Chapter Text
The embarrassment for treating Colt’s brother so poorly for no good reason was expected to haunt him for the rest of his life. He didn’t think the man, whatever his name is, would want to come back to his work any time soon when Simon had stared at him the whole time and called him weird.
Whatever. Simon had a bad reputation at getting off on the wrong foot with people anyway. If Colt really did break up with his girlfriend, it would just mean he wouldn’t be seeing him around much. It wasn’t like he would have to deal with seeing his brother all the time now instead.
Except that seemed to be exactly the case.
Colt’s brother came back two weeks later, already in the store when Simon showed up for his shift. They took one look at each other before quickly looking anywhere else. Simon practically ran into the back to escape him.
He caught sight of his coworker as she got ready to leave. “Elli, wait, could you—”
“No.”
And she slipped out the back door.
Simon’s lip twitched. He imagined grabbing her by the hair one day before she could abandon him and slamming her face into the wall, but then he takes a breath in and waves the thought away. It's violent and not constructive. He’s just upset and embarrassed. He just needs to breathe for a minute.
He might’ve stood there too long because there was a small, light tap of the call bell at the counter. And he snaps at the sound interrupting his small moment of peace.
“What?!” He shouts through gritted teeth.
“Sorry, sorry!” A man—Colt’s brother who is still out there—quickly apologizes. “I just wanted to check out. Sorry.”
Simon is immediately filled with guilt for snapping at the customer. Especially the man he keeps fucking up with. He quickly grabs his apron, and throws it over his shoulder, not bothering to put it on yet. He rushes out of the back and into the front of the store.
“Sorry,” he apologizes back. “I didn’t mean to shout at you. Just—bad day.”
Horrible excuse.
“That’s okay. Seems like I only catch you on bad days, huh?” A slight, uncomfortable laugh from the other.
Simon runs his tongue over his teeth silently as he grabs the scanner, reaching around the plant and the other supplies the man picked out to find the barcodes. He glances up at him once or twice.
“Yeah…I’m sorry about that too,” he clears his throat. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Oh.” He sounds surprised. Then he straightens up. “Oh! Oh, you know Colt! Okay, yeah, that makes more sense now.”
He watches as the man relaxes himself in real time. His once rigid posture and fidgeting hands fall into something more easy-going. He smiles at him now, kindly.
Simon feels wholly undeserving of that.
“Yeah. Colt used to come by a lot to get flowers for his girlfriend. He would talk a lot. I haven’t seen him for a while, so I just assumed…” saying that he assumed he was his brother made him sound stupid. He pivots a little. “I was just a little pissed. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s alright. It happens. More so when we were younger, but sometimes when I go visit him on set I get a lot of confused stares.” He chuckles to himself, then his face sobers a bit. He doesn’t frown, but it’s taking a lot more effort to keep his smile up. “Colt, uh, got into a little accident a couple months ago. I’ve been staying with him to help him out with some stuff he can’t really do by himself. And I think he broke up with Jody just before it happened. Or something like that. He won’t really talk to me about it.”
Simon sits for a second with that information, lowering his hand onto the counter with the scanner pulsing red, trying to read something that wasn’t there. He feels even worse now for treating the man poorly. His brother is hurt and that’s probably enough stress for him, and he has to deal with Simon’s shit behavior on top of it all.
“‘S fine. Honestly, I get losing it over a bad day. At least you’re nicer about it than I’ve been in the past.”
Simon huffs. This guy has no idea who he’s talking to.
He continues on with the transaction, giving him his total and waiting for him to fish out his wallet. He scratches his nail against the side of the register as he watches him, thinking if there was anything else he could say to the man. Just to make it up to him a little more.
“What’s with the plant?” He ends up asking, much too softly.
“What? Oh,” the man hands him his card finally. “Uh, well, Colt’s been cooped up in his place for a while. It’s very unusual for him. He’s always been pretty active even outside of stunts, but his injury makes that a little difficult now. I think him not being able to just go out to the beach or go on a hike whenever he can is making him a little…depressed, I guess.”
He swallows, eyes looking away from Simon, a sad sea of blue. Simon inserts the card and goes through the stupid little prompts on the machine.
“I thought maybe getting him a plant to take care of would help him feel a bit better, y’know? Remind him of nature.” He finishes off awkwardly.
Simon nods a little. He hands the card back and starts getting his bag ready, putting the items in carefully. He grinds his teeth as he thinks of something more to say, but he wouldn’t really know what. It’s not like him and Colt were really friends, he was just always around and relatively easy to talk to. He doesn’t even know this guy’s name.
He hands the bags off to him, mumbling the scripted “have a good one” he always says. The man gives him a smile and gives a quick “you too” as he heads to the door.
“Wait, uh—”
Simon didn’t know what he was doing, but whatever it was got the other guy to stop.
He swallows hard, floundering for a moment on what to say, what to do. Then, hurriedly, he heads over to the flower stand. He gently shimmies out a pink lily from a bouquet and holds it out for the man silently.
“Oh, um…” he shifts on his feet, still one hand on the door. “No thanks, I really just wanted the plant.”
Simon tries not to let nerves eat him alive. He walks towards the man, insisting.
“It’s for Colt,” he spits out. “He likes lilies. I think.”
Suddenly, the man smiles and it’s so bright and warm that it practically knocks him off his feet just looking at him. He takes his free hand off the door and reaches out to take the flower from Simon’s hand. He’s still smiling when he looks at him.
“Thank you! That’s nice of you. I’m sure he’ll love it.” He shifts and sticks the lily carefully in his bag, making sure it won’t get crushed on the way back to wherever he was staying. He faces Simon again, now completely relaxed. “It was nice meeting you. The real you, y’know. Outside of the bad mood.”
“Yeah…” he mumbles weakly. He steps back half a step. “Uh, it’s Simon. By the way.”
“Ryland,” he gives. “Thanks again, Simon. I’ll make sure to come back if he wants more plants. Maybe I can get Colt to leave the house and come see you.”
Simon just nods stupidly. He turns away as Ryland pushes out the door, trying not to think about the light skip in his step he heard just before it jangled shut behind him.