#this is completed

Dan kind of hated everything right now. He hated the smudged, scribbled papers on the floor in front of him, he hated the ugly dead bouquet by the trash bin that seemed to be reflecting his own misery back at him, and he hated the goddamn floor for being so cold under his ass.

He angrily scrawled a few music notes down onto the sheet paper before him and stared down at them, then immediately scratched over it. How could he think that that would sound good? He wanted to crumple this paper and throw it away, but he only had two weeks left to finish and then practice his entire piece, so he couldn’t afford to waste any more hated papers.

The unfinished music notes cheerfully mocked him. Dan scowled down at them, running the arrangement briefly through his mind before deciding that it all sounded terrible. This wouldn’t work. This was horrible. He hated it even more.

“Dan!” Louise called from the front room. “How’s it going back there?”

It was going fucking spectacularly, that’s how it was going. He told her as such.

“Oh, Dan,” Louise said. She came through the door, trailing petals with every step. Her hands were piled with limp flowers. She smiled fondly down at him, dropping the assortment onto the floor beside the other dead bouquet. “You know, I have a perfectly good chair that you could be sitting in to work on that.”

Dan spared it a scornful glance. It was ugly and stout, so close to the ground that he’d have to sprawl his legs out in front of him to even sit on it. The small table beside it wasn’t much better. The rickety stool behind the counter in the front room was dangerous, but it was much better than this alternative. “No thanks,” he said. “I like the floor.” He did not. He would like it better if it was comfortable enough to lie down on face-first.

Louise looked like she was considering sitting beside him on the floor and commiserating with him, but ultimately she must have decided that she had too much work to do. “Well. Take your time, I’m just cleaning now that we’ve gotten that big order ready to go.”

Fortunately, the big order was piled and arranged in the front room, not crowded into this already-small back room. Dan had practically been choking on pollen by the time he and Louise had finished preparing them. He didn’t understand how Louise could still be cheerfully cleaning after their hours of work.

His phone dinged with an alert. Dan spared it a glance just to see that it was a message from his talent manager. She probably wanted to know how his piece was coming along. He definitely wouldn’t be answering that right now. He caught a glimpse of the time on his phone and glanced up at Louise, who was still hovering beside him. “Are you going to close up the shop? It’s almost two.” They always closed early on Saturdays so Louise could spend more time with her kids and so Dan could go back to his flat and be pathetically alone in peace.

She glanced at her watch. “Oh,” she said. She suddenly looked so acutely disappointed upon seeing the time that Dan was thrown off-balance. “Hmm. I might stay open for a little longer. Who knows who might pop in?”

“Are you expecting anyone besides the pick-up truck for the big order?”

Louise’s eyes casually darted away from him and Dan was instantly suspicious. “Er, no,” she said, unconvincingly. “I mean…no.” She whirled, ruffled skirt bouncing around her, and vanished into the front room.

“Yeah, right,” he called after her. Maybe she was going to have the babysitter bring her daughters by the shop. Dan hadn’t seen them in a few weeks and, though he wouldn’t ever admit it to Louise, he missed their tiny faces and adorable smiles. They always lit up when he performed his occasional ritual of tying a flower stem into a knot and wrapping it around their fingers like a giant, petaled ring.

“It’s not the girls!” Louise told him, her voice echoing into the room. Apparently, she was now a mind-reader.

Dan didn’t want to think about anyone else coming into the shop. Especially Phil. He certainly didn’t want Phil to come into the shop today. Not with Dan’s fresh memory of that hurt look on Phil’s expressive, open face that Dan had inflicted upon him yesterday.

Yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that had all been...bad days. Dan still didn’t feel completely recovered from them. He didn’t think he’d ever be completely recovered from any of his bad days.

“Fuck bad days,” Dan muttered to himself. He regarded an open space between sprawled, cascading notes on a piece of paper and he scribbled down what he’d just said. He felt pleased upon looking at it. That was how he felt. That was what he wanted this piece to be about. “Fuck bad days,” he said again, more vehement this time. The words echoed in the small room. He squinted as a few notes played cautiously in his mind and he began reluctantly writing squiggles that vaguely resembled notes across the paper. The door to the shop whooshed open and Dan could hear Louise greeting someone, but he ignored it.

The notes stubbornly churned in Dan’s mind, but they began to take shape as he repeated “Fuck bad days,” under his breath. A few fell into place at a time and he scrawled them down, ignoring bars and repetitions to get down the basics of what he was imagining himself playing. It was almost like he’d crossed some sort of hurdle and the notes began cascading from his fingers to dance across the lines of the paper.

