Chapter Text
Amanda stares at the morning sun, leaning against the desk where the cash register lay, hand propping up her head. She rakes her eyes along the pots lining the window sill, the table in the center holding metal buckets with rows of bouquets. She looks around as if this were her last day in this shop, a small huff of a sigh escaping her lips easily as she lifts herself up and off of the counter.
The rays of light stream in through overly clean windows, casting a dim glow over Amanda as she walks around, her fingers drifting lazily over ceramics and petals. The walls, painted a gentle yellow, serve as a background for winding ivy and cold shadows. The shelves scuff the wooden flooring beneath her feet, and the dust that lay over them are a testament to how no customers had rung the bell above the door in a considerable amount of time.
Despite Amanda’s being wrapped in a fuzzy cardigan and many, many layers of thermal clothing under her skirt, she still shivers as a draft of cold November air flits its way through the shop. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she ignores the piling emails pinging on her laptop upstairs, and sits back behind the counter. She’d brought a book with her to work–the customers had started dwindling long ago--and decided, firmly, that she’d read some.
The hours slipped away easily, entwined in the tan pages, before a loud distraction startled her away from the escape from silence. A short, feisty brunette swings the door open and charges up towards the front of the establishment. She lets her eyes drift over the angry stranger; A furious expression, a flush on her cheeks, choppily cut hair down to the midline of her neck, and a gaze that could kill. Amanda bites her cheek, drawing a slight tang of blood, as she feels heat rise up her torso.
The warm sunset floods the shop, escaping only through thin strands of the other woman’s hair, and Amanda finds herself transfixed with how the light seems to frame her hair like a halo. Fumbling in her pocket, the short brunette slams three twenty-dollar bills onto the counter. $60?! Who does she think she is? … probably some rich asshole from upper LA.
“Give me a ‘Fuck-You’ bouquet. Please.” Golden-brown eyes meet an equally angry deep, dark chestnut gaze, as the shorter of the two yells over the counter. She's huffing. … Odd, but okay, sure! LA's an unusual place.
Plugging her ears to mock her loudness, Amanda shoots back, “We’re about to close,” She has no patience for soft customer service today, “Do you have the decency to be polite?” Her hands fall from her ears with a growl.
As much as she needs to take this money, most of her bouquet-making supplies stayed packed from the end of yesterday’s work, and the effort for one bouquet is… lots. To Amanda’s dismay, the other woman just rolls her eyes, stamps her foot, and taps insistently on the bills in the middle of them.
“...Fine. But don’t expect me to make this quickly, everything’s packed away.” Amanda spits, pushing the money into the cash register, hiding the fact it’s mostly empty from this frustrated stranger, and finds her way upstairs.
She places her hands on her hips, gnawing on the dead skin at her lips, staring at the small workshop room she'd managed to garner in an exchange with the agency.
Humming a soft tune, Amanda gets to work, sliding on a thick pair of gloves. She's always loved being a florist, for she's able to lose herself in the colours. Ever since she was little, in Grandma's backyard with the roses. Muttering mindlessly, she selects the flowers for the request of a 'fuck-you' bouquet. Amanda snorts at the mere idea of it.
She decides she'll use floriography to decide on what flowers, rather than just a whole arrangement of black. Too boring, for the likes of her. Geranium, historically meaning 'stupidity', foxglove, meadowsweet meaning 'uselessness', yellow carnations, and orange lilies.
A striking collection, all forming together to make quite a lovely bundle. Orange matches with shades of purple and shocking red stands out among the stalks. She cuts the stems, forcing hair back with her sleeve whilst gripping the plants.
She rolls her sleeves, spraying the bundle with water, and then wrapping it in newspaper, decoratively placing a few lavender pieces between bright flowers.
She stretches out her shoulders, reveling in her creation. She takes off the gloves, and slides down the stairs two steps at a time, soft in the landing.
She watches the brown-haired stranger, staring at the bucket full of flowers on the far shelf. It's there for decoration, but she can't help but want to give her whole shop over to this woman with the feisty pink lips and entrancing eyes. It's stupid.
"You like lupin?" Amanda calls out across the short distance, a soft dimpled smile rising on her cheeks as the brown-haired woman spins on her heel, blush returning to her face.
