Page 92 of The Florist and Her Alphas

After our very hot shower in more ways than one, we head downstairs together.

I flip the small chalkboard sign hanging on the door hook from CLOSED to OPEN. Then I grab the standing chalkboard from beside the whiskey barrels and rewrite it in my looping handwriting: yellow ranunculus, white anemone, sweet pea, peonies. After I finish, I blow the chalk off my fingertips.

“I got the door,” says Julian, propping the door open, letting the spring air filter through the shop. He goes behind the counter without being asked and starts refilling the buckets that need water, his movements smoother than they were yesterday.

I watch him from the corner of my eye as I check the cooler shelves, and something inside of me is happy that he’s here with me.

Our first customer comes in at nine on the dot. By ten, the morning has settled into a steady, warm rhythm. Small sales. Friendly chatter. A woman buying a single stem of ranunculus for her kitchen table. A man in a suit picking up a pre-ordered bouquet for his secretary’s birthday. Julian charms every single one of them.

He wraps. He bags.

He tells an elderly lady with a cane that the peonies bring out the color in her eyes, and she blushes so hard her friend has to steady her by the elbow.

He gives an enormous discount to a young father who has come in with a toddler strapped to his chest, buying a single peony for his pregnant partner.

“Thirty percent?” I hiss at him over the register after they leave. “That’s basically free.”

He kisses my cheek, his lips warm against my skin. “You can dock it from my pay,” he says, grinning, and my stomach flips.

At eleven, the bell rings and Toby arrives.

He has a stack of small flat boxes balanced on one arm, his curly black hair hidden under a green beanie, a coffee cup clutched in his free hand.

He starts talking the second he gets through the door.

“Liana, I am so sorry I have not been in for a while, my mother had a thing—her sister’s gallbladder, it was a whole situation, and also I have to talk to you about the foxglove because I think it was already dying when I got here so it is not technically my fault, and also these boxes came from the wholesale supplier and I didn’t open them but I think they’re the new vases you ordered and…”

He stops dead.

His eyes have landed on Julian.

Julian is leaning against the register with one elbow, a small bunch of sweet peas held loosely in his fingers, grinning at Toby like he is having the absolute best morning of his life. His hip is touching mine behind the counter. Deliberately touching.

Toby’s eyes get very wide. His coffee cup tips slightly in his hand. He looks at Julian. He looks at me. He looks at Julian again. He looks at the way Julian’s hip is pressed against mine. He swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs.

“Is that…?” His voice cracks. He clears his throat. “Is that your new boyfriend?”

“Yes,” I say.

Julian’s whole face lights up. The dimple appears deep and sudden. He sets down the sweet peas. Slides his arm around my waist from behind and pulls me firmly against his side, his chest warm against my shoulder.

“I’m the new boyfriend, yes,” he tells Toby, his voice warm and easy. “Delighted to meet you at last. Liana has told me that you are the coolest delivery guy in the city, and based on the way you’re currently balancing three boxes and a coffee without spilling anything, I believe her.”

Toby, bless him, turns scarlet. The color starts at his collar and climbs all the way to his hairline in about three seconds flat. He shoves the boxes at me without looking up.

“Delivery,” he mutters. “From the supplier. I have to go. I have—class. Typography. It’s very important. Bye.”

He bolts. The bell over the door jangles wildly as he flees.

Julian, still pressed against my side, laughs into my hair. His breath is warm against my ear. “You are going to give that boy a heart attack,” he murmurs.

“You made it worse,” I tell him.

“Yes,” he says, “and I am going to make it worse every single day if you’ll let me.”

I can’t stop smiling for the next two hours.

The afternoon blurs. Customers come and go. Every time there’s a break, Julian sneaks in a kiss or tries to fondle my ass behind the counter.