Page 22 of The Florist By Chance
Zoe skids in with supplies. I tear a trash bag down the seam, flatten it across the window, and smooth tape over the edges, sealing plastic to wood as the wind tugs and snaps. Luke’s fingers find mine on the last strip of tape; for a half second we’re both pressing the same corner down, both refusing to let the shop slip one inch more.
“Nice save,” he says, breath visible in the cold.
I don’t look at him. “We’re not saved yet.” I toss him another strip. “Top left.”
He moves without comment, and we fall into a rhythm I didn’t plan and don’t want to think about—he braces, I seal; I triage the flowers, he secures the structure. Buckets fill; we swap them out. Towels soak; Zoe feeds us fresh ones like we’re in a strange little battlefield hospital that only treats roses and plaster.
A new drip starts near the register. I sprint, slide, catch it with a chipped mixing bowl that’s seen more potting soil thancake batter. “Not today,” I mutter, to the ceiling, to Titan, to the ache thudding under my sternum.
“This storm’s not letting up anytime soon,” Luke says as he climbs down. He pulls on a delivery rain jacket, then hands me the spare. “Here—unless you want hypothermia on top of everything else.”
“I’m fine.” My teeth click together. I take the jacket anyway. “Inventory first. Then the cooler seals.”
He nods, as if my priorities are his, and for a breath the panic thins. It’s still my shop. It’s still ours to fight for.
The wind howls. The plastic shudders but stays. The bucket under the leak beats out a steady, stubborn rhythm. I match it, breath for breath, and refuse to let the fear win.
“Okay,” I say, louder than I feel. “We’re going to hold.” And we keep moving.
The shop is chaos—petals plastered against the floor like confetti after a party no one wanted, water dripping steady from the ceiling into mismatched buckets we dragged from the back. My hands ache from wringing out towels that can’t keep up, but Luke doesn’t stop moving.
He climbs back up the ladder with a roll of duct tape and a sheet of plastic he must’ve found in the storage closet. “Hold this steady,” he says, pressing the corner into my hands without even looking at me. His hair is soaked, plastered dark against his forehead, rain jacket already dripping at the seams.
I want to bite out something sarcastic—that he’s bossy, that this won’t hold, that he’s overdoing it—but the words lodge in my throat. He’s working like the shop is his too, like saving it matters just as much to him.
“Luke—” I start, but he cuts me off with a grunt as he stretches the plastic across the beam. His shoulders strain with the reach, muscles tense under damp fabric, and for some reason I can’t drag my eyes away.
He glances down, catching me staring. “What?”
“Nothing.” I staple the word too quickly, turning back to press my side of the plastic flat. “Just…thanks.”
The corner of his mouth curves like he doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t push it. Instead, he climbs down, checks the seal, then moves right to the next leak. It’s relentless, the way he works—focused, methodical, like if he just keeps going, nothing can collapse.
Zoe rushes in with another armful of towels, slipping a little on the wet tile. Luke is there before I can react, steadying her with one hand on her elbow. “Careful,” he says, voice softer than I expect, before sending her off with instructions.
And that—more than the plastic, more than the buckets—is what undoes me. He isn’t just fixing the roof; he’s looking out for the people in here, too. For me.
I bend over to mop at the puddle beneath the register, but my throat is tight. Grace’s words echo in my head—you don’t have to carry this alone. I’ve been so set on proving I could, on making the shop a shrine that kept my mom alive in every bouquet, every receipt, every column of her neat handwriting. But Luke doesn’t treat it like a shrine. He treats it like something living. Something worth fighting for in the messy, exhausting present.
My hands still on the mop. The truth sneaks in before I can shove it away: I still care for him. Maybe not in the childish, hopeless crush way I used to, but in the quiet awareness that he sees me flailing and doesn’t turn away. He jumps in, shoulders the weight, even when I wish he wouldn’t.
I squeeze the mop handle until my knuckles ache, blinking hard at the mess in front of me. Caring doesn’t mean trusting, I remind myself. It doesn’t mean forgiving. But it also doesn’t mean nothing.
Luke passes by with another bucket, brushing close enough that I catch the clean, sharp scent of rain on his jacket. “We’ll get through this,” he says like it’s fact, not possibility.
For the first time since the storm hit, I almost believe him.
By the time the worst of the storm passes, the shop looks like it’s survived a war. Flowers cling to the floor in soggy drifts, ribbon rolls float like shipwreck survivors in shallow puddles, and the scent of roses has soured with mildew. My chest tightens at the sight. This place was my mother’s dream, her masterpiece—and now it looks like a ruin.
Luke drags the last bucket into place beneath a stubborn leak, his jaw set in that determined line that both infuriates and steadies me. He wipes his hands on his soaked jeans, breath puffing in tired bursts. I don’t have the heart to snap at him, not when he’s given everything he has to patching my world back together.
And that’s the problem, isn’t it? My world. Yet he’s standing right in the center of it, like he belongs.
Grace’s voice threads through my head again:You don’t have to do this alone.
I bend over to wring out another towel, blinking back tears I refuse to let fall. I shouldn’t lean on him. I shouldn’twantto lean on him. And yet… I glance over, and he’s there, steady as ever, coaxing the chaos into something manageable.
The words slip in before I can stop them.I still care about you, Luke.I don’t say it aloud, but it thunders in my chest all the same. Care doesn’t erase the past. It doesn’t solve the trust we’ve shattered between us. But it’s undeniable, no matter how fiercely I’ve tried to bury it.
