At 7:01 a.m., the shop is mine.
The bell over the door hangs quiet. The street outside is still a blur of gray and soft headlights, the city not quite awake yet. I’m alone with the hum of the old fridge, the sweet-green breath of cut stems, and my hands stained with chlorophyll and soil.
I check the wall clock anyway, even though I don’t need to.
7:01.
My chest tightens in a way I pretend not to notice. It’s ridiculous, how precisely my body knows what comes next. I wipe my fingers on my apron, straighten the stack of blank kraft-paper sleeves for bouquets, and tuck a loose curl behind my ear.
7:02.
The bell chimes.
He steps in like he always does—like he belongs to the second between one minute and the next. Black coat, black shirt, black slacks. The clothes are tailored enough that I can tell he’s wearing a shoulder holster under the fabric even though I’ve never actually seen it. Polished shoes dark with a sheen that catches the weak morning light. Black hair, a little too long at the nape, brushed back from his forehead. A face that shouldn’t be familiar to me, but is.
I don’t know his name.
I know the way he moves. Smooth, controlled, careful of space the way people are when they know exactly how much damage they could do if they weren’t paying attention. I know that his eyes are almost black—not in color, but in intensity. I know that he always smells faintly like clean soap and cold air, as if he’s just stepped out of a different world and into mine.
And I know that every single morning, at exactly 7:02, he walks into my flower shop and buys the same bouquet.
“Good morning,” I say, because the silence feels suddenly too big.
His gaze lifts from the floor to my face. There’s a half second where it lands, sharp as a blade and then softening, and I feel it like a touch along my skin.
“Miss Lynn.” His voice is low, a rumble that doesn’t match the delicate world of petals and ribbon. There’s always something formal about the way he says my name, like I’m a client at a bank instead of a girl in a faded green apron. “You’re early on the hydrangeas.”
I blink. “You noticed?”
He glances past me to the buckets. “They weren’t here yesterday.”
Right. Of course he noticed. He notices everything.
“I got a good deal at the market.” I fumble with the twine on the counter. “Mother’s Day rush is coming. Thought I’d be prepared.”
He nods, but his eyes are still on my face, not the flowers. It sends a little electric awareness through me, every nerve suddenly tuned to him. He doesn’t flirt. He doesn’t linger. He doesn’t ask personal questions beyond the polite—Did you receive that shipment? How’s business?—but there’s always this…watchfulness.
“Your usual?” I ask, reaching for the bucket without waiting because of course it is. White cornflowers, small and stubborn and easily overlooked until you realize how bright they are.
He pauses. Just a fraction of a second, but enough for my fingers to hesitate above the stems.
“Yes,” he says. “The usual.”
I pull six of the best blooms; habit makes me choose the ones with the cleanest petals. My scissors click as I trim the ends. The stems are cool and damp between my fingers. I wrap them in white paper, twist the bottom, and tie it with a simple piece of twine. It’s a ritual now, one we never agreed on but keep performing anyway.
