Chapter Text
The inside of Clive's car smelled strongly of roses.
These days, the inside of his car always smelled floral, but on that cloudy Monday afternoon, the entire vehicle was awash in the smell of roses specifically, the scent nearly overpowering. He had delivered six vases of red roses, accented with baby's breath and myrtle, to a woman's office, an order from her fiancé to express his affection. The woman had squealed when they had arrived, pressing her nose into each bloom and inhaling deeply as her friends cooed over the romance of it all. Clive had given a secret smile at their adulation of the couple's relationship as he quietly slipped away before they could notice he had disappeared. He liked seeing the joy on Cid's clients' faces, and knowing that he had some tiny part in their happiness.
Still, driving to the other side of town with the roses bundled in his car was a lot , the smell so overwhelming it nearly made him dizzy. The flowers were delicate, and he always worried that the slightest breeze would ruin the bouquets that Cid had so meticulously crafted, so he had kept the windows tightly sealed to protect them and suffered in silence.
He was under no such obligation on the ride back to the shop. He dropped all four windows and enjoyed the breeze on his skin and through his hair, hoping the wind would help to steal some of the overpowering scent away with it.
He had been working for Cid for about six months now, and it was one of the best decisions Clive had ever made. He had been at his lowest when he had found Cid - or rather, Cid had found him, sitting on the curb outside the restaurant he had just been fired from ( again ), his head in his hands as he debated whether to buy groceries that month or to try to subsist on the dried noodles and expired soup cans he had stashed in the back of his pantry so he could make rent. He would never know what had made Cid sit down next to him on that curb and offer him the other half of his pizza, nor what had made him start talking to him despite the fact that Clive was so tongue-tied he could barely even grunt in response, and especially not what to make of it when Cid offered him a job for the day, complaining of the nasty flu going around and about how he had a number of deliveries that needed to be run and no delivery drivers well enough to do it. All Clive knew was that he'd get paid for the day if he could show up and drive from point A to point B.
He never knew what had made him accept (probably desperation and a desire to be able to afford meat and the occasional vegetable), but he never would have guessed that he'd show up at the listed address to find a florist instead of a drug kingpin's den. Cid had shoved a box of lilies at him with an address scribbled on a scrap of paper and told him to drop them off. He had surreptitiously checked between the stems for smuggled gil or a stash of powders or liquids, but there was nothing but some water to keep the flowers hydrated in transit. Cid had told him to return once he was done, he had plenty more deliveries he needed him to run that day.
But on the drive over to the address, Clive had begun to doubt. He never did well in social situations, finding himself always at a loss for words for fear of driving others away. More often than not, he stood silent as he panicked over the right thing to say, leading to more than a few weird looks and, more than once, causing people to back away slowly as they wondered if they had angered them. He would have liked to say that they didn't have anything to be scared of, but the first time he did that, he had stepped towards them as he sought the words and they had turned tail and fled. His struggle with social situations was what had caused him to be fired from his last job for scaring away the customers - and the job before that, and the one before that. Cid had been kind enough to feed him last night, to throw a day's pay his way when he clearly needed it. He didn't want to send his clients running for the hills like he always did.
But Clive really needed the money. He dragged his feet a bit on the way up to the building where his phone's GPS had led him, trying to figure out what to say as he knocked on the door.
The person on the other end didn't give him enough time to formulate a greeting before they wrenched open the door. He stared down the middle aged woman in the doorway, panicking as he tried to find the words, overthinking the phrasing, but found himself rooted to the spot, his mouth frozen. His fingers tightened around the box in his arms.
The woman in the doorway glanced down at the parcel. "Oh," she said. "You're from the florist?"
Clive nodded wordlessly, unable to even come up with a confirmation before this stranger. She beckoned him inside, to a wide room with tables laid with fine porcelain platters and crystal glasses. "One on the end of each table runner," she told him, and Clive obeyed, setting each vase of lilies at the specified locations.
By the time he was done, the woman was already engaged with a man in an apron, something about making sure the bride's steak was cooked to medium well, not medium rare. He paused, floundering on what he should do next when she spotted him. She turned back to him, and Clive found himself rooted to the spot once again, caught between fleeing and hiding.
