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A week into opening his flower shop, Shane wonders if losing his JojaMart job and having a mental breakdown in front of the Farmer during the past summer may have caused him to finally lose his mind.
I mean, who starts a flower shop in the middle of Fall? he muses, staring at the bundles of red and orange mums and purple fairy roses. That old knot in his heart gnaws at him, whispers that playing with flowers instead of taking the Farmer up on the offer of a farmhand job was a big mistake.
Truthfully, the Farmer and Evelyn have been his most consistent customers and business has been slower than expected. Maybe it was a mistake to take over Marnie’s old shop and expect many people to make the trek into Cindersap Forest for overpriced plants. But Jas had suggested the idea and with all the down time after caring for the chickens, he couldn’t just tell her no—
The door slams open, the bell jingling wildly, and Abigail out of all people stomps inside, missing half of her usual goth gear, vibrant hair in disarray and a blanket-covered cage in her arms. (Shane can’t even remember the last time he saw her wearing sweatpants and a band tee. It’s uncanny.)
"Marnie!" she calls frantically, scanning for her until she locks eyes with Shane. "It's David. Where's Marnie?"
Shane steps around the counter, assuming “David” must be whatever’s in the cage. "Marnie’s out back.”
Alarmingly, he thinks there might be tears welling in Abigail’s eyes. “Don’t tell me she’s no longer taking animal clients. It’s an emergency!”
“No, no, it’s okay,” he says, pulse racing. He’s never been good with customers who cry. He holds up his hands, as if placating one of the cows. “She just had to move to the barn out back when we uhh… remodeled.” He gestures to everything around them.
Abigail does a double-take, apparently seeing the clustered tables and stands of flowers and kitschy vases for the first time. It does seem a little incongruous with Shane himself leaning against the counter in his hoodie, clutching his Joja cola for dear life at 8:03 in the morning.
"Oh," she says, “I’ll just…” she gestures wildly and runs out again.
It isn't long before Marnie rings the shop desk, asking him to go to Harvey’s with a list of things that sound more applicable to infants than animals. To his credit, Harvey readily has the supplies available, even though Pelican Town hasn’t seen a baby born since Vincent.
Shane ducks his head when Harvey comments in passing on his improved appearance. Therapy is a new development for him, but he hardly thinks he deserves a gold star every time he doesn’t skip a session in Zuzu City.
“Tell Abigail she can pay me back when she can,” he says, tucking the invoice into the prescription bag. “I know money’s tight for students.”
“I’m sure she’d appreciate that,” Shane says, thinking of his own years scraping by on ramen and lentils. Those memories feel less painful now, more like the ache of a good workout than a stab in the gut. He waves at Harvey on the way out.
Abigail waits at the flower shop counter when he returns, a tiny bundle of sunflowers and mums in her hands. She brightens when she sees him and it takes him aback. Prior to today, he could probably count on one hand how many times they’d spoken to each other, despite her friends staking out the arcade room in the Stardrop Saloon every Friday like clockwork. He supposes his glowering presence in the corner didn’t exactly invite small talk, with the exception of Emily, who would continue to talk to him no matter how grumpy he was.
“Thank you for all of your help with David!” she exclaims, taking the bag out of his hands. “He really scared me half to death earlier.”
“It’s no problem,” Shane says, eyeing the flowers. “Do you uhh. Want to pay for those?”
“They’re for Marnie,” Abigail says. “A little thank you, that’s all.”
“That’ll be 200g.” A thought occurs to him and he also adds gently, “Harvey said you can pay your invoice for the meds whenever you can.”
Abigail grimaces, crumpling the top of the bag in her hand. “He shouldn’t have. It’s fine, really! I can afford it. David is my baby and Marnie took good care of him. Dad’s making more money again so I’ll just pick up a few extra shifts since we’re busier lately.”
He wraps the flowers in a pretty wrap and a bow in a buttercup shade, Marnie’s favorite color. “Um, I don’t know that much about vet stuff besides working with chickens, but what happened?”
“Oh, it was dreadful,” Abigail says, the smile dropping off her face. (Dammit, he should know better than to ask questions like that instead of small talk.) “I got home this morning and he was just squealing up a storm because he got his foot caught in the cage and me, a bad guinea pig mom, had left him like that for who knows how long. But it’s luckily just a sprain and Marnie thinks he’ll be okay with some rest and pain meds.”
