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She’s not lying. I signed the lease digitally and she left the key on the counter of the apartment. Simple. No need to talk.

“Didn’t have anything to say.”

“Then something changed, and here you are.” She finally looks up. Her eyes are brown and warm and amused, and she’s not going to let this go. “What’s your name, neighbor? Your real one. The lease just says T. Raines.”

“Travis.”

“Mmm. Travis.” She tries it out like she’s tasting the word. “I’m Lindsey.”

“I know. It’s on your sign and the lease. I might not talk, but I can read.”

She works. I stand there watching her. After a few moments, I rub my eyes, which feel like a desert I’d rather forget.

“The storm keep you up?” she asks, like she can read me.

The thunder kept me up half the night. I didn’t sleep much after the third strike. Not that sleeplessness is new.

“You were down here at midnight,” I remind her.

She stops snipping, rose in one hand, clippers in the other. “How do you know that?”

“You hum when you’re worried. The floor’s thin.”

Pink climbs up her neck and she clears her throat. “So you listen to me…”

A wave of heat hits the center of my chest and courses out to my limbs. It’s not welcome. Gruffly, I say, “Hard not to.”

“Hm.” She goes back to her roses, but she’s smiling at them now. “Yes. The storm kept me up.”

“Same.”

“Every time it thundered, I thought about the ranchers.” She sets down her clippers and tosses a stray leaf onto the floor with the rest. “When there was dry lightning in September, my grandma used to say that’s when the mountain gets hungry.”

“Dry storms can be bad. A lot of noise and no rain, lightning ready to burn down anything in its path.”

Lindsey gets quiet as she opens another pack of roses and gets to work on them.

“I heard your grandma ran this place before you. Family thing.”

“Forty years for her. I’ve had it fifteen.” She nods at a bucket of tall white flowers by the door. “Grab those for me? They go in the front cooler. They’re heavy, and you’re standing there doing nothing.”

For a moment I don’t move. “I came down here to complain.”

“You did. Nicely. Now you can carry the snapdragons.”

Without another request, I carry the snapdragons. The bucket is heavier than it looks, full of water to the brim. With care, I get it through the swinging door into the front of the shop without spilling a drop.

After I follow her instructions, I look around.

It’s an old building with character. I’ve seen the place from the street, through the glass, but inside it’s a different world.

It’s classy in a subtle way. The showroom has black-and-white tile. Some of the displays are antique furniture. There are plants and vases, and things you might buy as a gift for someone you care about.

It feels like I’ve stepped into a foreign land where I don’t speak the language.

Behind the doorway, she’s talking to herself. “I can’t forget to order the baby’s breath.”

“Make a note,” I reply as I head back to the workroom.