He needn't have worried. "Tell Cid he did great work, as per usual," she said, and took his hand to press a few bills into it. "Here's your tip." And then, without waiting for a response, she turned and walked back to continue lecturing the chef.
Clive stared down at the gil in his palm. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to buy a couple of packets of frozen vegetables to go with whatever was collecting dust in the back of his pantry, maybe even some sort of protein to go with it. He drove back to Cid's in a daze, who had more deliveries for him to run - and who, for some inexplicable reason, invited him to come back the next day for more work.
And so began his career as a flower delivery boy for Cid's Flowers . Every day, he'd show up, and Cid would have boxes or vases or bouquets of flowers, carefully selected and arranged, with addresses across the city that they needed to be dropped off at. The drop offs were easy enough. He was rarely required to talk or to be social. He'd show up with the flowers and place them wherever the client wanted them placed. Sometimes, there'd just be instructions to leave them at a doorway. The few times he needed to speak, he started to develop a script - with greetings, goodbyes, specific questions depending on the event or occasion that needed to be answered, a quick reminder about payment. Oftentimes, he'd get a tip just for dropping off the flowers, and at the end of every week, Cid handed him a check for the work he had done. For the first time in a long time, Clive wasn't living paycheck to paycheck. He wasn't wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but he paid his rent on time, he ate three meals a day, and he could actually afford his phone bill. He had even recently opened up a savings account, paltry though it currently was.
He liked Cid and the others that worked at the flower shop, too. There was Otto, who managed their finances, Charon, who supplied all the flowers and decorations, Hortense, who handled their social media presence, and others. He found himself getting along well with Gav despite his shyness - he had an awkward streak that Clive recognized in himself, but a much more relaxed and friendly nature that was difficult not to like. He found himself getting along with everyone who worked at Cid's Flowers - they didn't seem to mind that he said the wrong thing sometimes, or that he found himself tongue-tied in most unfamiliar social situations. He may not have been particularly close with any of them, but he liked being in their presence, and they didn't reject him, which was more than he had had in a long time.
So Clive counted his blessings. He had stable work. He had food in his belly and didn't have to worry about when he might have that again. He had health insurance . It was more than he had hoped for when he had first been kicked out of his mother's house, more than he had ever had during his struggles ever since. He tried to ignore how much he missed Joshua, knowing that if he reached out, their mother would cut him off, and Joshua would never be able to finish his degree without Anabella paying for his schooling. When he went home to his apartment, he tried his best not to think about how big and empty it was with just him and his dog despite his home’s relatively small size. He tried not to worry about how he had no one to go out and meet on a Friday night, no one to invite back and visit him, when everyone else was taking the weekend to go see their friends. He was already far more fortunate than he deserved - he shouldn't be so greedy as to crave more.
But crave more he did.
"Delivery go well?" Cid asked as Clive stepped through the swinging front door of the shop, the little bell tinkling merrily. Hortense's head popped up from where she was trying to take a picture of an arrangement of gladiolus and larkspur flowers and she waved in his direction. Clive just nodded, and she went back to trying to get the perfect angle for the shot.
"Yeah," Clive replied. "She liked the roses."
"Of course she did," Cid said. "Personally, I think dozens of red roses are a little ostentatious. I told her fiancé that when he placed the order, but he was insistent. 'Red roses have been a symbol of passionate love for centuries, and I want nothing but the best for my future wife! Make it so!'"
At the counter, Hortense snorted. "Don't be so judgmental, Cid. Every girl dreams of getting a bouquet of red roses from her beloved."
"Red roses are overrated!" Cid argued back. "Everyone always does red roses - don't women want to feel special? Like their partner thought long and hard about what flower they might like best, or would complement her eyes? You know, tulips mean 'perfect love', and peonies are for happy marriages. Why doesn't anyone ever order a tulip and peony bouquet? Or anything else , for that matter!"
Clive didn't know how to respond to any of that, so he only grunted noncommittally.
"See - even Clive agrees with me," Cid said.
"That is not what that meant," Hortense argued back.