His fingers ached after only a few minutes, but he pressed on urgently, desperate not to lose this streak. The half-imagined, distant ideas that he had been forming, yet unable to write down over the past few weeks, had pieced themselves together in his mind with shocking clarity. It wasn’t perfect, but it was more than he’d written without furious back-tracing in weeks or maybe months.

It was four long pages later when Dan finally sat back, hand almost numb, and eyes aching from his fear of closing them, as though he might’ve lost the notes if he'd looked away from the papers. An unfiltered outline of music lay spread before him, the pages crinkled and worn with his handling. It was raw and beautiful and he hated it, but he also loved it a little. It was a start, finally. It was so much more than he’d been doing. Nothing more pressed at him, no more urgent notes that begged to join the piece, so he let himself relax, sitting back and massaging at the reddened indentations the pencil had left in his fingers. He blinked, feeling like his eyelids were scraping against his eyes. Maybe he’d be able to actually sleep tonight.

Dan felt a belated rush of accomplishment. This was something and it was maybe even good. He unfolded his legs and hauled himself to his feet, grabbing the ugly little chair for balance. With a swipe of one hand, he gathered the suddenly-inspired pieces of paper and clutched them to his chest. His head spun as he stood up, either from the abrupt change in altitude or his growing excitement at the breakthrough. He needed to tell someone about this, and since it wouldn’t be his manager, who would likely just be exasperated that it’d even taken him this long, it would need to be Louise. She would certainly be excited about his progress.

It was only as Dan stepped through the open door to the front room that he realized he hadn’t heard Louise bustling around out here pretty much the entire time he’d been writing, and now he could see why. She was standing just inside the door to the shop, blonde curls cascading over one shoulder as she talked to Phil, who practically towered over her. Phil, facing the back of the shop, glanced over her head just as Dan caught sight of him, and his gaze landed on Dan.

“Oh god,” said Dan, without meaning to say it. He backpedalled hastily, almost tripping over the flowers on the floor by his feet. Louise and Phil vanished from sight as he ducked back around the corner. His breaths came short and fast. He was not prepared to deal with this right now.

Now that he was listening, he could hear them both talking. Something about cacti plants. Dan wanted to hide in this back room forever, but he also wanted to go out and somehow apologize to Phil for being an asshole yesterday. He also, kind of, wanted Phil to apologize to him for being so absolutely confusing on Sunday.

Dan heard his own name, then, and his attention snapped back to the conversation in the front room.

“ - Yeah!” Louise was saying. “He’s in the back, gimme a sec.” She apparently didn’t know that Phil had seen Dan walk out, catch sight of them, and then immediately flee back to safety. Her boots clopped against the floor as she walked toward the back room.

Dan allowed himself a few moments to steel himself, dropping the papers in his hands onto the table, then he let out a long breath and stepped back out into the room again. Louise almost collided with him.

“Oh! Dan, hey.” She was grinning up at him, a big, too-convincing smile. “Great timing! Phil wanted to say hi.”

“Hi,” Phil offered, lifting a hand in a timid wave. His eyes looked careful, like he was afraid of spooking a wild animal.

Louise pushed past Dan. “I’ve got to finish sorting these flowers!” she lied blatantly. There were no flowers that needed sorting, and Dan knew it, but he didn’t stop her. He stepped involuntarily toward the counter, meeting Phil’s gaze unflinchingly.

“Uh,” said Phil. He also took a few steps toward Dan, stopping in front of the counter and the slumping boxes of flowers that were waiting to be picked up. One hand was tucked awkwardly behind his back. “Hey, Dan.”

Dan felt his heart judder in his chest. He didn’t know whether to shake Phil by the shoulders and demand an explanation for his confusing actions over the past few weeks - no, months - or to just apologize for being rude to Phil yesterday. He didn’t know what to do, but he couldn’t help but notice the annoyingly perfect arch of Phil’s cheekbones and his unbelievably blue eyes that were even bluer behind his glasses. “Hey, Phil,” he said.

“I wanted to...” Phil stopped and glanced down at the Luigi bobblehead by the till, his eyebrows furrowing. He heaved a sigh and continued, “I, well, I wanted to say sorry for being so weird the other day. Well, I’m weird all the time. You’re probably used to it. I mean...ignore that.” He had looked back up at Dan, and the intensity of gaze, belying his soft tone, made something burn inside Dan. “I thought - never mind what I thought. I just wanted to apologize. And, if you might want to, I wanted to ask…”

“Wait,” Dan interrupted him. He blinked. He hadn’t expected the words to leap from his mouth, but they had. His gaze fell subconsciously to the loose shirt that Phil wore, hanging open over an undershirt.

