Chapter 2
Christina
Phil Webb is an enigma.
One minute he’s beneath me, frozen solid, breathing like I’ve personally robbed him of oxygen. The next, he’s halfway across the pub with some weak excuse about his grandfather, like he’s just remembered he left the oven on.
I watch him go.
I shouldn’t. It’s against my better judgement and several promises I’ve made to myself. But there’s something almost impressive about how fast he retreats, like his body takes over before his brain has time to negotiate.
Emma nudges my arm gently. Just enough to remind me I’ve gone somewhere else in my head.
“You okay?” she asks quietly.
I flash her a smile. “Of course. I thrive on rejection. Builds character.”
She doesn’t look convinced.
Across the table, Alex has Emma tucked against his side. He presses a tender kiss to her temple without even looking at her, attention split between her and the match. She leans into him automatically.
It’s unconscious. Easy.
I look away.
Not because I’m jealous.
Because I want that ease. That certainty. That absence of doubt. I’d like to have a special someone in my life, and ideally, I’d like that person to be Phil.
I pick up my drink and take a sip, letting the cool fizz steady me.
The annoying thing is, I don’t need Phil. Not really.
I’ve never struggled for attention. Even here, where I arrived a year ago with a London accent and Caribbean roots, the village adjusted. Slowly. Carefully. With just the right amount of village gossip.
Most people were kind. Curious. A few cautious.
Some surprised.
I learned early to meet their curiosity head-on. Smile first. Speak first. Make it easier for them. People are kinder when you remove their excuses to be nervous.
Mum didn’t understand why I’d leave London at all.
“You’re moving where?” she’d asked, her voice echoing down the phone like I’d announced I was emigrating to the moon.
“Cumbria.”
“That’s not a real plan. That’s a phase.”
“It’s a flower shop.”
“In a village.”
“In a village,” I confirmed.
“With sheep.”
“They’re very charming sheep.”
She’d sighed then, the kind of sigh only mothers can produce. Heavy with concern and judgement and love tangled together.
“You built a life here, Christina.”
“I’ll build another one there.”
And I had.
Blossom & Bloom sits on Fellside’s main street with big front windows and old wooden floors that creak like they have opinions. Emma handles the numbers. I handle the people. It works because Emma prefers the safety of spreadsheets and I prefer the unpredictability of humans.
Most days, I love it here.
I love the quiet. The mountains watching over everything like silent witnesses. The way people greet you by name once you earn your place.
I chose this life.
Which makes the fact that one painfully shy handyman can unravel me slightly ridiculous. Especially one who’s six foot tall, with dark blond hair, blue eyes, and the wiry strength of someone built for mountains rather than the gym.
Emma follows my gaze to the door Phil disappeared through.
“You know,” she says carefully, “you don’t have to keep chasing him.”
“I’m not chasing him,” I say automatically.
She raises an eyebrow.
“I’m… encouraging him,” I amend.
“With psychological warfare?”
“With charm.”
Emma snorts softly.
The truth is, I don’t understand him.
Most men meet my confidence with confidence of their own. They flirt back. They lean in. They play the game.
Phil freezes.
He looks at me like I’ve stepped into his carefully ordered world and rearranged the furniture without asking.
It should annoy me.
Instead, it makes me curious.
Because when he forgets to be nervous, when something catches him off guard and he reacts without thinking, there’s something else there. Something warm. Something real.
I’ve seen it in flashes.
Enough to keep me trying.
“I’ll tone it down,” I say finally.
She studies me for a moment, then nods.
“Good.”
I drain the rest of my drink and stand.
“I’ll head to the Cherry Pie bakery,” I say lightly. “If I stay here, I’ll start analysing his exit strategy like it’s a crime scene. What I need is the biggest éclair ever.”
Alex laughs. Emma squeezes my hand.
I pretend I don’t need as special someone.
Blossom & Bloom smells like eucalyptus, damp stems, and fresh roses when I unlock the door just after eight.
It’s my favourite moment of the day, before customers arrive and before decisions need to be made.
The flowers exist purely as themselves, unapologetically beautiful and briefly alive, and there’s something comforting about being surrounded by things that don’t pretend permanence.
Emma is already here, of course. She’s in the back room with her laptop open and her shoulders slightly hunched, her brow furrowed in concentration.
Numbers soothe her. Where I seek out chaos and connection, Emma seeks out order.