"It absolutely is," Cid replied. "Do you know how I know?"
"How?"
"Because I'm the one who signs off on his paychecks," Cid said with a grin. "And yours , too. So it can mean whatever the hell I damn well want it to mean."
Clive only shrugged in response, not really wanting to get in the middle of it, not knowing what he'd do if he did. He wanted to continue the conversation or to smooth things over between them, but he wasn't sure how.
Instead, he only approached Cid, fishing the work phone out of his pocket to hand off to him. "That was my last delivery for the day?" he asked. It wasn't the most elegant way to change to a new conversation, but they were used to him abruptly switching the topic. Still, he wished he was eloquent enough to banter back and forth with them.
"Sorry, lad," Cid replied. "Can't let you go just yet. I've got one more for you. Came in last minute." He turned his back to him and opened up the refrigerator where they kept the flowers awaiting pickup. The color was brilliant - pink roses, tiger lilies, goldenrod, and basil to accent. He had to secretly appreciate the client's taste. The message in the flowers was muddled to Clive, who was still learning the complex language of flowers, but few paid attention to such things when ordering bouquets, and the color arrangement was pleasing to his eyes.
There were five arrangements in total, each in long-stemmed glass vases. Cid loaded them up into a box to make it easier to carry. "It was a rush order - she wanted it today. You got it?"
Clive glanced down at the address he had listed on the paper. It was on the other side of town, in one of the nicer apartment buildings. "I've got it," he said, slipping the work phone back into his pocket as he accepted the box.
"Good," said Cid. "Drop off the delivery phone once you're done and you'll be free for the day."
Thankfully, the drive over wasn't bad, despite the fact that it was late in the afternoon and rush hour was beginning. The drive back would probably be worse, as people got off of work and the highways started to become more crowded, but Clive thought he would miss the worst of it - most people would be headed in the opposite direction this time of day.
After he arrived and parked, he took a moment to send a quick confirmation text from the delivery phone to the phone number Cid had given him. He had a number of templates he had written up over the past several months, painstakingly going over every word to make sure that they sounded professional and natural and not like he had re-written them twenty different times. After triple-checking that he had replaced the part of the text that said [customer name] with the customer's actual name , he sent off the version of the text with the request to be buzzed up to the apartment. As he looked over the flowers to make sure none had fallen in transit, the phone vibrated with a confirmation text from the client that the doorman would let him in and that the elevator would let him go to her floor.
As he entered, the doorman sitting at the front desk glanced up, but as soon as he saw the bundles of flowers in his arms, he simply waved him along to the sign that said "Elevators" before going back to scrolling through his phone. Clive breathed a sigh of relief as he proceeded past him, glad he wouldn't have to make small talk to get to where he was going. He juggled the flowers in his arms for a moment as he reached for the elevator buttons, but managed to keep everything balanced as he hit the button for the correct floor, tapping his foot impatiently as it gave a soft ding for each floor it passed.
The address listed on the paper was about halfway up the building, and Clive counted the doors down the winding hallway to find the number he was looking for. The client's apartment was far from the elevator, one of the last doors in the hall. Clive knocked twice when he arrived and silently hoped no one would answer. With deliveries directly to someone's home, it was about a fifty-fifty chance that the client would answer. Sometimes, he’d simply get to leave the flowers at the doorway, snap a picture of the delivery to send to them, and go about his day. He hoped it would be that way today. Clive shifted his weight to one hip and counted backwards from twenty in his head.
When he hit sixteen, the door swung open to reveal the most beautiful woman Clive had ever seen.
He had to physically stop his jaw from dropping open at the sight of her. She was taller than average for a woman, though still a few inches shorter than Clive himself. Her hair was a striking silver color and fell all the way to her hips, with only a blue ribbon tied at the end of it. It looked unbelievably soft. She had high cheekbones and a delicately pointed chin. His gaze was drawn to the perfect bow of her lips when she smiled up at him.
"Hi there," she said, her voice melodious. Clive could have listened to her read from an encyclopedia and still wanted to hear more.. "Are you from the florist?"
