Chapter Text
Beauty and the Botanist
Vidal’s Florals sat wedged between two other shop spaces for the entirety of Rio’s life. It had first been her great-grandparents’ shop, where they sold all the flowers they grew in their own garden. Rio’s abuela had grown up there, the eldest of six siblings all packed into their tiny, three-bedroom home in Westview, New Jersey. She grew up toddling around the cramped space, learning which flowers she could touch and which ones had thorns on their stems that might ‘bite’ her (as bisabuela used to tease when Rio was just a little girl) and which flowers needed sunlight and which needed shade.
She passed that knowledge on to her son, Victor, who in turn passed it on to Rio when she was just a baby, barely walking when he started taking her into his parents’ floral shop. He would just scoop her up in his arms and carry her around the shop with him, showing her all the different flowers and spouting off facts about what they needed to eat and how often she needed to water them and what their scientific names were.
It came then as no surprise that Rio was a verbose child in school.
She enjoyed learning immensely. And she enjoyed sharing her knowledge with the other kids in her class. And her teachers. And pretty much anybody who would listen, actually.
At one point, she thought it might be fun to be a teacher. She was good at science stuff – especially earth science and biology – and her parents encouraged her to do whatever she wanted in life. The florist shop was their family business, sure, but it was definitely something they could handle until their own retirement, they said. Rio could take it over when she had a family of her own, they said. She had plenty of time, they said.
When Rio was in her last year of college at Columbia, she got a call from her abuela, asking her to come home as soon as she could. Rio took the bus in the same day, practically running straight to her abuela’s home to find out that her parents had been in an accident.
Her mother had not survived. Her father was in a vegetative state, unable to move or care for himself, let alone a busy florist shop.
“I can take over the shop,” Rio had said after her abuela had talked about going back to work after only a few years of retirement.
Abuela had tutted at her, shaking her head. “No,” she said. “You get your degree. Get an education. I will handle the shop.”
“Then I’m going to help you,” Rio insisted. “Papi taught me everything I know about flowers. I can help in the garden, and I can work around my classes. Let me help. Please.” She was desperate. Desperate to hold onto something. Desperate to not lose all she’d known so quickly. “I’m going to need a part-time job, anyway,” she reasoned. “I need to pay for books, still.”
Abuela had, reluctantly, agreed to that.
After burying her mother and making sure that her father was well taken care of in his nursing facility in town, she headed back to Columbia to finish her degree, visiting Westview every weekend to help out at the florist shop and visit her parents.
Abuela did not let her skip graduate school, but Rio was able to negotiate getting her teaching certificate somewhere closer to home than Columbia.
Around the time she finished her program, however, Abuela started to really struggle with her arthritis. Her hands began to cramp a lot more often, her knees creaking and causing her to need a cane to get around the tiny shop. She moved around a lot more slowly and required help to bend down to water some of the plants.
She could no longer work in the garden.
So Rio took over, officially.
She got her abuela situated in the tiny apartment behind the florist shop (the one they’d previously rented out to their seasonal workers during the summer when business was at its peak) and promised that she’d take care of anything and ask for help from her grandmother if she ever should need it.
Rio also hired Alice, which was one of the best decisions she could have ever made.
Alice grew up decently wealthy. Her mother was a famous rock star and had carted her around like an extra amp on her tours around the globe, so she’d been homeschooled. She was also exceptionally skilled in all kinds of instruments, having taken piano, guitar, drum, violin, and all kinds of other lessons growing up.
Unfortunately, she knew nothing about flowers.
“I follow directions well and I’m very loyal,” she’d said at her interview. “And I’m a quick learner. You don’t really have to repeat things too much for me.”
Honestly, Rio expected nothing less of somebody who could play seemingly every instrument known to man.
Besides, Alice was the only applicant.
“You’re hired,” she said, shaking Alice’s hand.
Alice became Rio’s most loyal friend – and her abuela’s obvious favorite grandchild.
She always insisted that Alice stay for dinner and take flowers to lay on her own parents’ graves after shifts. Alice was initially not used to the attention, but eventually learned to embrace it.
Mainly because Abuela gave her no choice. She practically force-fed Alice like a stubborn toddler and trapped her in hugs before she could leave the shop after her shifts. She made Alice join them for holidays in that tiny little apartment behind the florist shop and even knit her a sweater (which took a full year thanks to the arthritis, but that’s how you know you’re the favorite).
