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Burgie liked to think that he was too old for this shit. And if he was too old for this shit, then Eddie was way too old for this shit.
"You could just tell him the truth, you know," he said, leaning against the counter in the back room. Ostensibly, he was back there to do inventory on their latest delivery and make sure that everything was healthy and intact before putting it into cold storage. In reality he was mostly there to watch Eddie pace up and down the work benches, dragging a hand through his hair as he desperately compared the results of his Google search to the assortment of flowers laid out in front of him.
"Or you could try to help," Eddie groused under his breath. He picked up a spray of baby's breath, examined it for a moment, and then huffed in disgust and tossed it back on the table.
"Don't bruise the merchandise," Burgie muttered idly.
Eddie actually stopped in his pacing to glare at him. "It's my merchandise, I can bruise it if I want to."
Burgie tsked and shook his head, lifting a case of yellow roses out of the way so that he could sort through the box below it.
"You say that now, but you're going to regret it later when we have to toss it. Besides, what if you need that for your guy's arrangement?"
The way that Eddie's face blanched would have been comical if it wasn't also a little pathetic.
The whole situation was actually pretty pathetic. This guy had been coming in for months, showing up at least once a week to purchase a custom floral arrangement. It was a little extravagant and more than a little bit of an expensive habit to develop, but there were enough people around here with too much money on their hands and a flair for romanticism that this in and of itself wasn't a very big deal.
Eddie reacted to each of his visits like he was being touched by an angel. This was particularly unusual seeing as after working in Eddie's flower shop for the past four years and having personally seen how not even a surprise snake in the delivery of tropicals had been enough to faze his ever-unflappable boss, Burgie was pretty sure that absolutely nothing could throw Eddie off his game.
Then a handsome, clean-cut man wearing a button-down tucked into khakis and a killer smile had walked into Eddie's shop, and Eddie had been gone ever since.
"He's just perfect," he said now, shaking his head with a dazed look on his face. "He's sweet, and he's funny, and charming, and he obviously cares so much about whoever he's giving the flowers to."
"He's misguided is what he is," Burgie grumbled. "What is it that he wants this time?"
"Endless love, loyalty, affection, tenderness, and gratitude."
"Huh. That's a tall order. Calls for some tall flowers, don't you think? Throw some gladiolus in there, we got some fresh pink ones in yesterday, that'll be sure to impress him."
Eddie finally looked up from his phone, but only to frown at Burgie in a way that was creepily reminiscent of his mother.
"I'm not going to lie to him!"
Burgie rolled his eyes.
"You lie to him every week, at least make it a pretty lie."
"I don't lie, I just...smudge the truth."
Burgie put down the carnations he'd been checking over and looked Eddie in the eye.
"Last week you told him that geraniums meant happiness and longevity."
Eddie looked away, suddenly abashed.
"...they might."
"No." Burgie pointed a finger at him. "You had no goddamn clue what they're supposed to mean, and neither did the rest of us, because nobody knows any of that flower language garbage. You're just too much of a fool for that guy to admit it."
"I can't tell him I don't know what any of it means! He'll know I've been making it up this whole time and then it'll ruin my reputation as a florist!"
Burgie snorted and turned back to the carnations. "Then take the dark pink gladiolus, add in some of the pink hydrangeas to fill in space, and then the new yellow roses, for contrast. It'll look tasteful without being too extravagant."
"But we have no clue what any of those flowers mean!"
"And I'd bet you my next paycheck that neither does he. If he hasn't figured it out yet that this whole flower language thing is bullshit, then he's never going to figure it out. But I'd get on it if I were you, because he's scheduled for pick-up in..."
He glanced at the clock on the wall.
"Twenty minutes."
Eddie cursed quietly and narrowed his eyes at Burgie.
"You know, you're awful mouthy for being my employee."
Burgie just smiled and shook his head.
"I'm just telling it like it is, sir. Somebody here has to do it."
"One of these days I'm going to actually take offense at all this," Eddie said, but he was already reaching for the yellow roses.
"Right when I stop being your best employee, sure."
Eddie grumbled something under his breath too low for Burgie to hear, but he wasn't really concerned; Burgie had spent long enough being what amounted to Eddie's right-hand man to worry about truly offending him.
And besides, compared to the rest of the staff, Burgie was a godsend.
