I pressed firmly on the bottom right corner of the drawer while simultaneously hitting the “No Sale” key that she’d been abusing for the past five minutes.
There was a loud, satisfying clunk as whatever had been jamming the mechanism gave way, and the drawer slid open with a triumphant cha-ching that sounded like a victory bell.
The silence that followed was deafening.
I stepped back, crossing my arms, and waited for her reaction.
Lily stared at the open drawer as if I’d just performed some sort of miraculous feat. Like I’d reached into the machine and resurrected it from electronic death through sheer force of will. She slowly lifted her gaze to meet mine, her mouth still slightly open, her eyes wide and brown and flecked with gold in the afternoon light streaming through the shop windows.
Her expression was a stunning mix of shock, exasperation, and what looked dangerously like reluctant admiration. It was the same look I’d seen on the faces of junior engineers when a senior tech solved a problem they’d been struggling with for hours.
“How did you do that?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, like I’d just revealed the secrets of the universe.
“Jiggle the key and push on the frame. The rail is warped.” I shrugged. It was obvious to anyone who understood basic mechanical principles.Dio santo.
I’d spent my entire career diagnosing problems at two hundred miles per hour, feeling the slightest vibration through the steering wheel, hearing the faintest off-key note in an engine’s symphony. Reading the mechanical language of stress and failure was as natural to me as breathing. This was kindergarten-level troubleshooting.
She continued to stare at me for another few seconds, like she was trying to solve an equation that didn’t add up. Then, her professional mask snapped back into place with an almost audible click. She cleared her throat and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with movements that were just a little too quick, a little too jerky.
“Right. Of course,” she said, as if this had all been part of her master plan. “I knew that. Thank you.”
She turned to the newly cooperative cash register and punched in the price for the pumpkin arrangement with crisp, efficient movements, her knuckles white against the keys. The machine responded obediently, displaying the total like a reformed criminal trying to make amends.
“That’ll be twenty-four ninety-five,” she announced.
I pulled out a fifty, not wanting to wait around while she made change for something smaller. The sooner this transaction was complete, the sooner I could escape back to the relative sanity of the sidewalk.
She counted out my change with brisk, precise movements, her focus laser-focused on the bills and coins as if they held the secrets to world peace. She refused to look at me directly, instead concentrating on carefully wrapping the ceramic pumpkin in sheets of tissue paper that rustled loudly in the small space.
The sound seemed to fill every corner of the shop, amplified by the awkward tension hanging between us like humidity before a storm. She placed the wrapped arrangement in a paper bag with the Sage & Bloom logo—a delicate watercolor design that looked like her handiwork—and slid it across the counter toward me.
“Thank you for shopping with us,” she said, finally looking up. “Have a wonderful day.”
Our fingers brushed as I took the bag. Just for a second, just the briefest contact, but I felt a small spark of static electricity. Probably from the dry autumn air, but it seemed to travel all the way up my arm like a live wire.
She jerked her hand back as if the spark had burned her, her cheeks flushing again.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, hefting the bag.
I turned and walked toward the door, the little bell announcing my retreat with the same cheerful optimism that had greeted my arrival. The cool, clean air outside hit my face like a relief valve releasing pressure. I took a deep breath, expecting the tension in my shoulders to ease now that I was free of the overwhelming sensory assault of the flower shop.
It didn’t.
I made it maybe three steps down the sidewalk before something made me stop. An impulse I couldn’t name, couldn’t rationalize. I glanced back at the shop.
Through the large front window, I could see her clearly. She stood behind the counter for a long moment, her back rigid, her hands pressed flat against the surface like she was trying to hold herself upright. Then, as I watched, her shoulders sagged and she slumped against the counter, burying her face in her hands in a gesture of pure exhaustion.
After a few seconds, she straightened up, took a deep breath that I could see even from outside, and got back to work. Her hands moved with practiced efficiency as she began arranging the flowers on her worktable, creating order from the chaos that surrounded her.
She was a whirlwind of focused energy, a splash of bright color in the cozy, cluttered shop. A complete and utter mess, and yet she was clearly running this entire operation single-handedly. Stubborn. Capable. Independent to a fault.
That stray petal was still stuck to her cheek.
Something stirred in my chest, something I couldn’t identify or categorize. It wasn’t irritation—I’d been irritated plenty since arriving in Autumn Grove, and this felt different. It wasn’t pity, either, though there was something almost heroic about her determined battle against malfunctioning equipment and the general chaos of small business ownership.
It was something else entirely. Something I hadn’t felt in a very long time, something that made my chest tight and my pulse kick up a notch. Something that felt dangerously like interest.
I turned and walked away before I could analyze the feeling any further, the paper bag bumping against my leg with each step. But I could still feel the phantom spark on my fingertips where our hands had touched, and I couldn’t shake the image of her standing in the middle of her fragrant chaos, looking completely overwhelmed and stubbornly, infuriatingly in charge all at once.