Rio was almost certain that, when Abuela passed, she was going to leave the florist shop to Alice rather than to Rio herself.
She didn’t leave the shop, but Abuela did leave a couple of heirloom pieces and money for Alice in her will, which made Alice blubber like a baby in Rio’s arms at the will reading.
After that, the only family that Rio seemed to have left was Alice. Her parents had both been only children, so she had no cousins. And Rio was an only child, so she had no siblings.
Alice was it.
And she was it for Alice.
And they were both lesbians, funny enough.
Rio hadn’t ever really thought of Alice in that way, however. The only time she’d brought it up to Abuela, the woman had laughed uproariously in her face.
“Don’t be silly, mi alma,” she’d said, patting Rio’s cheek. “You and Alice…you would never work.”
“Why not?” Rio huffed. “Don’t you think I’d make a good partner?”
“Of course you would, querida,” Abuela cooed. “That is not in question at all. But you and Alice are…not a match. I cannot explain it.” She had shrugged. “You work better as family.”
And she had been right.
Having known Alice for over a decade now, Rio couldn’t believe she’d ever entertained the idea that she and Alice could be anything more than best friends. Their personalities didn’t mesh well enough for them to be romantic partners, and they were both looking for different things.
For one thing, Alice had a thing for femmes. High femmes, at that. She blushed like a teenage boy whenever a woman in a colorful sundress and sky-high heels walked by the shop on their way to the nail salon next door.
“Gay!” Rio coughed into her elbow, snickering when Alice gave her the finger.
Anyway, Rio was pretty much the opposite of a high femme.
Not the complete opposite, but she had never enjoyed the feeling of makeup, so she didn’t wear it. She had also opted to wear a suit to any and all school dances since she was twelve, preferring them to skirts and dresses. Needless to say, her parents and abuela were less than shocked when she came out as a lesbian in high school, and they had all fully embraced her.
Still, Rio was more on the masc side, so she fell firmly outside of Alice’s preferences. And Alice wasn’t her type, either.
Rio couldn’t exactly pinpoint what her type was these days, however. She just knew it wasn’t Alice, who was also pretty masc, though she was into dark and sometimes heavy makeup and had been known to wear a dress a time or two.
Still, they weren’t each other’s romantic types, which was probably what made them work as friends and pseudo-sisters. And, now, business partners.
Sorta.
Alice was still technically an employee of Vidal’s Florals, but she now lived in the apartment behind the shop and was responsible for opening it every morning while Rio tended to flower deliveries and got orders ready for pick-ups.
Usually, Rio arrived at the shop when business was in full-swing at around half-past eleven, taking over for Alice at the register so that she could go for her first break.
She had just situated herself on the stool behind the register, in fact, when she heard a little voice from below.
“Ethcuse me?” A little fist appeared over the high counter, dropping a couple of wrinkled bills and some coins on the surface.
Rio furrowed her brow, slipping off the stool and glancing over the counter to see a tiny face with big brown eyes and a wide smile, with the two front teeth missing, peering up at her.
“Hello there,” Rio said, tilting her head curiously at him. “What can I do for you, little buddy?”
“I wanna buy thome flowerth for my mama, pleathe,” he lisped, giving her that same charming little grin.
Rio did not consider herself a kid person, per se, but this one was adorable. And so polite! She felt that cuteness aggression thing that people talk about when they see fuzzy little animals.
But this was a child.
A child completely alone in her shop.
“Um, okay,” Rio said. “Where is your mama?”
“At work!” the child chirped.
“Oh, okay…” Rio glanced around the shop. There were no people in it. Her last customer had left a few moments ago. “Well, where’s your dad, then?”
“I don’t have a dad,” the boy said, as simply as announcing that it was sunny outside.
“Oh,” Rio said, suddenly panicking because where the hell did this child spawn from? Where was his (presumably) single mother and why wasn’t she watching her child?
“My mama’s a lethbian!” said child exclaimed, making Rio’s eyes go wide.
“Oh,” Rio said, apparently losing track of all other vowels.
“I like lethbians!” the boy added.
“Yeah,” Rio said, nodding awkwardly in agreement. “They’re…swell. Um, buddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Where does your mom work? Is it close by?”
“Yeah! She workth right nekth door!”
Man, the lisp made him even cuter. Rio felt like she was about to melt from all the cuteness.
“Cool,” Rio said, “and did your mama give you permission to come to my shop for flowers?”
