Chapter 5
Maisie
Peaches has been trotting behind us the whole walk back—loyal, leash-less, and occasionally nosing Beau’s boot as though she’s keeping us on her pre-set schedule.
She trots in right behind us the instant I unlock the door, tail wagging, unhurried and pleased, as if she’s decided my floral shop will be her home for the evening.
She begins her little circle-sniff routine around Botaniq?e.
The overhead shop lights come on automatically with our movement, bright, practical, and a little too fluorescent, but it’s a light source.
I still feel the faint whisper of Beau’s hand brushing mine as we walked, how gently it happened, how unintentional it seemed.
But it left something behind. A mark on my sensory memory.
Beau’s touch was nothing like my ex, Grayson Fairchild’s’, touch, which always felt as though he was shaping me into something I wasn’t.
Beau’s touch was kind, comforting. Offering me something, not taking. And the way the touch of his skin on mine lingers scares me a little more than I want to admit.
The silence between us isn’t awkward. I picture us encircled by a paper link chain, the kind I used to make as a child, something barely holding together the hint of a connection that’s beginning to form.
Peaches finishes her sniffing expedition, does a loop around a potted fern, then curls up on the welcome mat with a sigh loud enough to rival an old man settling into his recliner.
That’s when I spot it, half-tucked under the door.
A glossy business card.
I stoop to pick it up, frowning. No name on the front, just gold-embossed swirls and a waft of floral perfume so fake it stings my nose. I flip it over.
“Loved your centerpieces. Pity about your score.”
The handwriting loops dramatically, and the glitter pen sparkles so brightly I almost think that it’s trying to blind me on purpose.
I hold it up for Beau to see. “Guess who.”
He doesn’t even blink. “Team Let’s Go Viral.”
“Ten glitter points to Gryffindor,” I say, tossing it onto the counter.
Beau’s mouth twitches as he tries not to smile, but the corners give him away. Not a laugh, not quite, but something milder. I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it.
He chuckles quietly. I breathe in the familiar scent of eucalyptus and roses, letting the smell guide me to the switch on the wall next to the mini cooler.
I flip it, and the pendant lights I installed glow to life, warm and amber-gold, casting a softer hue over everything than the fluorescents.
I’ve always preferred their ambiance, not as close to the scrutiny of being under a microscope, more similar to being in the pages of a picture book.
Beau’s eyes sweep the unfamiliar room. He has rarely come into Botaniq?e.
“Place looks good,” he says.
“Tell that to the ribbon explosion in the back,” I say with a weak grin. “It’s been quite the week.”
He shrugs out of his jacket and starts sweeping up dust from the floor.
We fall into a natural rhythm, no need for instructions.
Our steps sync up without trying, as though this is action we’ve choreographed together.
There’s an unspoken ease in how we move around each other—passing scissors, sliding aside buckets, falling into a shared tempo without thinking.
Peaches snoozes softly near the door, staking her claim on the whole storefront.
As I gather up scattered stems and dropped leaves from the workbench, I find myself staring at a broken rose—pale blush, barely holding on. It reminds me of the flowers I chose for my own wedding ceremony, blush-colored roses arranged with Cafe au Lait dahlias, sweet peas, and jasmine vines.
But the wedding never happened.
My fingers still for a second. Maybe it’s this whole fake dating thing, or maybe it’s Beau being near. But I find myself saying, quieter than I planned, “I used to believe that I could have love, the kind that the matchmaking festival is supposed to bring about. You know, the forever kind.”
Beau looks over but doesn’t say anything. His silence invites more than any question could.
“I was supposed to get married a few years ago,” I continue, gently placing the wilting bloom into the compost bin. “But two weeks before the wedding, he backed out. Said I was too much: too emotional, too messy, too over-the-top, too me.”
I glance at Beau, expecting some kind of reaction, but his expression is kind. Thoughtful.
Beau’s hand slows slightly as he organizes the spools, and he tilts his head. “That’s…a lot.”
“Grayson...I called him Gray.”
I keep my voice light, nothing more than swapping trivia facts.
“He had a five-year plan. I was year four.”
I start rearranging the broken stems in the compost bin, trying to make the pieces line up even when they won’t.
“He was always looking ahead, ticking boxes. I think I was just the mile marker between grad school and early retirement.”
I glance at Beau. “Gray told me I didn’t have the kind of personality he needed. Said I made things too complicated, that I lived in big feelings instead of data and timelines.”
My voice lowers and I tuck my chin slightly. “I wasn’t the kind of partner he envisioned fitting neatly into his well-thought-out future.”
Beau watches me as I move, but he doesn’t interrupt. And for a second, I wonder if I’ve said too much, if I’ve cracked something open too early, when we’re still supposed to be playing a part.
“I’ve rebuilt everything,” I continue despite my misgivings.
“The shop, my smile, the whole brand of ‘cheerful and charming florist.’” I glance over.
“My ability to laugh around life’s hurts instead of letting them shake me is my new normal.
But sometimes I wonder if people look at me and think I’m unfinished, immature. ”
Beau’s expression doesn’t shift much, but something in his gaze deepens.
I imagine I see empathy, but maybe not. His mannerisms change again to be gentler, almost searching, and I suddenly feel that I need space to breathe.
I disappear for a moment into the walk-in cooler, prepared to restock the flowers I used up while making the centerpieces.
The chill kisses my skin as I gather an armful of blooms. Under my breath, I whisper to the flowers out of habit.
