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Orson
“Ah, fuck,”I mutter, springing up off the ground. My ass is tender from landing wrong, and my skin prickles with the uncomfortable dampness seeping through my pants and underwear. I twist around to get a good look, andyep. Between the water and the soil turned mud, anyone would think I shit my pants.
What a beautiful start to the day.
I pick up the pot I’d knocked over, upending more soil in the process, before going to get supplies to clean up. The shop is already open, but it’s midweek and thankfully quiet, so there’s no one around to witness this.
Silver linings. It’s a minor inconvenience that no one will ever know about.
At least, that’s what I think.
Just as I’ve finished cleaning the floors and am trying to work out what the hell to do about the mess on my pants, the bell over the door sounds, and I dart back out front.
Then almost trip over my feet.
Ford Thomas is standing in the middle of my florist, looking completely out of place.
He’s tall and thick and covered in tattoos, wearing his heavily stained mechanics uniform and taking up more room in my little shop than should be physically possible.
Even being the only person in the room, he manages to make it feel crowded. It’s not hard to see why people think he’s scary at first glance, because when that intense stare falls on me, I feel like I might rattle out of my skin.
“Morning,” he says cheerfully.
I snap out of … whatever that was. “Hey. Ah … flowers. Want some?”
“Isthatwhat these fluffy little things are called?”
I eye him, thrown off by the genuine confusion in his tone, when—
He bursts out laughing. “Shit, you believed that?”
“No.”
“Sure you did. Just how dumb do you think I am?” Ford’s grin lightens his whole face.
A chuckle slips from me. “We haven’t officially met before. I’m Orson. Florist, forty-five, andextremelygullible.”
“Eh.” He shrugs. “Are you gullible or just trusting?”
“Definitely the first one.”
His intense stare is traded for an amused one, and when his eyes lock onto mine suddenly, the room gets warmer. Shit. Not good for the flowers. I drop his gaze and shuffle over to the thermostat to check the temperature—all while trying to keep my back turned away from him. I’m overly aware of the wet clothing clinging to my skin, and even without looking at him, I canfeelhim following my every move.
“Do you think it’s weird?” he asks.
I have no choice but to glance back over. My hands feel awkward and cumbersome, so I tuck them into the front of my apron. “What’s weird?”
“We’ve lived in the same town all these years and never actually met.”
“There are a lot of people in this town. If you’ve never needed flowers before, you likely wouldn’t have met me.”
He nods. “You don’t go out?”
“Rarely.” I reach over and pluck a dying leaf from one of my arrangements. I used to go out all the time after my wife died, and it got me into alotof trouble that I never want to relive. “Just not my scene.”
He hums, and my attention flicks back to him in time to catch him openly checking me out.Openly. His gaze runs from my head down my legs and back up again. “You ever date?”