He waited until Eddie was almost all the way through the door of the walk-in fridge, no doubt to go looking for the gladiolus, to call out, "By the way, I looked up what those geraniums meant. Something about stupidity and folly? I thought it sounded pretty appropriate."
It was a good thing that Eddie was facing the fridge, so that his string of long, emphatic curses couldn't carry through to the front of the store.
~~~
"Excuse me sir, but what is the Latin name for this plant?"
The elderly woman pointed at the potted purple gloxinia displayed on the countertop next to the register.
Snafu glanced over at it from where he was slumped against the counter, and then slowly turned to stare at her.
"Sagittarius amaryllis," he said with an utterly straight face.
Burgie valiantly resisted facepalming, and only because the customer was right there.
"Oh, it's so darling!" she said. "Could you wrap one up for me? I think it would brighten up my windowsill so nicely."
"You know, ma'am," Burgie said, hustling over quickly because Snafu's eyes had lit up in a certain unholy way that usually meant he was about to say something horrible. "They really do better with indirect sunlight."
Her eyes widened dramatically and she nodded. "Oh, the dining room table, then, that should be good, don't you think?"
Burgie had no goddamned clue what the light over her dining room table was like, but he nodded anyway. "Yeah, sure. Let me just go grab you a fresh one from the back, alright?"
As he walked to the back to wrap up one of the pots, he tried to ignore the sounds of Snafu insisting to the woman that the flowers would last longer if you removed the plant from the pot for an hour a day to "let the soil breathe."
Sometimes you had to pick your battles.
Burgie made sure to slip a pamphlet on proper plant care into her bag anyway.
Another customer entered just as the woman left.
"What's the name of that white flower in the window there?" he asked, pointing at a display of potted orchids.
Snafu slowly leaned back and craned his neck to look at the display, even though he could see it perfectly well from where he was standing.
"Sagittarius amaryllis."
Burgie closed his eyes and prayed to whatever higher power that might be out there for patience and strength, because it looked like it was going to be one of those days.
Eddie's guy walked in just as Burgie was bringing out some of the older roses from the back; setting up the older flowers in some of the front displays usually helped them move faster.
"Back so soon?" Burgie asked, before Snafu could think up something awful to say. They all knew who Andrew Haldane was – he came in so often that Burgie no longer had to ask his phone number to input his orders because he had it memorized – but they preferred to call him "Eddie's guy" just to see Eddie stutter and go red.
Haldane actually flushed this time, rubbing at the back of his neck in a manner that Burgie would have called sheepish on anyone else.
"Yeah. Is, uh...is Eddie around?"
"No, today's his day off."
Burgie had insisted that Eddie start taking at least one day a week for himself; when it wasn't peak season, there was no reason that the rest of them couldn't hold down the fort on their own. Or, there was no reason that they couldn't hold down the fort on their own with Burgie in charge.
If left to their own devices, the other three would probably end up burning the store down.
(Snafu had suggested that they try doing it, just to see if they could get the insurance money. Eddie had thanked him for his suggestion, but informed him that they were nowhere near that desperate for cash, and even if they were, he would prefer to live an arson-free life.)
It would have been sweet, how fast Haldane wilted at the news, if it wasn't also kind of sad.
"Oh."
Burgie put on his best customer service smile. "Why, was there something wrong with your last order?"
"What? Oh, no, no, the flowers were great, she loved them. I had just wanted to..."
Haldane trailed off, his eyes straying from the roses in Burgie's hands to the vase of Asiatic lilies in the window.
"Sir?" Burgie prompted, keeping his smile pinned in place.
"Oh, sorry." Haldane flashed an apologetic smile that almost made Burgie understand why Eddie was so gone on this guy even though he barely knew him. "I, uh, I'd like to place an order."
"So soon?"
Haldane flushed at the gentle ribbing and Burgie got the idea that he'd be shifting uncomfortably if he were anyone else.
"It's, uh, for somebody else. And I was wondering if you could, um, send a message with it? Using the flowers, I mean."
Burgie bit the inside of his lip hard enough that it almost bled, trying to hold in his instinctive response, which was to laugh very loudly and derisively.