A stray thought occurs to Shane from his long nights of eavesdropping at the Saloon and he says it aloud before thinking to mind his own damn beeswax: “But I thought Pierre and Caroline had you on a curfew.”
Flushing red as a beet, Abigail looks like a deer caught in the headlights. “Oh uhh... Um. Please don’t mention that bit if they ask you, okay? Please.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Shane says, handing her the flowers. “This town’s gossip mill is ridiculous.”
“It really is,” she agrees, relieved. “GottagrabDavidseeyouaround!” she babbles, rushing back out.
As the bell falls silent, Shane wonders if he just accidentally made a friend. Not the weirdest way that’s happened, he thinks.
“So who named it Dandy Daniels?” Abigail asks a few days later. Technically, she didn’t need to check in at the shop’s desk for her follow-up appointment with David, but she was waiting for him when the shop opened, giving Shane déjà vu. This time, however, she is dressed to the nines in her usual goth gear, with a studded jacket and leather miniskirt. It’s still none of his damn business, but he wonders again who exactly she was breaking curfew for.
“Jas did,” Shane admits, nodding at the tiny girl playing in the living room. She has no school today and so promised him approximately a dozen times that she would play nicely with her dolls and not knock over any vases. “She drew the dandelions on the sign,” he adds, a touch of pride in his voice.
Abigail cocks her head. “I didn’t know your last name was Daniels.”
“Well it is,” he says shrugging.
She squints at him. “That means you have the same name as that one college linebacker Alex used to talk— oh.” She winces at the expression on his face. Shane very calmly starts one of his breathing exercises, counting to eight. “Sorry, sorry, I must sound like such a dick.”
“It’s fine,” he mutters, unable to look her in the eye.
Jas wanders up to them, holding one of her dolls. Guiltily, he realizes she must have been observing them from the living room. She often does things like that lately, as if worried Shane will disappear again like he did during the Summer.
I really have been a shit godfather, he thinks, not for the first time.
“Um, can I see David, Miss Abby?” she asks tentatively. “Marnie says you have a gin-ee pig? I’ve never seen one before!”
“Oh, absolutely!” Abigail is as desperate as Shane to change the subject. The girls coo over the pig together, Abigail showing Jas how to gently pet him and feed him small treats by hand.
By the time Abigail has David back in the cage again, Shane has tucked himself back into his own head again, away until the day’s work is over. It’s a holdover coping mechanism from working for JojaMart, but his therapist says it’s okay to keep doing as long as he promises to talk things over with her each week.
“Are you a witch?” Jas asks Abigail suddenly. “Miss Penny says they don’t exist, but you look like the Gem Witch in my picture books. She has sparkle magic.”
“Jas!”
“It depends on the phase of the moon,” Abigail answers his goddaughter, surprising them. Jas laughs in delight.
Shane raises an eyebrow at her. “What exactly does that mean?”
“What do you think it means?” she asks rhetorically, refusing to elaborate.
“I like your hair,” Jas adds shyly, scuffing the toe of her shoe, “and your tattoos. Fairy roses are my favorite!”
“I could do your hair like mine, but you’re a bit too young for me to give you a tattoo,” Abigail says, gesturing to the roses crawling inky lines down her shins.
“Woah woah woah.” It’s long past the time for Shane to get involved as the most parent-shaped person in the room, bad godfather or not. He crosses his arms, trying to look sterner than he actually feels. “Jas is not dyeing her hair and definitely not getting a tattoo. Do you want Penny and Marnie to have a heart attack?”
“Chillax, my dude, I wouldn’t fry a six-year-old’s hair. I was thinking more like hair chalk and temporary tat stickers. We could even do it together for the Valley Fair, yeah?”
“Oh please, please, please, Shane!”
They both look at him expectantly, one pleading, the other practically daring him.
Well, it’s not like it’s the most irresponsible thing he’s permitted while Jas was under his care. “That’s not a bad thought, actually. But no tarot and no ouija until she’s older. No, until she’s in high school. And—” he glances at the tattoos again, Dad Mode dropping like a jacket. “Did you really ink yourself?”
“What, like it’s hard?” She crosses her arms, her chin lifted in a challenge. “Or do you think I did a shit job of it, Mister Scowly?”