I’ve done this since I was a teenager working part-time at the very shop I now own.
It started as a joke, a way to amuse myself during long prep days.
But over time, it became natural and not something I needed or wanted to stop doing.
“All right, darlings, let’s try not to droop under pressure.
Festival demands, you know.” I nudge a few stems into place, murmuring nonsense like I’m coaxing them awake.
“All right, my beauties,” I continue, voice dipping into a singsong as I carry the flowers almost as if I’m rocking a baby. “Let’s pretend we’re not tired. We’ve got a second act, so perk up and give me a little drama. But the elegant kind, not the contestant-on-day-four kind.”
My voice undulates as I move through the cooler, lilting and low one moment, playfully scolding the next. The cooler doesn’t just hold flowers, it holds memories, passion, pieces of who I used to be before I stopped believing love was something I could have in my life.
When I return, Beau is organizing pots by size without looking up. But the second I step into the room, he says quietly, without turning, “You know your voice changes when you talk to your flowers.”
I pause. “I do not talk to...”
“You do. It’s melodic…your voice, I mean,” he continues, still not looking at me. “As though you were trying to coax them into blooming with nothing but fondness and communication. Gentle yet intentional.”
That flutter again, somewhere between my ribs and the walls I keep up.
I try to shrug it off. “You’ve been spending way too much time around poetic townsfolk.”
His grin is brief, the faintest curl at the corner of his mouth, and I only notice it because the soft glow of the pendant lights reflects it in the shop window behind him. “Maybe.”
We drift from station to station. I refresh peonies. He straightens a lopsided stack of glass vases. At one point, he picks up one of my floating bloom bowls, fingers tracing the rim.
“I wrote something once,” he says suddenly, the words tumbling out like a toddler’s knocked over alphabet block tower. “Someone else made it famous.”
I freeze, not daring to move in case it disturbs the vulnerability I hear in Beau’s voice.
“Wrote something? Music?”
He nods. “I didn’t think it mattered. But it did.”
I glance at him, waiting for more. He doesn’t offer it. Just turns the bowl in his hands once, twice, and sets it carefully down.
We hear voices from outside on the sidewalk. I recognize Cassie and Nico, their chatter growing louder as they approach, too busy gossiping to notice how clearly their words are carried on the soft breeze. Beau and I halt our movement until they walk by.
“…like I said, totally just faking it,” Cassie declares with that familiar sugar-laced venom.
“They’re cute,” Nico replies. “But we’ve got this contest in the bag. Tomorrow, we’ll prove it to everyone...” His voice trails off.
I snicker. “They do know this isn’t The Bachelor, right?”
“They’re just jealous we didn’t coordinate our outfits,” Beau scoffs.
I glance at him. “Don’t tempt me. I’ve got flower crowns in back.”
He croaks. “Please don’t.”
I bite back a smile. The banter’s easy again, but underneath, something takes root. Something I can’t assign words to yet.
Beau heads toward the backroom, scanning the trail of ribbons and trimming scraps left from earlier prep. “Want me to hang around and keep helping tidy up?”
I almost say “no, this is my mess,” but then…
He hums.
Not loud. Not on purpose. Just a small thread of melody hushed as a lullaby under his breath as he starts gathering supplies into a bin.
It catches me off-guard, but in a delightfully good way.
I stop suddenly, hands full of floral wire, and tilt my head.
I know that tune.
Not the words. Not the whole song. But the way it drifts stirs something. A memory I can’t place. Maybe from the radio. Maybe from somewhere older. It’s hazy and unfinished, like a dream you forget the second you wake up.
It’s familiar, but not quite grabbable. Like recognizing someone from a distance and not remembering their name.
He looks up, brows raised. “You okay?”
I nod, my gaze shifting to the bouquet bucket, needing an anchor.
A loose spray of tulips leans over the edge, their pale-yellow petals just starting to open, and a soft, herbal scent from sprigs of mint rises faintly from the water.
It grounds me when everything else feels briefly blurry. “Yeah. Just…spacing out.”
He shrugs as if that makes perfect sense and keeps humming, now quieter.
The delicate intensity of the music settles between us as we clean. I catch myself watching the curve of his shoulder as he lifts a bin, the way his mouth moves without realizing it.
“So, helping me clean, huh? You’re really committing to this fake dating thing,” I say jokingly, reaching for some ribbon.
“Just trying not to get us disqualified,” he replies.
A heartbeat passes.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” I consider. “How easy pretending can start to feel…not so pretend.” The words leave my mouth before I realize how true they are, and I wonder if I’ve just revealed way more than I meant to. I’m not sure if I want to take them back or see how he reacts.
He doesn’t answer, but there’s a message in his eyes when they meet mine. A shimmer of something that makes my heart trip over itself.
Peaches stirs, then promptly flops back down with a huff.
We both glance her way, grateful for the interruption neither of us asked for.
Then, mysterious as an owl’s call in the night, the tune slips back into the air, faint and flitting like butterfly wings. I go still. My hands pause mid-reach, fingertips brushing a curl of ribbon I no longer remember needing.
My breath catches, held tight and suspended as a bow drawn over the strings of a violin on the last note of a solo. Beau’s humming dips and rises around me, wordless, embracing me and nudging a corner of my heart I haven’t dared to touch in a long time.
And I realize: I want to stay right here, cradled in this sliver of togetherness, as long as he keeps humming.