He said it easily. Like remembering a woman’s favorite flower was a normal thing to carry around, unremarkable, no weight behind it at all. I wasn’t sure whether that made it better or worse.
“I’ve got some really lovely white peonies in at the moment. Want me to pull some?”
He nodded. I went to the back cooler and selected six stems, the ones with the buds that were just about to open. I brought them to the counter and started the arrangement, adding greens, a few sprigs of eucalyptus for texture, the things I knew looked right together because I’d learned this trade from scratch and discovered I had hands for it.
He watched me work. He always watched, and it wasn’t proprietary or impatient, the way some men’s attention was. It was attentive. Like he was taking notes he didn’t plan to use, or just collecting details because that was how his brain worked.
“How’s business?” he asked.
“Good. Wedding season’s starting. I’ve got three consultations this week.”
“You like the wedding work?”
“I like making things that matter to people.” I trimmed a stem and nestled it into the arrangement. “Nobody walks into a flower shop on the worst day of their life. They come in for birthdays, anniversaries, dates. I only ever see people when they’re trying to do something kind.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Unless it’s flowers for funerals?” he replied.
“Well, yeah. I guess you’re right.” I laughed, suddenly caught off guard.
His eyes moved from the arrangement to my face and held there long enough that I felt the warmth of it in my chest.
I handed him the bouquet. Our fingers didn’t touch because I was careful about that, the same way I was careful about everything — the distance between professional warmth and actual closeness, the line between the woman I was in this shop and the woman I couldn’t afford to be. But I realized it had been an effort whenever this man was in my shop.
“Twenty-two even,” I said.
He paid cash. He always paid cash. Left thirty on the counter, same as always, and I put up a token protest at the overpayment and he ignored it and we both pretended this wasn’t a ritual.
“See you around,” he said.
“Bye.”
The bell rang. The door closed. Through the window, he walked to his bike, the bouquet tucked under one arm with agentleness that looked wrong on a man that size and was exactly right on him.
I caught myself watching him too closely. I turned away, started cleaning up the stem cuttings from the counter and told myself that the tug in my ribs was nothing. Appreciation. Familiarity. The comfort of a regular customer who came back, who tipped well, who remembered what my favorite flower was.
That was all.
The phone rangat two-fourteen in the afternoon.
I was in the back, elbow-deep in a bridal consultation mockup, when the shop phone lit up. I wiped my hands on my apron and picked it up on the third ring.
“The Flower Boutique,” I answered brightly.
Silence. Just long enough to be deliberate.
“Mia.”
The name landed in my stomach like ice water. I gripped the counter.
“Marco says hello.”
The line went dead.
I stood there holding the phone to my ear for five seconds, ten, listening to nothing. The shop hummed around me. The cooler fans, and the occasional traffic noise outside the window. The small, ordinary sounds of a life I’d built on a foundation that had just cracked down the middle.
I put the phone down, but then picked it up again. I dialed the number I’d memorized the day I arrived and never had to use because the system was supposed to work. I was supposed to be able to trust it and trusting it was all I had.
