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He tilts his head, as if inviting me to say what, exactly, would make me happy.

Fine.

“The only thing that would make me happy,” I tell him, “is if you ended the party altogether.”

“Not happening.”

Laughter ripples round the room, and something in me hardens.

Right. Grand. Message received.

I turn on my heel and walk out with as much dignity as a woman in flannel pyjamas can muster, yanking the door shut behind me, hard.

The music goes back up before I’ve even reached my flat. It’s louder than before.

CHAPTER TWO

BRIONY

My favourite hour of the day is the one before the shop opens. Or at least, it normally is.

The street still half asleep. The radio murmuring away to itself on the shelf. Penny in her bed in the back with all four paws in the air. And, twice a week, a delivery to sort—the whole shop smelling of soil and green sap and cold morning air, all of it packed up in the countryside and let out again in my wee shop on a side street in Glasgow.

I lift a bunch of stocks out of the box. Usually I’d press my nose straight into them because I can never resist. Today I just yawn so hard my jaw clicks.

I am exhausted.

The flowers have travelled, so before they can be used, they need looking after. I take each bunch, strip the leaves that would sit below the waterline, cut every stem on a slant, and stand them in a bucket of fresh water with flower food. I’ll leave them to drink for a few hours. You can’t rush a thirsty flower.

As a rule, this is work that settles me, but not today. Today my hands are in the boxes and my head is two floors up, drafting all the things I could have said last night. Really good things. Things with proper structure and a killer last line. Things about my shop, which was the part that really mattered and the bit I never got out.

Stop it, Briony, I tell myself. You’ve a shop to open, and nobody who walks through that door wants to be served by a woman with a face on her.

Of course, four stems later, I’m back up those stairs, being magnificent. Which is why, when I go to carry a box of alliums across to the bench, I forget entirely about the bucket of stocks I just left on the floor and catch it square with my foot.

There’s an awful half-second where I know exactly what’s coming and can do nothing whatsoever about it. Then the bucket goes over, water sheets out across the tiles, and the stocks slide with it in a long, sorry fan.

“Shiitake mushrooms!”

I put the box down and crouch to inspect the damage. Four stems snapped, and two more with their florets bruised down the side where they’ve hit the floor.

“I’m sorry,” I tell them. Yes, I talk to my flowers. I’m not even embarrassed about it.

Six stems isn’t a catastrophe, but it’s six stems I can’t sell, and this is not how I like to start a morning. I gather up the survivors, stand them in a fresh bucket, and go for the mop.

By the time the tiles are dry and the alliums are standing in water, I’ve got my head back on, mostly, and I make a start on a hand-tied bouquet for a fiftieth—soft creams and blush, lifted with fresh green and a few brighter stems so it doesn’t tip over into looking bridal. It’s a nice order. The daughter rang me and told me her mum’s favourite colour, and then the whole plan for the surprise party she’s organising, before apologising for talking too much, which she hadn’t been.

I’m turning the bunch in my palm when the bell above the door goes.

“Morning!” Emmy, my assistant, calls.

She’s got two takeaway cups from Coorie & Blether in her hands, and I cannot tell you the last time I was so pleased to see anything. I’m across the shop and taking one off her before she’s even shut the door.

“You’re a lifesaver.” I get a mouthful of coffee down me. “Thank you. I needed that.”

Emmy’s eyebrows climb. “Right. Morning to you too.”

Penny appears for a mandatory scratch under the chin from Emmy, stays for about four seconds, then pads back to her bed.