The thing that customers never seemed to understand was that nobody in the flower business outside of a Hallmark film knew the subtle eccentricities of Victorian flower language, mainly because the practice as a whole was a steaming pile of bullshit. Burgie had worked in a nursery for three years before Eddie, one of their regular customers, had told him he had an eye for color and a good hand with plants and offered him a job. During that time, out of all of the florists and plant vendors and industry experts he'd met, not a single one knew a damn thing about the different meaning indicated by receiving a yellow or white chrysanthemum. They could tell you all about plant care, about how a plant grew best and how to get the most blooms out of it and how to preserve its shelf life, because that was their actual job, but they didn't know any secret flower languages.
That was usually okay, because neither did anyone else. Even when customers got the overly romantic notion of trying to send messages with flowers, their recipients never seemed to know what they were supposed to mean anyway.
Burgie usually told customers flat out that nobody at the store knew flower language, but that if they had a specific combination of flowers that they would like to be made into an arrangement, they would do their best to match that order.
But this was Andrew Haldane, who Eddie had temporarily lost his mind over and assured that of course he could help Haldane apologize to someone for being late to their birthday party using a specially coded floral arrangement. Burgie couldn't blow him in now and ruin this for him, even if it was a hole that Eddie had dug for himself.
"Of course," he said, his smile gone rigid. "What would you like to say?"
Ten minutes later he walked into the back room and slumped onto a stool next to Jay, who was arranging vases of pink camellias for a wedding reception.
"Eddie's guy was just in. Wants a custom order."
Jay snorted and didn't bother looking up from his work.
"What else is new?"
"Well," Burgie said slowly, playing with a piece of cut stem lying on the table. "The weird part is that he wants someone other than Eddie to make it."
"Oh." Jay set down his scissors and gave Burgie his full attention. "That is weird. Is he like...upset with Eddie or something?"
He frowned at the idea, and Burgie could commiserate: he didn't want to imagine Eddie's face if that happened.
"No, he said he loves Eddie's work, but he was really adamant that someone else make the arrangement, 'so that Eddie could have a break for once.'"
"Weak excuse."
"Yeah, I know."
Burgie picked at the stem, peeling off a layer.
"So what does he want to say?"
Burgie sighed loudly. "I don't know, something about hope and affection and new beginnings? I honestly kind of tuned it out. He wants to pick it up tomorrow, so I'm thinking we'll just slap together something pretty and folksy, maybe sweet pea and anemone, put it in a nice vase and call it a day."
Jay hummed and picked up his scissors again, snipping the end of the stem off of another camellia.
"Eddie's back in tomorrow," he said, as if Burgie didn't know that.
"Yeah, and his guy can deal with whatever's going on there when he comes in to pick up his order."
Burgie didn't get to say anything else, because then Snafu and Sledge came crashing through the back entrance, Sledge asserting loudly that "Sagittarius amaryllis is not a real plant, Snafu!" while Snafu claimed that Sledge obviously just hadn't reached that chapter of the book yet at "plant school."
Sledge, like clockwork, growled in frustration at his in-progress degree in horticulture being once again dismissed as "plant school," and Burgie was busy enough trying to keep them from knocking over a box of vases that he completely forgot about Haldane's strange new order for the rest of the day.
He remembered in the morning, when Eddie was squinting at the ledger for the day's orders and said, "Uh, Burgie? Did, ah, did Mr. Haldane come in yesterday?"
His voice was too light, as if he were trying very much to sound casual and missing the mark by a mile, and Burgie tried very hard not to sigh very, very loudly.
"Oh, yeah, I'll get right on that in a minute, shouldn't take long."
Eddie frowned, and Burgie had to avert his eyes so he didn't have to watch a grown man pout.
"I can do it," Eddie said immediately, sounding almost defensive. "What does he want it to say? You just wrote...'feelings bullshit'?"
He gave Burgie that disappointed look again, the one that reminded him of his mom.
Now Burgie grimaced, because really, Haldane should be the one to have to deal with this, considering it was him who was putting them all in this awkward position.
"No, he, uh, he asked that I make it, specifically."
There wasn't really a good way to ignore Eddie's crestfallen expression.
"What? I mean, that's fine, of course that's fine. But did he, uh, did he say why?"
Burgie shrugged. "I don't know, something about wanting you to have some time off, because you're always working so hard."
He did his best to sell the line, and it seemed like Eddie was willing to take it. His eyes lit up maybe a little too much as he mulled it over, finally saying, "He's a gentleman like that, always thinking of others."
