#not bamon

my dad told me to write more gauntwood so I did... presenting: a flustered customer (Gaunt), and a confident, outrageously flirty florist (Elly) *leave a comment on A03 if you enjoyed plsss*

Ellwood, gently, and with a deliberate gentleness that captivated Gaunt’s darting stare for a moment, put down his scissors. “What’s she like?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your wife.”

“She’s not my wife,” Gaunt hurried. “She’s…well, she’s —” He searched the shop, then sighed. “Truthfully, I’m not sure what she is. My mother —”

He stopped himself, acutely aware that over sharing to the florist the complications of his floundering love life was distinctively uncharacteristic of him. Perhaps it had something to do with the florist himself, staring, waiting, beneath a dark sweep of eyelashes. 

Ellwood smiled at the man’s abrupt end. “I am, myself, familiar with that sort of arrangement. I think lilies will be perfect.”

Gaunt didn’t enjoy how he emphasised ‘perfect’, as though their interaction were a game and Gaunt were losing. 

“Her name is Esme.” 

“Pretty. I assume she is pretty?” said Ellwood, who had turned away from the patchwork stall of flowers, to look at him.