Phil waited.

“It’s fine,” said Dan. “I mean, I’m sorry too. We were both weird. I was kind of an asshole yesterday. A little bit.”

The wrinkles around Phil’s eyes became even more wrinkly with his small smile. “A little bit, maybe. It wasn't completely undeserved.”

“Maybe,” Dan repeated. His feet moved without his permission, carrying him past the sad, warped stool, the wall full of flowers, the cracked and meticulous counter, and finally, the heaps of boxes piled by the counter. He stopped in front of Phil, barely a foot from him. He could hear the dramatized sounds of Louise crashing through the back room, her way of letting him know that she was giving him time and wasn’t listening in.

Phil had drawn back a little when Dan came toward him, but now he leaned forward into Dan’s space, the one arm still clumsily held behind his back. “I - ” he started, but Dan interrupted him again, not willing to let him spoil the moment with a panicked declaration of friendship.

“What do you want?” Dan asked him, rather bluntly.

Phil blinked, a slow sweep of his eyelashes. “What do you want?”

“That’s not what I asked.” Dan could feel something thudding dangerously in him as he reached up and tugged at the loose edges of Phil’s overshirt, drawing them closer together. He let his fingers linger purposefully, smoothing over the dips of the fabric. There was peril in what he said without saying it, his actions obvious and yet skirting the edge of meaning. If Phil didn’t understand what he meant, then Phil meant something else entirely. Maybe he really did just want to be friends. Maybe so. Dan wouldn’t bet on it.

Phil had gone still and quiet under Dan’s touch. His eyes were dark when Dan glanced back up at them. “Dan,” he said, and then nothing.

Dan waited for a few moments, his breath stilling in his lungs, and then he took a meaningful step backwards, giving Phil space. He wasn’t giving up, though. He remembered the music he had just been writing, the notes that had poured out of him, and the feeling of triumph after getting it all down. “I have a piano recital in a few weeks,” he said, the words tumbling from him, “and if you can, I’d like you to come.”

Dan hadn’t noticed how tense Phil’s shoulders had been until they relaxed suddenly. His whole body was somehow looser, relieved of strain. “You play the piano?” Phil asked, instead of answering the indirect question.

“Yeah,” said Dan. “I write a little, too. I’ll be playing one of my pieces. Do you think you can make it?”

It was no longer indirect. Something was soft around Phil’s eyes as he looked into Dan’s.

“As a date,” Dan clarified before Phil could answer.

“Yes,” Phil said, and it was almost instant, the word escaping from his lips with a suddenness that seemed to surprise him. “Yes, I’d - I’d love to go with you. Of course I do.”

“Of course,” Dan echoed. Something giddy was taking hold of him, burning bright inside of him. He couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his lips. “As a date.”

“Definitely as a date.” Phil hesitated, the corners of his lips slowly lifting to match Dan’s grin. “I...I really like you, Dan. Like, a lot.”

“Is that so? I happen to like you, too. If you hadn’t noticed.”

“I might have noticed a little bit,” Phil admitted. “But I thought - never mind. I. Um. I got you something.”

Dan was surprised and he didn’t think to hide it. “You did?”

“Yeah, I…” Phil finally withdrew his hand from behind his back, his shoulders twisting with the effort. In his tightly clenched hand, he held a beautiful black lily with arching petals. “Louise told me that it’s your favourite.”

“Oh!” It was a pleasant feeling, this surprise. Dan reached out to let a finger stroke the softness of a petal. “It is my favourite.”

Phil let out a little huff of satisfaction, then lifted the flower and tucked it behind Dan’s ear. Dan could feel the coolness of the stem nudging against his ear and tangle into his hair. The base settled against his ear and the long petals tickled against his cheek. Phil’s face had melted into an open, pleased expression, his gaze warm. He didn’t pull his hand away immediately, however. Dan felt the brush of Phil’s thumb against his cheek and he leaned into the touch subconsciously, smiling helplessly, giddy with the sudden joy of everything.

“I love your dimples,” Phil said quietly, his thumb pressing into one. He leaned ever closer, swaying toward Dan.