"Cid sent me," he heard himself say dreamily, still staring at her mouth, before realizing that she wasn't a regular client, that she might not remember who she had ordered her flowers from. "The florist, I mean," he tacked on awkwardly. "Yes. I'm here from the florist's."
"Excellent," she replied. "I know it was a last minute order, and such a large one. I appreciate you guys for taking it on; I can't imagine it was convenient for you."
And then she was stepping forward into his space, and Clive froze. She tucked her arms under the box in his arms as she tried to take it from him, the backs of her hands brushing against his forearms in the process. Clive held his breath, her touch sending a shock up his spine. He tried to remember the last time someone had touched him. Probably Cid, clapping him on the shoulder, but this felt different. He had so few opportunities to engage in casual social contact, and every time, it left him petrified - desperately craving more, but unsure how to proceed.
But this wasn't the time to desire such things, with the stunning woman before him being a complete and total stranger.
She attempted to take the container of flowers from him, but Clive was still shell-shocked and didn’t think to bend to let her take it. She wavered as she tried to balance the weight. The base of one of the vases clattered against the bottom of the box, and Clive saw it wobble dangerously. His hand shot out to steady it and keep the carefully crafted arrangement from falling, his other arm steadying the box more securely against his torso.
"Hm. That won't work," the woman said. It was only when she wiggled her fingers that he realized that in his attempt to stabilize the box, he had trapped her hand between it and his chest. He nearly dropped the box when he realized what he had done, but she wormed her hand out from where it was caught when he jolted. His skin tingled where she had accidentally touched him.
"Sorry," he said.
"Don't worry about it," she waved off his apologies. "Do you want to come inside? Might be better than trying to juggle the flowers between us."
"Sure," he replied, and she stepped back to beckon him into her apartment.
"You can set them on the dining table," she told him, pointing to a table not far into the apartment. He knew it was improper, but Clive couldn't resist looking around her home. The apartment was softly lit, with fairy lights strung up in the darker corners to provide extra light. The light in the kitchen was a little harsher, but the room was neatly maintained, and open enough to allow the cook to chat with whoever was in the dining room. The living room had a decently-sized flat screen television mounted on the wall opposite a couch with a blanket thrown over the arm. She had clearly been in the middle of watching a show, the actors paused on the screen. It took him only a moment to recognize a game show where bakers competed and sabotaged each other - it was one of his favorites to watch when winding down from a long day of work. He wanted to comment on it, but couldn't figure out how to bring it up without revealing that he had been snooping. Past the tv was a darkened hallway, and a doorway cracked open to what he assumed was her bedroom.
The dining room table was small, but she had managed to crowd six chairs around it. Clive allowed himself a brief moment of longing to imagine having enough friends to warrant having six dining room chairs, but quickly dismissed the feeling. He was already far too lucky. He shouldn't be greedy.
Thankfully, the table was clear enough that he could simply set the box on top of the table. He took a moment to briefly turn a couple of the vases, just to make sure that the flowers weren't crowding each other and wouldn't bruise before she could place them where she wanted.
When he turned back to her, there was a concerned expression on her face. Suddenly, he worried he had overstepped - he could imagine that it could be scary for a woman to have a strange man abruptly enter your apartment, even if she had invited him in. He did his best to look small, unassuming, non-intimidating, lacing his fingers in front of him and hunching his shoulders a bit.
It took him only a moment to realize she wasn't staring at him with such a worried expression, but at the flowers on the table behind him. One arm folded over her stomach, and her opposite rose up so she could bite her thumbnail. Clive tried not to notice the way the tip of her pink tongue pressed up against the bottom of her nail as she did so.
"Do you think they'll be all right?" she asked anxiously. "The flowers, I mean. Do you think they're good enough?"
Clive fought his immediate instinct to bristle and protect his employer. Cid had done so much to help him over the past few months, and he didn't want anyone doubting the quality of his work. "Cid always does great work," he said as neutrally as he could manage. "If there's something wrong with them, he can probably make a last-minute adjustment if you need it."