Okay, nothing was going to stop Burgie from rolling his eyes at that one.
The arrangement was prepped and ready to go well before Eddie's guy actually showed up to get it. Burgie had taken a certain amount of enjoyment in keeping Eddie's prying eyes and grabby hands away from it, all with loud admonishments that no, Eddie's guy wanted him to take a break, which meant staying in the front and letting Burgie work alone.
This meant that by the time Eddie's guy came in, Eddie still hadn't seen the actual arrangement.
Haldane looked a little too excited to find Burgie there again, asking, "Oh, could you go grab it please?" before Burgie had a change to even get out a perfunctory greeting.
Eddie, who was literally standing right next to him, looked ten kinds of betrayed, at least until Haldane turned that smile on him and said, "Eddie, hi, you're back! How are you?"
Then Eddie turned red and did something wholly embarrassing with his face, letting out some sort of awful snorting giggle that had Burgie all but running to the back room to escape.
"They're so gross," he whined as he reached the back, "They just need to get married and have a dozen babies and stop doing this in my place of work already!"
"Mhmm."
Jay never once looked up from tying ribbons around bouquets of roses, but Burgie liked to think he really was commiserating all the same.
When Burgie brought Haldane's arrangement out to the front, both Haldane and Eddie were leaning towards each other over the counter, smiling stupidly and talking in voices that were far too low and intimate for two guys who Burgie was painfully aware had never even kissed before.
"Your order," he said loudly, sitting the arrangement on the counter perhaps a little more firmly than was necessary.
Eddie and Haldane jumped apart, both looking way too guilty seeing as nothing had actually been happening (and God, Burgie almost wished something had been happening just so they'd get over each other already).
"Oh. That's, uh, that's very nice," Eddie mumbled, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. "Uh, good work, Burgie."
Burgie, because he was a wonderful friend and employee, only nodded graciously instead of rolling his eyes.
Haldane was watching Eddie's face a little too intently, and really, these two were just getting weirder by the second.
"Do you really like it?" Haldane asked. His eyes were still trained on Eddie's face as if to track his every expression.
"Um, yes, it's beautiful."
Eddie glanced up at Haldane through his lashes, like he wasn't sure if that was the right answer.
Burgie started edging towards the back again, because whatever this was, he wanted no part of it.
"That's good," Haldane said, smiling that stupid perfect smile, "Because it's for you."
If his life were a movie, Burgie imagined that this would be where the record scratch sound played.
Eddie, who had never quite stopped being red, now had a flush in full bloom, all the way from the collar of his shirt to the tips of his ears, and his mouth was hanging open wide enough that if Snafu were there, he'd probably try to throw something in it.
"I – I don't – I'm sorry? You got me flowers? ...From my own shop?"
Haldane actually had the good grace to look chagrinned.
"Well, it is the best shop in town," he said with a little smirky grin. Burgie was almost impressed by the level of game he was bringing to the table, because Eddie looked near to melting.
That, or Eddie was just really, really easy for men in khaki pants. It could honestly be either one at this point.
"But I don't – why would you get me flowers?"
Haldane's smile faltered, just for the shortest moment, before it came back in full force. He gestured at the flowers, the bright pink and red anemone standing out against the riotous pinks and purples of the sweet pea.
"I think you can read that for yourself," Haldane said with a sly grin.
Shit.
Oh, shit.
Haldane was smiling like he didn't know how to stop, and Eddie was staring with slowly dawning horror at the flower arrangement in front of him. His wide eyes cut sideways towards Burgie, his face screaming a question, namely, What in the good Lord's name are these flowers supposed to mean?
And it was only now, watching Haldane watch Eddie who was watching him, that Burgie remembered the specifics of what Haldane had requested.
"I want something that signifies hope for a new beginning," he'd said. "Something that shows...affection, adoration, a hope that maybe romantic feelings are returned?"
Burgie had just nodded along knowingly, making all the proper noises to show he was listening while scribbling down "feelings bullshit" in the ledger and circling it a few times for emphasis. It had about the same meaning, in the end. He wasn't wrong, after all.
It was just that it wasn't very helpful when Eddie was now expected to determine the secret meaning of some flowers that Burgie had picked out largely at random.
Haldane's smile was starting to fall, and Eddie was still side-eying Burgie so hard that he looked like he was going to strain something.