Dan knew he did. He’d noticed the glances over the past few months toward his cheeks, and though he didn’t understand the obsession, he knew. He let Phil cave in the dimple, his thumb gentle against the curve of Dan’s cheek.

“Dan,” Phil said. The word was a hot breath against Dan’s lips, so close Dan could almost taste the vibration of the air. Phil’s voice sounded tortured with the effort of staying even that far away. “Can I kiss you?”

“What are you waiting for?” was Dan’s answer.

And then Phil’s lips were on his, and his hands were sliding into Dan’s hair, and Dan was surging up against him, and...it began.

~~

“I must have flowers, always, and always”

“Oh!” Dan’s eyes flew open. His dimples appeared. “Oh. Hi, Phil! Flowers.”

Phil wondered if the bump had affected Dan more seriously than it had seemed. “Hi,” he said again, not knowing what else to say.

Dan was grinning sheepishly. “Er, sorry. I was trying to - I mean, I’d dropped the tape on the floor, so. I was kind of just sitting down there for a moment.”

“Oh.” Phil could understand that. The floor had to be more comfortable than the single narrow stool behind the counter that Dan was afforded. “That’s fine. It’s just me.”

Dan ducked his head. The silver hoop in his ear caught the light from the wide windows by the door, and Phil was suddenly, hopelessly endeared by the pink splotch of embarrassment that crept onto Dan’s cheek. “Yeah,” Dan said. “Can I...what can I get for you?”

Phil wished he had the courage to say ‘your number.’ Instead, he gestured to the stout table in the corner of the little shop, surrounded by long-leafed potted plants. “I just wanted to let you know I was here. I’ll get some flowers later, but you said you didn’t mind if I sit here and work?”

“No, no, not at all,” Dan assured him, hastily. “That’s what the table’s there for.”

Phil asked almost every time he came in to work on his computer at the table, but Dan consistently said it wasn’t a problem. It helped Phil feel much less awkward. “Thanks,” Phil said. “It just makes me feel more, like, productive if I’m -”

“- surrounded by plants, yes,” Dan finished for him, a smile tugging at his lips. “Yes, you’ve mentioned. Go ahead.”

Phil noticed that he was beaming back at Dan, an unhesitant reaction to the dimples that caved in Dan’s cheeks. Dan should have looked ridiculous in this tiny flower shop, with his perpetually dark clothing, incredibly long legs, and slumped shoulders, but instead, the bright colours only made him look more at place amongst them. It was as if he’d drained the colours from himself and given them to the flowers surrounding him, making them all the more vibrant for it.

Phil also noticed that he hadn’t said anything for a very long moment and Dan’s smile was starting to slip.

“Door!” said Phil, panicking. He gestured widely at it. “You should get a bell.” He felt like maybe he’d been the one who’d hit his head when he came in.

“Oh,” said Dan.

“To tell you when customers arrive,” Phil clarified.

“Oh!” said Dan again. “Yes. I mean, I’ve asked Louise, but she said the loud sounds would bother the plants.” His face twisted. “Whatever that means.”

“No, I get it,” Phil assured him. He thought that maybe he did. The tiny cactus on his bedstand did seem to perk up whenever he played soft music near it. “My plant Susan likes nice sounds. She always looks greener after I’ve played classical music.”

Dan’s expression was warm. “You should work here, not me,” he said. “I don’t actually know anything about flowers. Or plants.”

“Neither do I,” Phil admitted. “Most of mine end up dying. That’s why I’m in here so often. I’m hoping to absorb some knowledge from the leaves, like...photosynthesis.”

“That’s for light,” said Dan, his mouth wide in a silent laugh.

“See!” said Phil. “You do know things about plants.”

“If you say so.” Dan was still laughing at him, a quiet, insubstantial thing.

“Hush,” Phil ordered, but he didn’t mean it, and his unhesitant smile betrayed it. He wondered briefly what it would be like to press his thumbs into Dan’s dimples, the deep, shadowed ones that only appeared when Dan was beaming at him like this. He wondered how Dan would react if he did that.

“Go work,” Dan told him, swallowing his laughter with visible effort. “That’s what you came here to do.”

Phil was so very tempted to tell Dan that he actually came here for him, but he didn’t have the heart to do it, and so he just stuck out his tongue in a completely mature reply and readjusted his bag over his shoulder to trudge to the table. He was just fighting with getting his laptop charger into the stubborn wall outlet when Dan’s voice drifted to him.

“What are you working on today?”