“It’s not bad, no, uhh…” His conversational skills are really worse than usual today, he thinks, mouth twisting. There’s nothing for it, then. He rolls up the sleeve of his hoodie and the shirtsleeve underneath, the fabric bunching up at the armpit. It still hurts to look at the unfinished design, the empty black lines stark against his pale skin. It had a twin, once. A happily drunk late-night decision to visit the Thorns tattoo shop in Zuzu, ribbing and snarking on each other until one of them went first. Leaving it undone felt like the only thing he could do, once upon a time, but ever since his sessions with Dr. Lightman, he’s no longer sure. He clears his throat. “It’s not the only one I got when I was your age, but you see…” He trails off awkwardly.
“Maybe Abby could fix it,” Jas says, rising up on her tiptoes to stare at the tattoo, fascinated. Internally, Shane hopes to Yoba that she doesn’t mouth off to Penny about tattoos and hair dye and witchcraft, or else he’ll never hear the end of it from all the well-meaning busybodies in town.
“Not for free,” Shane and Abigail say simultaneously, then grin at each other, the awkwardness finally broken.
“Seriously, I would pay you for it, Abigail,” Shane says. “Maybe in installments until the flower shop turns a profit?”
“I’ll think about it,” she promises. “And call me Abby, please. My friends call me Abby. Oh and uh. What’s your rate for a dozen fairy roses?”
He tells her, smiling wryly as her eyebrows climb into her purple hair.
“Okay, how about we make a deal: I’ll fix your tattoo for a dozen fairy roses, lavender-colored ones?”
“Done,” he says, shaking her hand.
“And you wouldn’t happen to know if L—” She catches herself. “Nevermind, you wouldn’t.”
Shane raises an eyebrow again.
“You wouldn’t know!” she insists, and marches out of the shop to Marnie’s vet clinic.
At the Saloon that Friday, Abby actually says hello to him on her way to the arcade room, although she makes a face at his Joja cola. “That stuff is vile. I don’t know how you and Sam can stand it.”
“Sobriety is a strong motivator,” Shane says mildly, not missing the way her eyes scan over his shoulder to glance at the table where Elliott, the Farmer, and Leah sit together.
Caught off-guard, Abby’s blush returns and she flees to the arcade to play Journey of the Prairie King, pointedly brushing off Sam’s loud questions about her new friend.
“I could make you a mocktail,” Emily says, wiping down his side of the bar.
Shane considers it, then shakes his head. “Too similar to the real thing. But thanks.”
Emily glances around, as if to check for eavesdroppers, and tells him, “I’m so glad to see you making new friends and healthier choices for yourself, even if it’s less business for Gus and I. He won’t say it, but he’s very proud of you, you know.”
“Gus, really?” Shane figured that he and Pam were half the Saloon’s revenue at one point. He wrinkles his nose at the thought.
“Yes, really, Mister Daniels.” Emily places a hand on her hip. “He wants the best for everyone here. He’s just that sort of guy, Shane.”
“Knew one like that once,” Shane grunts. “But you can go ahead and tell him I’ll keep buying his pepper poppers just to keep him in the black.”
She kisses him on the cheek and rushes off to grab orders from Clint and Willy. It’s time to abandon his Saloon nook, he thinks, or else old habits will tempt him.
“Join you for two-player on the next round?” Shane offers to Abby’s back.
She jumps and swears under her breath as a Mushroom knocks into her miniature cowboy. “Yoba’s balls! I mean. It’s not like I’m gonna win on my own,” she adds, looking aside at him. “You play Prairie King?”
“Used to,” he says. “Jas is too young according to Marnie, so we usually play Junimo Kart instead.”
She gestures to the other stick. “Git’er done, Chicken Man.”
“Chicken Man? Not Dandyman?” He settles back into the rhythm of the shooting game, only losing one life before the old muscle memory comes back. (It used to be their favorite game, after all. How could he forget?)
“Nah,” she says, flashing a smile. “You’re the Chicken Man all the way.”
“Okay, then, Gem Witch.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment!”
Shane leaves the Saloon earlier than Marnie that night, chatting with Abby about their game and favorite punk bands and tattoo details, and for once, he doesn’t feel guilty when he sees Jas in bed, tucked in by Penny with one of her dolls.
In the end, Abby fixes his ink in a DIY tattoo parlour set up in Marnie’s kitchen during the quieter hours of the flower shop. Jas tries to watch, but both of them shoo her away to play with Vincent, promising to show her when it is finished.