“No…” the boy said, deflating a little bit. “I wanted it to be a thurprithe!” He threw his arms up in the air for emphasis, and Rio almost shed a tear. “She thaid she wath having a bad day, tho I wanted to make it better.” His brown eyes took on a shine that made Rio panic.
“Well, that’s so nice of you!” she said, looking at the money he’d dropped on the counter. “Why don’t you and I go pick out some flowers and then I’ll walk you back over so you can give them to her, huh?”
She did not want to make this tiny, adorable child cry in her shop, even if that meant she would have to accept six dollars and a Canadian penny for what was sure to be at least fifteen (American) dollars’ worth of flowers.
It was fine. She could afford it. And it was definitely worth those little brown eyes being dry and happy.
Rio walked around the counter and offered her hand to the boy.
“I’m Rio, by the way,” she said. “Rio Vidal.”
“Like the thign!” the boy gasped, his eyes going wider than before, like Rio was some kind of celebrity.
Rio chuckled. “Exactly like the sign,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Nicholath,” the boy said. “But everybody callth me Nicky.”
“Nicky,” Rio echoed. “Good name.”
“Thankth!” Nicky said, beaming up at her. “I like it.”
Rio was going to die of cuteness.
“Okay,” she said, “so what kind of flowers does Mama like? Roses?”
She was going to kick herself for saying that, but they already had some roses prepared from the day before, thorns all cut off and everything. Besides, a single rose only cost about ten dollars in her shop. She could get away with that.
“No, my mama ith allergic to rotheth,” Nicky said, frowning. “She liketh Athaleathhhh!”
Rio sighed. “Of course she is,” she murmured. “And of course she does.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, well, you’re in luck! We just got some azaleas in stock the other day. Come on.” She motioned for him to follow her as she started heading toward them.
To her surprise, Nicky reached out, wrapping his little fingers around hers as he followed her. Rio’s step faltered for a second before she continued, glancing down at the boy as he practically skipped along beside her. She pressed her lips together, shaking her head fondly as she led him to the newly stocked azaleas.
“Here we are,” she said, waving her hand over the blooms with a smile.
“Wow,” Nicky breathed, squeezing Rio’s hand as he looked at the variety of colors. “It’th like a rainbow!”
Rio grinned. Azaleas were her pride and joy. She grew many of them herself in the garden. She had spent years cultivating her azaleas so that she had pretty much every available color. She’d even worked with members of the Westview Garden Club to expand her inventory. They were one of her most popular blooms.
“Which color do you think your mama would like best?” Rio asked, smiling down at Nicky.
“Her favorite color ith purple,” Nicky informed her, beaming at the flowers and pointing with one tiny index finger.
Rio sighed, internally.
Of course he would go for one of the more expensive colors in the bunch, she thought. But whatever. It wasn’t like she couldn’t afford to lose a couple of flowers. She could use some of her cheaper fillers for the bouquet.
“Okay,” Rio said, reaching into one of the pockets of her apron for her cutters. She picked three flowers from the bush, then gathered some lilac and hellebores to contrast the deep purple color of the azaleas.
Nicky followed close behind as she constructed the bouquet, which she would have sold for probably over $50 to anybody else. He oohed and aahed at the pretty flowers, then held onto her apron as she walked him back to the front of the store, where she picked out some teal paper to wrap the bouquet in.
It was tiny, even with the fillers, but it was pretty. Nicky’s eyes went comically large at the sight of it all put together, his little mouth making an ‘O’ in astonishment as Rio tied the whole thing together with some twine. She handed it to him before placing the money he gave her into the till and subtly reaching for her own wallet to make up the difference so that she wouldn’t be short.
“Can I have a rethiet?” Nicky asked, politely.
Rio felt her heart swell with affection for him. “Of course, buddy,” she said, reaching for the receipt pad and writing out his order exactly…then writing $6 for the total. She knew Alice was going to laugh at her when she saw the copy of it later.
She handed the receipt over, and Nicky’s big brown eyes scanned over it for a moment before he tucked it into the pocket of his oversized hoodie with a decisive nod.
“All set?” Rio asked.
“Yup!” Nicky exclaimed, smiling widely, showing off the wide gap in his teeth that was doubtlessly the cause of his lisp. She wanted to pinch his cheeks.
“All set for what?” a voice asked as Alice came out of her apartment and into the store from her own private entrance.
“We’re gonna go give my mama thethe flowerth!” Nicky exclaimed, holding up his bouquet to show her.