A soft laugh escapes her, exhausted and sluggish in returning to the front desk, "Is that what that's called? It's a nice flower, for sure," The shorter woman has lost all of her anger, and Amanda suddenly wishes she could hear that laugh for the rest of her life. What the hell has gotten into her? She gnaws on her lip, and they both sit in warm acceptance for a moment, before she pushes the bouquet towards the dark-eyed woman, muttering a sharp, "It's done, by the way."
She watches the soft grind of her jaw, eyes trailing until they meet whiskey brown, and she speaks. It breaks the delicate air they'd made, "Thanks for waiting. What's your name?"
"Angela," the woman replies, sliding smoothly into a whisper, voice crackling under the weight.
"Nice to meet you, Angela." Amanda grins, scrawling cursive words— 'to angel, from amanda'—on her business card, slotting it between stems to keep in place. The wind casts a veil upon the pair, in which Angela's hair floods her face.
Amanda feels she has to grip her hand to stop herself from tucking the hair behind her ear, and she suppresses a gag at the idea.
"…Lovely to meet you, Amanda. I'll be back—" She pauses, abruptly. "No, I won't. Um," Angela laughs, and her head tilts back with the notion, "That's awkward. Why would I come back in? Not that your shop is bad. Oh god… um, I'll see myself out," The shorter woman wrings her hands, swallows, and avoids Amanda's gaze.
(Upon avoiding Amanda's eyes, she missed the tall brunette's eyes trail along her throat, following the trajectory of her swallow.)
"If you do come back, I'd be happy to see your face." Amanda's voice is softer than she's ever heard it be.
Angela visibly flushes, and Amanda holds her composure until the woman leaves, the bell tolling above the door. She sinks downwards, elbows holding up her head. The cool metal of her cross bracelet seems to sear itself into her skin. Her body wracks with shuddering breaths. God put her in this position for a reason. To test her? To declare she's 'wrong'? She's not sure. It claws at her throat and she feels unsteady on her feet. It's really thrown her, the whole ordeal.
But she's tired. She gets up, and clumsily closes up shop through her tears. She just wants to get home, and maybe stop by a church on the way. She is not normally this insane, she promises. To the big lord above, who demands her perfection, she is stable. The pedestal her knees grow red at is a comforting and accepting devotion. She ignores the memory of the sun-coated stranger, because that's all she'll be. A stranger.
Getting home, Amanda rubs her eyes and places her bag awkwardly on the side console of her apartment. Her tiredness precedes the ache to angrily call Shayne about it all.
After dinner, she dims her lights and tucks her legs underneath her to lean on her sofa. She scrolls her contacts to find Shayne (Work), and presses 'call'. She sets it up on speaker, places it on the coffee table, and takes a sip of her chamomile tea before he even picks up.
The crackly voice rings through her apartment.
"Hello? 'Manda, it's like 10pm, I thought you'd be in bed and reading by now," His voice is groggy and his words sound like they're stretching around a yawn.
"Sorry!" She drawls, long enough until she hears a small, forgiving laugh at the other end of the line. "Today was a doozy, though. Imagined you'd still be awake, so, I wanted to talk to you about it." She takes a breath, the images of flashing, toothy grins and head-spinning laughs fill the front of her brain.
"Shoot me."
"Okay, so!" She claps her hands, "Slow day as usual. Was reading, right?"
"Right."
"Then suddenly, this woman walks in. She's… Shayne, she's really pretty. She was really pretty. Like, envy-levels of pretty. I swear, the sun shone just for her."
She can practically hear Shayne's eyes rolling.
"I.." The guilt strikes her. She swallows, hard. "I wanted to be her friend…"
A tiny hum of indignation from the other end of the line. "She said her name was Angela. Asked for a 'fuck-you' bouquet. I wouldn't have made it, but she slammed $60 in front of me, and I don't really know how I was meant to deny that," she catches herself running off in long sentences, and pinches the bridge of her nose. Her apartment suddenly feels too warm.
"..Okay… How are you feeling? Did you get her last name?" He's tiptoeing around her, she can tell. The tone has shifted drastically since she called her pretty. She's not sure why, since she just wants to be her friend. Only friends.
"Uh.. no?" She eyes her phone curiously, staring at the LEDs framing Shayne's name. "Shayne," She fakes a yawn. Poorly, but it does the job. "I've gotta go. Goodnight."
(She's well aware she would like to marry this woman. She would rather rip her heart out than admit that.)