looked so lost with a small frown on his face, I couldn’t help but feel something in my chest. He wasn’t uttering any objections so I didn’t feel the need to let him off the hook, not to mention I really needed his help if I wanted to get out of there before the sun rose. When he took out a wire from the package and bent down to reach for a fake—but beautiful—rose from the pile, I cleared my throat.
“Ah, aren’t you gonna…”
He met my eyes. “Am I gonna…what?”
I was an idiot. “Your sleeves…you always roll them up.” I was a gigantic idiot, but…it was always one of the highlights of my day, so why should I have to suffer just because he forgot about it? It was my daily forearm porn, and I had started to look forward to it.
His frown got a tiny bit deeper as he looked down to his wrists and then—thank you God!—he put down the rose and the wire in his hand and started the process. I watched him the entire time without him even noticing it. When he grabbed the rose and the wire again, holding them straight up in his hands, I couldn’t hold back my grin.
“Something funny I should know about?”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “You’re all dressed up. Did you go to your office today?”
“Yes.”
“Do you work every weekend?”
“Usually.” He paused. “I don’t have to go in on the weekends. I only do if I don’t have any other plans.”
I reached for the rose he was holding and secured it to the fake branch with the wire, making sure it wasn’t at the same level as the others. I wanted some of them to stick out and some to be farther back so it gave the illusion of a big explosion of roses blooming.
“Do you make plans with your friends?” I asked, not looking at him because I had to pick up my pace.
“My best friend moved to London. Work keeps me busy as it is.”
“You?”
“Me?”
“I haven’t seen any of your friends around.”
“Oh, I’m usually busy with work, too. To save money, I had to spend a lot of time at home and that doesn’t help you have a social life.”
After our admissions, we worked along in a comfortable silence, and with his help, it started to go a lot faster. I’d done a lot of it before he showed up, but it looked like we’d be out of there in an hour at most.
“Isn’t this something a florist would do?” he asked after quite some time.
I gave him a quick look then focused on the flowers again. “Yeah, but the budget thing, remember? I scrolled through Pinterest, watched a few YouTube videos, and read some blog posts, and I think it’s turning out just fine. I know the florists do it with fresh flowers sometimes, but that would be extremely expensive. Extremely. These look all right, don’t they? I mean, it’ll look better once it’s up and arched over the door, but…”
“It’s beautiful,” Jack said softly. It was soft enough that it got my attention, and I noticed his eyes were on me, not the flowers. “What are those for?” he continued, gesturing toward the yellow roses I had on the side farther from us.
“Oh, I’ll distribute them on the tables on Monday. Again, I can’t buy fresh flowers every week, so I’m gonna go with fake on those too. Hopefully, if things go well, I’ll upgrade to fresh roses on the tables in a few months and I’ll buy more plants to put around the place.”
His fingers grazed mine and I had the oddest feeling. Ignoring it, I kept working and secretly enjoyed every little touch, every little graze.
“You know I could lend you money, right? The place is mine, so it would be an investment, and since you’re going to pay me rent after the six month period has passed, I wouldn’t want you to close it down before that.”
I gave him an incredulous look. “Come on, Jack. Let’s be honest with each other—if I can’t make this place work, it’d work in your favor because you’ll get your hands on it faster. What did you say you were planning on doing with it? A restaurant?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
I was so curious, but he wasn’t giving it up. “Either way, thank you, but I couldn’t accept your money.”
An hour later, my fingers aching and a little scraped, I finally spoke up. “I think we’re done. This