She glanced over at him before removing her hand from her mouth. "Oh, that's not what I meant. The flowers are lovely. I never would have guessed they were a rush order - you guys did great work," she told him. Clive relaxed at her words, his shoulders dropping from where they had hiked up near his ears. "I just meant - I've never ordered anything like this before. I'm just hoping I made a good choice."
Clive could recognize the feeling in her voice - the anxiety, the worry about whether or not she had made a mistake, the overthinking. They were all emotions he was deeply familiar with, and he could sympathize with her plight. He felt an immediate kinship as she wrestled with those thoughts. He wanted to help her.
So Clive did something he almost never did - he dug deeper. Holding conversations wasn't his strong suit, and he couldn't remember the last time he had tried to offer anyone advice, but he wanted to try, if only to help to alleviate her burden, that same struggle he dealt with every day.
Still, it took him a moment before he spoke, choosing his words carefully so he wouldn't be misinterpreted and potentially offend her. He didn't want her to think he was prying if she didn't want to talk about it. He cleared his throat softly before speaking. "What's the occasion, if you don't mind me asking?"
"They're for my work," she said. She approached the table and held her hand under one of the tiger lillies, but didn't touch it, careful not to damage the delicate petals. "See, the founder of the company I work at fell ill a while back. They've tried all kinds of treatments, but he's still been declining. He and family made the difficult decision last week to cease care and admit him into hospice."
"Oh," Clive said, faltering as he tried to come up with words of sympathy. He suddenly regretted asking her. He didn't know how to offer comfort for the death of a loved one. "I'm sorry for your loss. Your future loss, I mean."
"Oh, I don't know him well," she said, waving his condolences away. "I've only met him once. He's done a lot of great things, and I'll be sad to lose that, but I've only been working with the company for a few months. I'll grieve when he's gone, but I think it's different to grieve someone you knew of rather than to grieve someone you actually knew."
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to presume." He shouldn't have jumped to conclusions - if she was close to him, she would have called him a friend or some such rather than just "the founder of her company.”
"It's fine, it's a natural assumption to make," she said. "You don't need to apologize."
"I'm sor-" Clive cut himself off. She turned to flash a smile at him over her shoulder as he attempted to apologize again. He flushed and cleared his throat before speaking again. "What I meant to say is - why the flowers, then?"
"Well, like I said, I'm not particularly close to him," she continued on, "but much of the staff has been there for years and know him well. His daughter has even taken over much of his work. It's a pretty small staff - it's a start-up, medical technologies - so everyone is very close with him. As you can imagine, it's been pretty gloomy around the office ever since. I just wanted to get something to brighten the place up."
"But that's the problem ," she said, and she left the table to stand next to him, looking at the brilliant blooms in their box. "I'm second-guessing myself now. I want something beautiful to help everyone cheer up, but I don't want them to feel like I'm forcing them to be happy, either. I want them to know that they're allowed to be sad, that they're allowed to grieve, but also to remind them that there are still good, happy things out in the world, too. I don't know - maybe the flowers will just be reminders of who they're going to lose, or maybe they'll feel like I'm trying to force them to be happy. Maybe this was a bad decision."
Clive's heart immediately went out to her. He admired her empathy, the thoughtfulness she showed just in a few statements. It was clear that she was thinking carefully of everyone's feelings, of how to help them feel better without disrespecting or trivializing their legitimate pain. It was a delicate line that she was trying to toe.
He wanted to help her do it, and she deserved better than trite assurances. He considered the predicament carefully before commenting on it.
"What are you planning to do with them?" he asked. "Send them to the office?"
"Some of them," she replied. "I'm going to put two at the front desk, one in the meeting room, and one on his old desk. I was going to send the last one to the family to keep in his room."
He nodded. "I think that these will work well, then - they can look at the flowers and think of him, knowing that he's looking at the same ones thinking of them." He paused and carefully considered the bouquets. "I think you did well picking the colors, too. White is a traditional flower color for mourning, but he hasn't passed yet, and you don't want them to think of grieving too much at this point. Pink is also often used in funerals, but you've offset the roses with enough bright colors that I don't think it comes off that way. You've chosen well on the flowers, too."