“Whoa!” Alice said, immediately crouching down to his level (she didn’t have that far to go) and eyeing the azaleas and lilacs. “That’s awesome, little dude.” She glanced around the deserted store. “Where is your mama?”
“She works next door,” Rio informed her. “At the nail salon, right?” Nicky nodded. “Can you watch the store while I walk him back over there?”
“Is that where the hot bald lady works?” Alice asked, her cheeks going pink. “The one with the nose ring?”
Rio was about to say she had no idea, but Nicky spoke first: “That’th my Auntie Jen!” he exclaimed. “She’th a lethbian, too!”
“How did you know that I’m a lesbian?” Alice asked, furrowing her brow at the kid.
“Alice,” Rio sighed, “you are the poster child for lesbians. Also, you literally just asked about her in the most obviously gay way imaginable.”
“Shut up,” Alice huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Shut up ith a bad word,” Nicky said.
“It’s two words, actually,” Alice shot back. “But you’re right. Sorry, little dude.”
“It’th okay. My mama thayth the f-word a lot, which is thoooo much worthe.”
Rio had to grit her teeth to keep from laughing. Alice was barely keeping it together as she nodded. “Good to know,” she said. “Anyway, could you give your auntie Jen a flower from me?”
“Okay!” Nicky said, excitedly.
Alice grinned and walked over to a display of pink carnations, picking one from the vase they were in and handing it to Nicky. “I’ll put a ten in the till for it,” she told Rio as she straightened up. “Tell her the cute lady from the florist sent it,” she said. “I’m sure she’ll know who you mean.” She winked.
“Do you have thomething in your eye, Mith Alithe?” Nicky asked, tilting his head in confusion.
Rio was going to have a heart attack. They needed to leave before she could no longer hold back.
“Okay,” she said, “let’s go.” She took Nicky’s hand as he tucked the carnation next to the bouquet in the crook of his arm and he followed her out of the store. “I’ll be right back,” she promised Alice. “Let me know if we get any more orders.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Alice huffed, frowning and crossing her arms over her chest.
The walk to Coven Nails was a short one. The nail boutique hadn’t been there for very long, but it had garnered a lot of business in the last sixteen months since it moved into the space that used to house a small accounting firm that, ironically, went bankrupt only seven months into their lease. The aesthetic shifting from beiges and grays to bright pinks and purples had been jarring, but it didn’t entirely mismatch the sage green of Rio’s floral shop. In fact, it complemented it quite well.
The clientele was a little boisterous at times, though. Many of the women who came through the shop were from the wealthier side of Westview, with standing appointments every few weeks. Some of them stopped by the floral shop after their appointments, smelling of fresh nail polish and clicking their acrylics together as they perused the selection and asked Alice and Rio questions about the seasonal blooms.
And then they usually bought roses and orchids.
The nail salon also had a great deal of plants, both decorating the planters just outside the main door and scattered around the interior of the shop, which Rio saw as she and Nicky stepped through the door, a little bell ringing over their heads.
“Nicky?” a blonde woman at a nearby manicure table gasped. “Agatha!” she called toward the back of the shop. “Agatha, he’s here!”
From behind a curtain came a woman with bright blue eyes and a long, thick braid of hair swinging behind her like a rope as she rushed toward them. On instinct, Rio let go of the little boy’s hand and held up her own in surrender. Nicky, on the other hand, was nonplussed and held up the bouquet to her, proudly.
“Look, Mama!” he exclaimed. “I got you flowerth!”
“Nicky!” she gasped, falling to her knees in front of him and reaching out to cup his face in her hands. “Oh, my baby! I thought I lost you!”
“Lotht me?” Nicky echoed, frowning in confusion. “I wath jutht nekthtdoor, with Mith Rio.”
“Miss Rio?” the woman – Agatha, the other one had called her – blinked up at Rio, who still had her hands up like there was a loaded pistol pointed straight at her head. She narrowed her eyes. “Is that you?”
“Uh…yes,” Rio said. “I’m me. Rio, I mean. Hello.”
Agatha looked back at Nicky. “What have I said about talking to strangers, young man?” she demanded.
“She’th not a thranger, Mama,” Nicky huffed. “She’th Rio! The lady with the pretty flowerth!” He held up the flowers in his hands with a big smile. “I got you thome to cheer you up!”