Between us, we manage to run a business and a life that neither of us could have built alone.
I slip behind the counter and start preparing the Friday deliveries. The unsold arrangements sit in a neat row, still vibrant, still worthy. Mum always hated throwing flowers away.
“Just because something isn’t profitable anymore doesn’t mean it’s not valuable,” she used to say whenever I tried to clear out older stock back at her own stall in London. She’d rescue them, trim the stems, rearrange them, and find somewhere they could still exist.
That’s how the retirement home deliveries started.
At first, it was practical. The arrangements were too beautiful to bin and too tired to sell.
The retirement home was close enough to reach between customer orders, and the residents appreciated the colour.
It gave the flowers a second life and gave us an excuse to step away from the shop for half an hour.
My phone buzzes against the wooden counter, pulling me from my thoughts. Mum’s name flashes across the screen.
I let it ring twice before answering.
“Hi.”
“Christina,” she says, and I can hear the city behind her. Traffic. Movement. London, still alive and impatient. “How are you?”
“Alive,” I reply. “Thriving. Surrounded by aggressive amounts of fresh air and livestock.”
She hums softly, unconvinced.
“And the shop?”
“Still standing.”
“And you’re happy?”
Even after a year living up here, she is still asking me every time we speak.
I glance around the shop. At the light spilling through the tall front windows. At Emma’s silhouette through the door. At the life we built from scratch in a place neither of us were supposed to stay.
“Yes,” I say, and this time it isn’t a performance. “I am.”
She exhales quietly. “I still don’t understand why you left.”
Mum always said I carried my grandmother’s colouring.
“Caribbean sun doesn’t fade easily,” she’d tell me, smoothing my hair when I was small, like she could press inheritance deeper into my skin.
Dad used to joke that I’d inherited Britain and Jamaica in equal parts. Weather-wise and temperament-wise.
I smile faintly, even though she can’t see it.
“London is your happy place not mine,” I reply stubbornly.
The city had been everything. Loud. Fast. Endless.
The kind of place that convinced you if you stopped moving, even briefly, you’d be left behind.
I didn’t leave because I failed there. I left because I wanted to know who I was without the noise.
Because Emma deserved a life where she wasn’t constantly overwhelmed.
Because I wanted something slower. Something that belonged to me.
And now it does.
We chat a little longer—Mum telling me all the gossip about the neighbours—and then we hang up the way we always do, neither of us entirely satisfied but both trying.
I finish securing the arrangements in the van, fastening the straps Alex installed after one unfortunate incident involving sudden braking and an airborne vase that neither Emma nor I have emotionally recovered from.
The drive to the nursing home is short. The road curves gently out of Fellside, past stone walls and early autumn trees just beginning to surrender to the season. It’s raining, but softly. Not enough to discourage anyone determined to be somewhere.
The first time I came here, it had felt like any other delivery. I’d carried the flowers inside, exchanged polite greetings, and placed colour into rooms that otherwise existed in shades of beige and memory.
And then I’d seen him.
Phil hadn’t noticed me. He’d been in the garden, walking beside his grandfather’s wheelchair, his head bent slightly as the older man spoke.
Not pretending to listen. Actually listening.
His pace matched the slower rhythm beside him without impatience or distraction.
He wasn’t checking his phone. He wasn’t rushing.
He wasn’t performing goodness for an audience.
He was simply there.
Present in a way most people forget how to be.
It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t grand.
It was steady.
And it had unsettled me more than any grand gesture ever could.
After that, I started spending more time on these deliveries than I normally would. Not just dropping off flowers, but staying. Talking to residents. Rearranging arrangements. Giving the blooms the kind of attention Mum always insisted they deserved.
I told myself it was because it mattered.
Which was true.
I told myself it had nothing to do with Phil.
Which was less true.
Liam greets me at reception with his usual warmth.
“Christina,” he says, brightening. “You’ve brought sunshine again.”
“I do my best,” I reply.
I move through the now familiar routine. Dining hall first. Then the conservatory.
I push open the glass door to the conservatory and step inside.
I can't help but smile when I find exactly what I'd hoped for.
Phil’s sitting beside his grandfather at one of the small tables near the window, a deck of cards spread between them. His posture is loose, shoulders relaxed, his attention fully on the older man beside him.
This is not the Phil from the pub.