"I didn't know there were certain flowers and colors reserved for grieving," she said, "but it makes sense. Is there anything in particular I should avoid, or that I should get more of? I imagine I'll need to order more flowers at some point when these wilt."
"Just nothing overwhelmingly white, or white and pink mixed together. Maybe nothing too dark of a purple either - I think too much will look like black." He considered her question carefully. "For that matter, maybe not too much of any color, or too often - I'd imagine seeing the same color pop up every day might create an association between that color and the feeling of grief. And if the daughter or anyone else is particularly fond of one flower, I might not get any of those for the same reason."
"Got it," she replied. "No snow daisies, then."
Clive's eyebrows shot up. Snow daisies were a rather uncommon flower to have as a favorite - they did poorly in cultivated areas, and mostly had to be harvested wild. They had a simple look to them, too, akin to regular daisies, so few ever ordered them from Cid's shop when they could get something similar for half the price. Still, even knowing that, Clive had a fondness for the flowers - their scent was stronger and sweeter than that of a standard daisy, and on the rare occasion when Cid stocked them in the shop, he had to resist the temptation to bury his nose in the blooms and live in the intoxicating aroma for a couple of hours. "Her favorite flowers are snow daisies?" he asked, surprised.
"No, they're mine," she said with a smile. "There was a clearing on a hill near where I lived growing up that would burst into bloom with them every spring. My mother used to take me there when I was a child, and we'd sit together and make garlands."
It was a lovely memory that she shared, one so vivid he could nearly smell it in the air. "I'm fond of them, too," he admitted quietly.
"They're lovely flowers, aren't they?" she asked him.
"They are," he agreed, with a small smile, one aimed down at his feet.
"So. No snow daisies," she agreed. "Anything else?"
He thought about that for a moment. "Chrysanthemums," he finally said. "I think chrysanthemums would be good. Some cultures use them to express condolences for the death of a loved one, but there are so many different types and colors and so many different meanings across the world that you can say whatever you want with them. White for loyalty, violet for well-wishes." Red for love and passion, he almost said, but decided to move on instead. "If you're ordering again, there's so many different colors that you can vary it enough so you're not seeing too much of one thing. Maybe with gladiolus, for strength, or forget-me-nots for accents," he mused.
She was looking at him strangely. Had he said something wrong? He didn't think so, because she was still smiling at him, but being the subject of her scrutiny was still embarrassing, and Clive slowly found himself trailing off and seeking anywhere to look but her.
"You know a lot about flowers," she said. "I'm impressed."
The tips of Clive's ears burned. "Not really," he said gruffly, shrugging off the compliment. "I just listen to the florist a lot. He likes to talk while he works. Cid's the real expert - he'd be happy to give you a consultation if you give him a call."
"He may be the expert, but you're an excellent listener - both to me and to him, I suspect. I really appreciate you helping me today and making a few suggestions. Thank you."
Clive flushed, delighted by the compliment even as he felt unworthy of it. He hadn't done more than he was paid to do, any advice he gave was amateurish, more colored by opinion than by any sort of expertise. He was undeserving of the praise of a considerate and attractive woman such as herself.
But maybe he could earn it - he still had a chance to.
"Do you want to write a message?" he blurted out before he could think better of it. "For the flowers, I mean. I have message cards from the shop, if you'd like."
"Is that an option?" she asked. "I was thinking I wanted to say something, but writing something on a post-it note and sticking it on the vase felt...cheap."
"It is an option," Clive confirmed. He stepped forward to the box of flowers and fished a small card out of the bottom of it. It was a little bigger than a business card and a pastel pink shade, with a darker pink border. "What would you like it to say?" he asked as he pulled a pen out of his jacket pocket, clicking it open and hovering the nib over the paper. "There's not much room for a long note, but something short and sweet should fit."
He heard her hum in indecision behind him. "I want to send this one with the bouquet for him and his family," she finally said. "How about, 'I hope you find peace'?"