Agatha’s eye twitch was subtle, but it didn’t go unnoticed by Rio, who fought back her own grin. “How…nice of you, baby,” she finally sighed as she carefully extracted the bouquet from his arms. “Oh!” she said, her bright blue eyes going wide. “Are these azaleas?”
“Yeah!” Nicky exclaimed happily. “Purple athaleath! They’re your favorite flower and your favorite color!”
“They sure are!” Agatha chuckled, somewhat nervously. She glanced back up at Rio, who shrugged, still holding her hands up like an idiot. “How did you get these?” she asked.
“Mith Rio thold them to me!” Nicky said, smiling brightly. “I uthed the retht of my birthday money to buy them!”
“Aw, bunny,” Agatha said, “you were supposed to use that money on yourself.”
“I already bought way too much candy,” Nicky said, patting his tummy. “It wath giving me a tummyache, anyway. And you were thad.”
Agatha furrowed her brow in confusion. “When was I sad?” she asked.
“Today,” Nicky said. “You were frowning a lot, tho I got you flowerth to cheer you up.”
Agatha’s eyes immediately went wet and she wrapped her arms around the small boy, pressing kisses to his face as he squirmed in her arms. “My,” kiss, “sweet,” kiss, “little,” kiss, “boy!”
“Mamaaaa,” Nicky giggled, playfully pushing her face away from his. “Stoooooopppppp!”
“Never!” Agatha said, punctuating the sentence with a big smacking kiss that left a stain on his cheek. “I will never stop loving you, my sweet little man. Where did you get such a big heart? Surely, it can’t be hereditary.”
Nicky rolled his eyes, looking back at Rio over his shoulder. Rio grinned and shook her head, her hands finally lowered.
“And you,” Agatha said, and Rio’s hands went right back up like a reflex.
“Yes?” she asked, grimacing slightly.
Agatha took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said, “for returning my son to me.” She pressed another kiss to Nicky’s head before placing him on the ground. “But you,” she looked down at him, “ask next time you wanna go somewhere.”
“I did!” Nicky said.
“You said you were going next door,” Agatha huffed. “I thought you were going to Lilia’s deli to see your nonna.”
“Oh,” Nicky said.
“Yeah,” Agatha snorted. “Oh. Now go to the back and finish your homework. We’re going to have a talk later.”
“Okay,” Nicky sighed, pouting. “Can I give Auntie Jen thith flower? Mith Alithe athked me to give it to her.”
“Uh, sure,” Agatha said. “Be quick because she has a client.”
“Okay!” Nicky said, zooming off to one of the tables where a tall, bald-headed woman sat with the sharpest nails and eyeliner Rio had ever seen. She grinned as Nicky appeared next to her, glancing at him in between filing her client’s nails. The bleach blonde client seemed just as charmed by his presence as Jen was, especially when he presented her with the bright pink carnation and started rapidly explaining where it came from.
Rio watched with a small grin on his face, shaking her head.
“He’s cute,” she said, looking back at Agatha, who was also watching her son with no small amount of affection.
“He’s perfect,” Agatha murmured in return before looking back at Rio. “Thank you for bringing him back, really,” she said. “And thank you for the flowers, but I know six dollars isn’t nearly enough to cover the cost of a bouquet of purple azaleas and lilacs. How much do I owe you?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rio said, shrugging as she felt her face warm.
“I insist,” Agatha said, reaching into the pocket of her dark wash jeans (which Rio couldn’t help but notice fit her like a glove) and pulling out a couple bills.
“No,” Rio said, taking a step back and raising her hand. “I’m not taking any of your money. He has the receipt and it says six dollars even. I can’t go messing up my books now, you know.”
“Then I propose a trade for the flowers,” Agatha said, reaching out and wrapping her hand around Rio’s wrist.
Rio’s eyes widened as Agatha turned and began dragging her toward one of the tables. It had a few personal touches, including a vase filled with mostly purple (and dead) flowers and a little bit of water. Rio felt the urge to take that vase to a sink in the back and replace the old water with fresh water and maybe add in a packet of plant food, as well. She was distracted by Agatha practically shoving her down in the chair across from her own before she took her seat, slipping the new flowers out of the wrapping and placing them amongst the dead in the vase with a smile.
“Uh,” Rio said, glancing between the flowers and the woman in front of her, who had started opening up the drawers on her little desk and pulling out files and small tubes of product. “What kind of exchange, exactly?” she asked. “Because I left my employee in charge of the shop and business usually surges around this time, so…”
“Nothing too complicated,” Agatha said. “Just a simple manicure. Your nails look like they could really use a little TLC.”