“Where did you even get everything to learn all of this?” he asks, gritting his teeth and telling himself he’s a big strong man who isn’t bothered by needles and the increasing sting as Abby works on the shading. "It's not like Pierre keeps counterculture stuff on his shelves."
"Like any rebellious shopkeeper’s daughter, I bought it from Jojamart, duh." She rolls her eyes, but keeps her focus on his arm.
"Seriously though."
"I have my ways and Sebastian has his bike and likes to get out of town every now and again. He also wears some of my ink," she adds, pride pinking her cheeks.
"And so does Leah, I suppose," Shane adds dryly, and she nearly drops the gun.
"How did you know?" Her blue eyes are wide.
Freed of the need to remain still for the moment, Shane scratches the back of his neck. "Um. You're really not as subtle about it as you think. So I just guessed? But you might try gifting her a holly wreath next season. She really likes them."
"Maybe you are the right sorta dude to run a flower shop," Abby says, shaking her head. "Shane Daniels, the Master Observer!"
"I wouldn't go that far!" he protests. "But hey, when are you opening up your tattooing to the town?"
Abigail snorts. "Very funny. Never. I have classes and a girlfriend, bruh." But she looks pensive as she targets another patch of his skin with the gun.
“I’m serious, Abby,” he says. “You could make a decent little income with a tattooing side gig. Just get your Ferngill license and you’d be set.”
She bites her lip. “But who would want them?” He stares at her pointedly until she rolls her eyes and sighs, “Well, besides you or Seb or Leah, yeah?”
“Emily, for one. Probably Elliott would want some quotes—don’t make that face at me, you know he would—and you could branch out and print temporary tattoos for the kids or stickers based off of your ink designs or something?” He sees the moment where the idea clicks into something more solid than a wisp, the way it did for him when Jas and the Farmer suggested he start a flower shop of all things.
“I guess so,” she allows.
“You could call it ‘Abuzz at Abby’s’ since you like my shop name so much,” he adds with a smirk.
Abby stops the gun and puts her hands on her hips. “And just when I was about to compliment you on your sensible business skills! As a shopkeeper’s daughter, I’d be much classier than that, Shane.”
“But do you really need to be in a place like this?” He gestures to the worn wood of the ranch house, the old heirloom table draped with a plastic tablecloth to protect it from Abby’s work.
“It’s called having standards, my guy,” Abby says. “You have them, too, or else you would only have shitty overpriced and cheaply dyed carnations in stock, like Jojamart.”
“Point,” he says, and they continue on in relative silence, except for Abby’s punk rock station playing on the boombox.
When Jas races through the door in the evening, his arm stings like hell beneath its cling wrap, but Abby’s done a damn good job adapting to the style of the original Thorns artist. The neon-green hard hat of the Tunneler's mascot hangs jauntily off the posed gridball, detailed enough to look like a miniature of the real thing. The outline has been sharpened and stands clean and solid against the new color.
But what catches Jas's eye first is: "Cay-leb and Angel-i-ca Ben-nett," she slowly reads, eyes shining. "You put Dad and Mom's names on your arm."
"So I did," Shane says, admiring the lettering with her. "Abby did a good job."
Abby tucks an escaping strand of hair behind her ear. "Eh, I had a leg up with the initial outline and all that. You're lucky I tried calligraphy for a year in high school."
"But it is very good," he says again. "I think you could do alright with a side gig if you tried."
Jas still holds Shane's arm in her hands, staring at the ink. "Miss Abby," she starts shyly, "could I also put Mom and Dad's names on my arm?"
"Of—" Abby meets Shane's eyes and cuts herself off, "—I mean, maybe when you are a bit older. These things stay on your skin forever, you know, and you haven't finished growing yet."
Jas nods sadly, dropping Shane's arm. It still breaks his heart, how easily she acquiesces to disappointments, from the small things to former fuckups like her godfather.
Shane chews the inside of his cheek and tells Abby, "I'd like to custom order some temporary tattoos. A couple names and fairy roses. What would that run me?"
Abby catches on and replies, "For a small sheet with recurring prints each season? A real holly wreath and a couple potted poinsettias this Winter, but no rush."
“Done, again,” he says.
Shane is body checked by a very tiny hug. "Thank you, thank you, Shane!"
He awkwardly pats her hair with his other hand, feeling a little pleased and more like the godparent he's meant to be. The knot in his chest loosens just a little bit more.