright introduction to her day. Very briefly, she wondered if she had done something wrong. Or, perhaps something serious had happened – like an accident – and Myla felt suddenly concerned for the well-being of her flower-leaving stranger. Unfortunately, whether they were fine or not, Myla's work day had to continue, with or without flowers.

Thursdays were usually pretty slow at the bakery, mostly a lot of customers checking on an order for the weekend. Her boss, Jerry, ended up coming out to tell her she could lock out at lunch if she wanted, which Myla was glad to take him up on. There was no class on Thursdays either, which meant a few hours of solid "me time" - a nice bath, a movie, or maybe call up friend she hadn't had time for in a while. These were the sort of things Myla considered to be an exciting use of her free time. After grabbing her purse out of cubby, she walked back out front to retrieve the half-finished homework from the shelf under the register, and was faced with a new bouquet on the counter.

Myla froze, suddenly uncomfortable in the familiar storefront. She almost called Jerry over in a panic, because how had they been so quick? So quiet? Very cautiously, and wondering if perhaps someone might still be inside the room with her, she approached the counter. The arrangement of hyacinth and peonies was simpler than many of the others she had received, but it came with one distinguishing feature the others had lacked – a card. A card which her shaking hands opened to reveal handwriting – real, actual handwriting – stating a time and address. She sucked in her breath and looked back up at the flowers, feeling excited and scared and curious all at once. Clearly this meant that she was meant to meet this person. She was meeting this person today. Finally, there would be a name and face to put to all of this. Myla carried the vase out to her car, not entirely sure what she would do with them, but knowing she didn't want to leave them behind, and began the short drive home. Had she decided if all of this was more romantic than it was creepy? What would she wear? What would she even say? What if this person was, in fact, a complete stranger? How weird would it be to start a conversation with someone who seemed to know at least a bit about you, yet you knew nothing of them? All she could glean about this person was that they apparently knew a pretty fantastic florist, which was an interesting tidbit, but not exactly anything to go off of.

Myla glanced at the clock, seeing there was still a ways before the time on the card. It was sort of lucky that she had been given the rest of the day off, otherwise she would have had to go in her plain dress and tights combo, which was also sporting a fair amount of powdered sugar and a few smudges of frosting.

Even luckier because no one would be home at this time to interrogate her on where she was going or who she would be with. Well, basically no one, but Jasmine would be asleep for another hour or two, and was the heaviest sleeper in the family. Just in case, Myla made a mental plan to quickly snatch an outfit from the closet and dash out again, swapping out her vanity in favor of the restaurant bathroom. Jasmine kept what she called "the emergency touch-up kit" hidden in the backseat that would provide her with everything else she would need to fix herself up.

The course of action was certainly a much "sneakier" thing than Myla would usually ever think of attempting, but the idea of dealing with Jazz or Aunt Liv's ideas on blind dates wasn't something she wanted to deal with at the moment. They were clearly more than a little disturbed by the flower scenario – if they found out she was setting out to meet the person who had been leaving them? "Overreact" wouldn't even cover it. If they even allowed her to, they would chaperone and make the whole thing more uncomfortable than it was probably bound to be on its own. Wouldn't be the first time they had done that. It was best not to tell them about it until afterward, citing that it was sprung her in such a rush that there simply hadn't been time to inform them – and it would be absolutely true – so long as Jazz didn't wake up, or her aunt didn't come home early.

After opening the front door as quietly as possible, Myla slowly crept through the apartment and into her and Jasmine's shared room. She went strait to the closet and shut the door behind her. After scanning through her side of the closet, she came up empty for ideas on what to wear. There were a few nicer dresses she had, but they were sort of tight, more fit for the clubbing she never got around to doing because she quickly learned that dance clubs are awful. Jasmine's side of closet definitely had some better, more sleek and potentially romantic pieces – but Jazz also had the near-superhuman ability to tell when something went missing out of her clothes. Then Myla remembered The Corner.

The Corner was, obviously, the back corner of the closet – a place where Jasmine put things she was mostly keeping for re-gifting purposes, plus work out clothes with the tags still on from New Years resolutions past. The pile was seldom looked through, and valued less than the rest of Jasmine's wardrobe. It was the best shot Myla had at finding a nice outfit without going out and buying one. She spent a few minutes on the floor, rummaging through the boxes and bags for something suitable, something that would also hopefully fit right. In the middle of the stack, there was a cute pink with gold lettering that Myla was positive would contain lingerie when, lo and behold, it was a dress. Clearly from Jasmine's "vintage aesthetic princess in flower crowns" phase, it was chiffon, short, and black, with flowery embroidery on the bodice and butterfly sleeves. Very pretty, date-appropriate, already matched the shoes she was wearing, and also wouldn't come off like she tried too hard. Myla carefully stacked everything else from the pile back into place, sneaking back out of the closet with the pink box tucked under her arm.

Jasmine was knocked out, still sprawled out in her bed in the same exact position she was in half an hour ago, bless her. Myla bit her tongue as she edged her way out of the room. This was the moment she would either be caught or get away with it. She had never experienced this type of fear when it came to her family, and it was pretty exciting, if she was being honest with herself. This feeling must have been why Jasmine was always sneaking out.

As she stood in the hallway, her key sliding the deadbolt in place behind her, she felt almost sort of accomplished, and as a result suddenly much more excited about the night ahead of her. While there wasn't a doubt that she would feel incredibly guilty about this later, for the moment, Myla was feeling pretty good about what was going happen.