Page 44 of Pansies

So he did the third.

This time, there was a horrible grinding noise and half the wall just crumbled away, dragging Alfie’s fresh plasterwork with it.

“What the fu—”

And then a jet of cold water hit him right in the face.8

To his credit, he didn’t freak out immediately. He put the drill down slowly and carefully, making sure he wasn’t drenching any electrics. Then he stepped away from the water. Then he freaked out.

He’d hit a pipe. Well, obviously.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Water was starting to form little pools, and the little pools were starting to join up and spread. Making big pools. He leaned out of the bath, grabbed Fen’s towel from the rack, did not notice how soft it felt or how it smelled like him, and knotted it tightly round the exposed and grimy pipe. For a moment, it looked like it wouldn’t hold…but then it did. And Alfie let out a sigh of relief, before remembering exactlywhyhe was relieved. Being relieved now was kind of like being pleased at the deck chair arrangement on theTitanicafter it had hit the iceberg.

There was now absolutely no way he could make this right. It was completely fucked. And he had to face up to it. He found Fen in the back room, surrounded by freshly made up bouquets and the scent of flowers, and sheepishly asked him to come upstairs for a moment. When Fen saw the carnage, his mouth actually fell open in cartoon shock. “What…what have you done?”

“Um, yeah. It didn’t quite go to plan.”

“Was this revenge? Because I briefly contemplated putting your head in the toilet?”

“What? No. It was an accident.”

“You did this by accident? How bad at DIY are you?”

Alfie cleared his throat. “Pretty bad, apparently.”

“No fucking shit.” Fen pressed his knuckles over his lips and made a slightly hysterical, hiccoughing noise. “Oh my God, what am I going to do?”

This was worse than he’d imagined. And he felt terrible. “Look, it’s fine, I mean it’s not fine, but it’ll be okay. I’m going to fix this. I’ll get an emergency plumber out, and then I’ll get someone in to, y’know, deal with the rest of it.”

“This is South Shields, not London. Everyone will be booked up months ahead.”

He slithered his iPhone out of his pocket and tried to get asignal. “I’ll figure something out. Worst-case scenario, it’ll be a couple of days.”

“A couple of days?” Fen’s voice cracked. “You’re standing on top of a flower shop.”

“Yeah?”

Fen threw his hands into the air. Alfie didn’t think people really did that. But it seemed they did when you pushed them to a certain point. “A flower shop, Alfie Bell. You know what flower shops sell? Flowers. You know what flowers need? Water.”

“What, there isn’t a separate”—Alfie flapped—“thing?”

“No, Alfie Bell, there isn’t a separatething. When my mother’s mother set this place up, she didn’t think to herself, ‘You know what, I’d better use a different water supply for the shop on the off chance my grandson gets entangled with a complete gibbering potato who will flood his fucking house.’”

That was kind of harsh. Except Fen didn’t sound angry—he sounded like someone trying really hard tobeangry. When actually all Alfie heard in his voice was despair. “It’s only a little bit flooded,” he protested.

Fen was blinking rapidly, and Alfie was horrified to catch the shimmer of tears under his lashes. “Oh God, my stock. My orders. I…I’ll have to close. I can’t afford—”

“Fen, I’m sorry.” Unthinking, Alfie grabbed his hands, Fen’s rough, restless fingers lying chill and quiescent against his. “I’m going to sort this out. Just trust me. Please.”

“But I did.”

Alfie cringed. “Trust me a bit more.”

“Dear God, Alfie, if this is how you help people, I hate to think what happens when you set out to harm them. But”—Fen’s mouth twisted wryly—“if you think there’s anything you can do, be my guest. At this point, I don’t see how much worse it could get.”

“I could bust the electrics?” That earned him the faintest of smiles. Gave him courage. “It’s going to be okay. Ipromise.”

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