Clive nodded and transcribed her words onto the paper in large, neat, looping letters. Clive had always had tidy handwriting, but his letters were meant more to convey clear meaning than to be artful - clearly legible, but nothing fancy. It had served him well enough in his life, and his teachers had never complained about it. However, it didn't serve him as well at the flower shop, where elegance and ornateness was expected in everything, so he had been secretly working on his cursive to give a little extra flair when he was writing his messages. He pulled back as he carefully finished the last letter, complete with a flourish and a curled line underlining the whole message.
"Wow," she breathed, and Clive jumped when he realized she had crept up right behind him. He froze, as she peered over his shoulder at the message. "You have really nice handwriting," she said. Though she wasn't actually that close, it felt like she had whispered the words right in his ear.
Clive clicked the pen shut and shoved it back in his pocket, standing up to his full height and backing up to let her admire his handiwork without forcing her to sidle up close to him in order to read it. "Thank you," he said, pleased by the compliment now that he felt like he had earned it. "I've been practicing to get better."
"Clearly it's paying off," she said, reaching down to pick up the paper by the edges, careful not to smear the ink. "Thank you. I appreciate how much you've helped me today."
Clive knew a dismissal when he heard one. Some part of him was disappointed to leave. He was used to getting a peek at people's personal lives in his line of work. He had delivered flowers to weddings, funerals, retirement parties, graduations, he had seen apology flowers after a fight, flowers sent to confess love to the one that got away. He saw all kinds of intimate little details from the outside - not taking part, but not fully separate, either, moving through the background of other people's lives and watching them all pass by, as if through a window. He was used to the feeling, but envied them sometimes, going about their joys and pains and celebrations and losses, never truly getting to experience it himself.
But this was the closest he had ever been involved in a delivery. He knew he wasn't actually participating in any important part of this, but he had felt for the first time like he had played a role in this woman's story, albeit a very small one.
It was a nice feeling - one he hadn't felt in a long time.
But every story had an end, and every actor had to exit the stage at some point.
He nodded at her as he turned to go. "Glad I could help," he said as he turned the knob of her front door.
"Wait!" she called after him, and Clive paused, his foot halfway out the door. He turned, leaning against the door as she approached him, trying to look casual but silently worrying that he had forgotten something or offended her in some way. This was the point where she told him he had made her uncomfortable in some way, that she was going to call his boss and tell him how much he had bothered her and that he had stared at her the whole time and made her feel uneasy. He held his breath as she approached him.
"You forgot your tip," she said, and handed him a few bills folded over.
Clive tried not to make his shaky exhale too noticeable. "Thanks," he said with false nonchalance as he took the money and tucked it into his pocket.
"I'll probably be ordering more flowers next week," she told him. "Have to keep them fresh and roll through the colors, like you suggested. Does the shop have any other delivery drivers?"
He was right - he had made her nervous. He had overstayed his welcome in her apartment and now she wanted nothing to do with him, and he didn't blame her. He wouldn't want to spend any more time around himself than he had to if he could avoid it, either. "I'm Cid's only delivery boy right now," he admitted, feeling guilty. "There are others that work at the shop, though. I'll ask one of the girls to stop by with your order next time."
Her brows furrowed. "No, that's not what I - I just wanted to know if I would see you again next week."
Why would she want to see him again? He wracked his brain but came up short. "As I said, I'm the only delivery driver right now," he said, confused. "If you order the flowers to your door again, then I'll be the one dropping them off."
"Good," she said, and smiled up at him. The sight of it set his heart racing once more. "We'll probably be seeing a bit of each other, then. My name is Jill."
"I know." Clive's tongue felt thick in his mouth. Suddenly, he realized how creepy that sounded. "I just meant - your name was on the order," he said lamely.
"I know what you meant," she chuckled. "So who's going to be delivering me flowers every week for the time being?"
There was something about the way she had phrased it, about the implication that he was delivering flowers to her , that sent heat rushing to his cheeks. "Me," he croaked. "I'm going to deliver flowers to you every week."
"I meant your name ," she laughed, "if you're comfortable giving it."
"Oh. Oh! " he realized, suddenly feeling foolish. "Clive. My name is Clive."
"Well, Clive," Jill said, and reached out to clasp his hand in her own, giving it a firm shake that made his heart pound and butterflies fill his stomach, "I look forward to seeing you again next week."