Burgie edged away from the counter and further into the shop, so that slowly, slowly, Haldane's back was to him.
This would have looked extremely awkward, except that Haldane was too busy looking at Eddie with concern to notice if Burgie started juggling vases, let alone if he crept around behind him.
"Eddie? Is everything...okay? Do you not..."
Haldane trailed off, like finishing the sentence would make him too sad to bear.
With wide eyes of his own, Burgie tried to mouth, "He wants to date you!" at Eddie.
Eddie canted his head to the side, his brow furrowing in confusion.
"No, no, I'm fine," he said to Haldane, while at the same time he was shaking his head at Burgie over Haldane's shoulder.
"Why are you shaking your head if you're fine?"
"He wants to DATE you!" Burgie mouthed again.
Eddie continued shaking his head in confusion, all while saying, "I'm not shaking my head."
Burgie couldn't see Haldane's face anymore, but he could see the way his shoulders were slumping in disappointment.
"Look, I'm sorry, I can see that I was reading things wrong..."
God, but Eddie was oblivious. Why did he think someone would buy him flowers? Out of options, Burgie finally stabbed a finger in Haldane's direction, drew a giant heart in the air with both hands, and then pointed at Eddie.
By the widening of Eddie's eyes and the darkening of his blush, he'd finally figured it out.
"Oh. OH! Oh, yes, of course, sweet pea and anemone, which means, uh, new love and, um...courtship?"
Eddie's voice ended on a squeak, but Burgie edged back into view just in time to see Haldane's face light up in what was honestly probably the nicest smile he'd ever seen in his life, so obviously he wasn't perturbed.
"I thought this was the best way to tell you," Haldane said, reaching to hold one of Eddie's hands in both of his own, "Seeing as it's your specialty."
"...Yeah."
"And my grandmother thought it would be so sweet, too. She doesn't know the meaning behind any of the flowers I give her, so I usually have to tell her what I was going for, but she says it's the thought that counts."
"Your grandmother?" Eddie squeaked again.
This was news to Burgie too.
"Of course!" Haldane laughed. "Who did you think I was buying all of these flowers for?"
Eddie wide eyes met Burgie's once again, and they didn't need words to both silently swear that they would never admit that they'd ever assumed otherwise.
Haldane seemed to catch the gist of it anyways, because he chuckled and shook his head.
"Eddie," he scolded, sounding ridiculously fond, "I wouldn't be in here flirting with you every week if I had someone else."
"You were flirting with me?"
"Dear God, you have the observational skills of a doorpost," Burgie muttered, knowing that they could hear him and entirely beyond caring.
Eddie looked affronted, but then Haldane squeezed his hand and his expression turned disgustingly soppy.
"Can I take that as a yes, then?" Haldane asked.
Eddie blinked dazedly.
"A yes to what?"
Haldane smirked and nodded at the flowers.
"Oh! Yes, I mean, yes, I would like to..." Eddie trailed off and also gestured at the flowers and whatever meaning they were supposed to encompass. "All of that. With you."
Haldane looked like he was about to say something else that was atrociously charming, but a slow clap coming from the door to the back room interrupted him.
Jay, Sledge, and Snafu were all crowded in the doorway, making absolutely no attempt to hide that they'd been watching for a while now. It wasn't surprising that Jay was clapping sarcastically, but Burgie had expected better from Sledge.
(Nobody really had any expectations of Snafu anymore.)
"That was beautiful," Jay said, his voice so sincere that Burgie knew with complete certainty that he was full of shit.
"Yeah, I almost puked a little bit, it was so cute," Snafu added helpfully.
The bell above the door rang as a customer pushed through it, interrupting them all once again.
The woman took in the assembled group with only slight hesitation before her eyes lit on Snafu.
"Oh, there you are!" she said. "I bought these flowers from you last week, and they went over so well at my dinner party that I thought I would get some more. Do you have any Sagittarius amaryllis in stock?"
It was surprising that nobody actually said the words "oh shit" out loud, considering how hard they all seemed to be projecting it.
Everyone except for Haldane, of course, who was mouthing the name to himself with a look of confusion.
And Snafu – Snafu was smiling like all of his dreams had just come true.
"Yes, ma'am," he said with a creepily toothy smile, "Yes, we surely do."