Rio looked down at her fingernails, frowning. She chewed on them a decent amount, honestly, and she’d never been the type to get them professionally done or even really paint them herself. Sometimes, she filled them in with pen or green highlighter when she was bored, but that was about it.
“I do a lot of manual labor,” Rio told her. “You know, with the flowers and all. I work in the garden and get dirt on them and under them a lot. The nail polish won’t stick.”
“Still,” Agatha said, “I can make them look nice, if only for a little while. As a thank you.”
“Really,” Rio said, “you don’t have to—”
“Hands,” Agatha said, tapping the small rectangular cushion in front of her. Almost without thinking, Rio immediately rested her hands there, and Agatha began to spray them with some kind of solution that tingled. “Long or short?” Agatha asked.
“What?” Rio furrowed her brow.
“Your nails,” Agatha clarified. “Do you like them long or short?”
“Oh,” Rio said, flushing. “I usually keep them short.”
“Hmm,” Agatha hummed, “good to know.”
Rio felt her face begin to burn at the spark in the other woman’s eyes as she began to massage Rio’s palms and fingers before placing them into some kind of tiny bath that she hadn’t even noticed was there before, filled with a purple-ish solution. Whatever it was tingled.
Rio let herself relax as her fingers soaked. Alice, she decided, could handle the shop by herself for a little bit. Especially if it meant Rio could stay here, continuing to stare at Agatha’s face, gorgeous even in her concentration, as the other woman expertly did her nails.
It was a fair trade for the flowers, after all.
Nearly an hour after she left, Rio returned to the shop with a full manicure, her nails feeling tingly and a little sensitive after the treatment they received.
“Where were you?” Alice huffed, counting the till. “You missed the whole lunchtime rush! What the hell makes people rush out on their lunch breaks for flowers, anyway? Why can’t they wait until they’re on their way home?”
“You’d rather deal with a rush at the end of a long day?” Rio snorted.
“Fair point,” Alice conceded. Her nose twitched. “What’s that smell? Is that…nail polish?” Her eyes narrowed on Rio’s hands as they tied her apron around her waist. “Did you get a manicure while I was drowning in sunflowers and roses? What the hell, dude?”
“Agatha insisted on it,” Rio sighed, holding up her hands for Alice to get a better look. “Nicky picked out the color to match the shop,” she said, grinning slightly.
“How cute,” Alice said, hand over her heart. “Who’s Agatha?”
“His mom,” Rio said, feeling her face warm up and praying Alice didn’t notice as she turned away and started fussing with some of the flowers, taking inventory of what must have been sold while she was away. “She knew the flowers I sold him didn’t really cost six dollars.”
“Six dollars?!” Alice exclaimed. “You sold that bouquet for six dollars?!”
“No,” Rio huffed. “Obviously I covered the difference. I’m not an idiot.”
“You bought a fifty-dollar bouquet for a woman you hadn’t even met,” Alice pointed out, “because her kid was cute. And then you let her keep you away from your shop at the busiest time of the day so you could get a manicure that’s going to be ruined within the next couple of days.”
“Yeah, well…” Rio shrugged. “Like I said, she insisted, so…”
“Is she hot at least?”
“You’re no better than a man,” Rio grumbled.
“You take that back!”
“I shan’t!” Rio said dramatically, shoving her out from behind the register. “Now, go make yourself useful and take inventory. I’m gonna look over the receipts.”
“Bossy,” Alice huffed.
“I’m the boss,” Rio reminded her. “Oh, also that woman you sent the carnation to?”
“Yeah?” Alice asked, turning around with wide, hopeful eyes.
“Simp,” Rio snorted, pulling out a pink post-it from her pocket. “She gave me this to give to you.”
Alice snatched the note from Rio’s hand and her cheeks bloomed pink. “It’s her phone number,” she whispered like she was holding the Holy Grail of Lesbianism.
“S-I-M-P!” Rio spelled, clapping between each letter.
“You’re just jealous,” Alice said, sauntering off toward the back, the little pink note raised above her head.
Rio rolled her eyes, reaching for the receipt book to look over the copies and tally up their profits for the day.
As she did, she caught sight of the sage green nail polish and the little black hearts Agatha had painted on her thumbnails and she couldn’t help but smile softly to herself as her heart did a stupid little flip in her chest.
