The sound scraped against my already frayed nerves like fingernails on carbon fiber. I’d spent years fine-tuning my ability to hear the slightest variation in engine performance, to detect problems by the smallest change in vibration or sound. It was said there hadn’t been an ass as sensitive to a car since Niki Lauda had raced. This mechanical abuse was like listening to someone torture a symphony orchestra.
Finally, she let out a huff of defeat and sagged against the counter, running both hands through her already chaotic hair. The pencil made its escape and clattered to the floor with a sound of triumph as her hair fell down her back. It was only then, in her moment of surrender, that she noticed she had an audience.
Her eyes went wide, and a flush spread from her neck up to her cheeks, turning them the exact shade of the pink carnations in a nearby bucket. She straightened up immediately, her spine going military-straight, and attempted to plaster on a bright, professional smile that didn’t quite manage to hide the panic underneath.
“Oh! Hi there,” she said, her voice slightly breathless from her battle with the register. “Sorry about that. Welcome to Sage & Bloom. Can I help you find something special today?”
She looked like a deer caught in the headlights trying to convince the oncoming car that everything was perfectly normal and she definitely hadn’t been doing anything embarrassing. It was clear she was hoping against hope that I hadn’t just witnessed her declaration of war against office equipment.
“Just looking,” I said, my voice coming out rougher than I’d intended. It sounded like I’d been gargling gravel, which probably didn’t help put her at ease.
I started to move around the small shop, pretending to examine various displays while she watched me like a security guard tracking a potential shoplifter. I picked up a bucket of sunflowers, their faces turned up like they were expecting something from me I couldn’t give. The silence stretched between us, thick and awkward, broken only by the steady hum of a commercial flower cooler in the corner and the distant sound of traffic on Happily Ever After Lane.
I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want flowers, didn’t want small talk, didn’t want to navigate the social minefield of pretending to be a normal customer in a normal shop. What I wanted was to grab a bottle of water from somewhere anonymous and retreat to the safety of Ben’s guest room where I could close the door and pretend the world didn’t exist for a few more hours.
But to escape, I needed her to be able to process a transaction. And to do that, someone needed to fix that register.
I selected a pre-made arrangement from a display near the window—fall flowers arranged in a small ceramic pumpkin that looked like something Margaret would coo over. It could serve as a peace offering, a contribution to household harmony. Tactical relationship management.
I carried it to the counter where Lily had resumed her position behind the register, her professional smile back in place but strained around the edges like a mask that didn’t quite fit.
“This is lovely,” she said, her voice climbing toward the cheerful range. “Perfect for a fall centerpiece. Really captures the season.”
She turned to the register with the air of someone approaching a wild animal that might bite. She pressed a sequence of buttons with careful, deliberate movements. Nothing happened. The machine sat there with the smug silence of an inanimate object that had already won the day.
She tried again, this time pressing harder, as if force could overcome the laws of mechanical engineering. The register remained stubbornly inert, a monument to her mounting frustration.
“Just... one moment,” she said through gritted teeth, shooting me an apologetic look. She gave the machine another surreptitious bump with her hip, trying to make it look casual. Like this was all part of the normal transaction process.
I sighed. The sound came out louder than I’d meant it to, echoing in the small space like a judgment. My entire pit crew could change four tires, refuel a car, and send me back onto the track in under three seconds. A complete pit stop—the most complex, coordinated mechanical operation in motorsport—took less time than this simple sale was taking.
Patience had never been my strongest virtue.
“Here,” I said, stepping forward.
She jumped as if I’d fired a starting gun. “What?”
“Let me look at it.”
I could see the war playing out on her face—stubborn pride battling against desperate practicality. Her chin lifted in a gesture I recognized from every driver who’d ever refused to admit their car was handling badly.
“I’ve got it,” she insisted, pressing another button with no result.
“Clearly.”
The flush on her cheeks deepened to match the roses in the cooler. She looked like she wanted to grab the nearest bouquet and beat me with it, which honestly would have been more effective than her current strategy with the register.
“It’s just sticky sometimes,” she said, jabbing at the keys with increasing force. “Old machines, you know? They have personality.”
This machine had personality, all right. The personality of a broken fuel pump.
I’d had enough. The noise, the overwhelming smells, the inefficiency of watching someone attack a simple mechanical problem with the strategy of a berserker—it was all culminating in this one stupid, broken piece of equipment that was standing between me and escape.
“Move,” I said. It wasn’t a request.
She was so surprised by the direct command that she actually took a step back, her mouth falling open slightly. I leaned over the counter, my fingers automatically finding the seam along the side of the cash drawer.
The register was old, probably twenty years past its prime, but the mechanism was simple. Mechanical, not electronic. The problem wasn’t with the computer system she’d been trying to cajole into cooperation—it was with the physical components. I ran my thumb along the track where the drawer slid. There was definitely something jamming the mechanism. Probably a coin that had fallen into the wrong place, or a key that had worked its way into the runner.
