Jamie took it in like I'd shown him something important. His eyes moved across the buckets of stems, the organized chaos of my workspace, the worn spot on the floor where I stood for hours at a time.
“It suits you,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know. Everything in its place but only you know where.” He picked up a spool of ribbon, turned it over in his hands, set it back down in exactly the wrong spot. “It's nice.”
I didn't know what to do with that. I picked up the coffee he'd brought me. Black, like he'd said. The cup was warm against my palm.
“Here.” I grabbed the canvas apron from the hook by the door and held it out. “You'll want this. The work's messy.”
Jamie took it, struggling with the ties until I stepped behind him and knotted them myself. The apron swallowed him, designed for someone my size, hanging almost to his knees. He looked ridiculous.
“Come on,” I said. “You can shadow me today.”
“Shadow you.” His lips curled up. “I can do that.”
The morning moved faster than I expected.
Jamie asked good questions about stem length and flower placement, and I found myself explaining instead of deflecting. Why you cut stems at an angle and how to strip leaves below the waterline. The difference between flowers that open and flowers that don't, and why it matters for timing.
“Lilies, you buy tight and let them open,” I heard myself saying. “Roses too. But ranunculus?” I picked up one of the tight buds from the bucket, layers of petals curled in on themselves like secrets. “These are tricky. Buy them too open, they're done in two days. But if they won't open at all, you've wasted your money.”
Jamie leaned in, studying the bloom in my hand. “How do you know which is which?”
“Experience. Feel.” I turned the stem between my fingers. “The tight ones have give when you press. The dead ones are hard.”
I didn't tell him what my grandmother used to say about ranunculus. That they meant charm and attraction. That giving someone ranunculus was like sayingyou are radiantwithout having to say it out loud.
He listened with his whole body, nodding, those wide eyes tracking my hands as I worked. Most people's attention felt like weight. His felt like warmth.
I didn't hate it.
Around ten, he reached for a bucket of roses near the cooler. His elbow caught the handle wrong, and the whole thing went over. Two dozen red roses, water everywhere, petals scattering across the concrete floor.
“Shit.” He dropped to his knees, grabbing at stems with both hands. Water soaked through his jeans at the knee, darkening the denim. Petals clung to his sleeves. “I'm sorry, I didn't—”
“Leave it.” I was already reaching for the mop. “The stems are fine. Roses are more resilient than you might guess.”
“I'll clean it up, let me—”
“Jamie.” I waited until he looked up at me, his face flushed, his hands full of dripping flowers. “It's just water. Not acid.”
He laughed, startled. The tension in his shoulders eased. “Water. Not acid. Good to know.”
I mopped while he gathered the roses. He handled them carefully now, one at a time, checking each stem before setting it back in the refilled bucket. A quick learner. Not that I'd tell him that.
By noon, he'd also misfiled a stack of order forms so thoroughly it took me twenty minutes to sort them out, and crashed the ancient register twice before admitting defeat.
“This thing hates me.” He jabbed at the keys. “Is there a crank I'm supposed to turn? Does it run on steam?”
“It's from 1987.”
“That explains everything.”
I moved behind the counter to fix whatever he'd done, and Jamie's shoulder brushed against my chest. He went still. So did I.
“Let me show you.” I reached past him for the register, and my hand found his lower back without permission. Just a light touch, meant to guide him aside so I could access the keypad. The warmth of him burned through his sweater, through the canvas apron, straight into my palm.