Phil wrestled with the outlet and barely managed to fit his plug into it. “Er,” he said absent-mindedly, “a project.” The outlet’s obstinacy has been passed onto the charger and now it didn’t want to attach to his computer. He tried to fit the metal into the opening in his laptop, twisting it this way and that as if it might make a difference. The difficulty in his task might be because hadn’t gotten a new laptop in three years, but Phil preferred to believe that it just hated him.

“Oh, a project?” said Dan, sounding amused.

“Yes.” Phil finally got his laptop fully plugged in and he opened it, typing in his password with slow fingers. He finally glanced over at Dan. “I’ve got this commercial for a game that I have two more weeks to finish. It’s going very slowly.”

“What game?” Dan asked.

Phil was disappointed that he couldn’t tell him. He felt like Dan might actually be interested in the answer. “I can’t say,” he confessed. “Client confidentiality and whatever. Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine, I get it.”

Phil remembered that about three weeks ago in a brief discussion about the news, Dan had admitted that he had once been to law school. He could recall with vivid detail the embarrassed flush on Dan’s cheeks when he mentioned it, as if it was something he was ashamed of doing, and Phil had gotten the feeling that he didn’t want to talk about it. Phil thought that Dan had probably dropped out but wasn’t going to admit it, but Phil certainly wasn’t going to bring it up. It didn’t matter. But Dan would doubtlessly understand client confidentiality.

“How much do you have left to do?” Dan asked.

Phil opened the project and winced at the chunks of unedited files. “A lot,” he said reluctantly. “I’ve been procrastinating. It’s a little harder when I have to set my own schedule.”

“I definitely get that,” Dan said.

Phil grinned at him. “You seem to do fine here.”

Dan was balancing on the rickety stool by the till. Phil couldn’t see his legs from this angle, but he imagined they were wrapped awkwardly around the stool. He was leaning on the counter at an almost dangerous angle. “Sure,” Dan faux-agreed with Phil, 

A thought occurred to Phil, something he had read a few days ago. He snorted a laugh and turned to Dan. “Hey, what’s a cactus’ favourite song?”

Dan frowned warily, and he had every right to do so. Phil enjoyed terrible puns and didn’t hesitate to wield them like a weapon of mass destruction. “What?”

Phil grinned. “‘Can’t Touch This.’”

“Oh god.” But he was clearly trying to fight a smile. “I’m in physical pain. Why are you like this?”

Phil just laughed.

Dan groaned and leaned on his elbows. His phone buzzed and he glanced down at it, then his eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

Dan dropped his face into his hands in exasperation swaying treacherously on his seat. “I have an order I’m supposed to be working on. I completely forgot about it.”

Phil glanced past drooping ferns at the door. He could see the sidewalk through the glass, decorated with potted plants, but devoid of any passersby. “I can watch the door for you if you want to go ahead and do it,” he suggested.

Dan’s head came up, hopeful. “You don’t mind?”

“No, of course not,” Phil reassured him. “You let me sit here for hours, so I might as well help out a little, right?”

“I’m going to take you up on that,” Dan said. He jumped to his feet and the stool creaked angrily at the mistreatment. “Just yell at me if anyone comes in?”

Phil nodded and Dan was gone in an instant, vanishing between the racks of flowers behind the counter and into the back room. Phil could hear faint cursing and he surmised from the words that Dan had a fairly large order of bouquets to prepare. It would probably take him a little while, then.

His computer beeped at him, offended at his lack of attention, and Phil turned back to it instead of listening to Dan slam things around in the back. He had no idea how Dan could bang flowers together, but apparently it was a talent. Phil opened the notification that had appeared on his laptop screen. It was an email from his supervisor, so he decided it probably wasn’t the best idea to ignore it as he did with most of his messages.

It was a politely stern reminder that he had to turn in part of his work by tomorrow night. Phil sighed heavily, typing out a quick reply. Sometimes he wished he’d gone with a stable, nine-to-five job that didn’t involve a paranoid boss constantly checking up on him. Other times, he remembered that the freedom of having his own schedule and being able to do what he actually liked was well worth the irritation. The paycheck, when he finally finished his work, wasn’t too bad either. He definitely would need his payment for this project soon, too. His diet of pizza and half-hearted scrambled eggs was draining his bank account, not to mention the flowers he bought every few days for usually no reason other than coming in to see Dan.

“Shit fuck mother duckling,” Dan swore creatively as he dropped something in the back,  easily audible with the passion of his curses, and Phil had to remind himself that he had work to do and that laughing loudly would not help Dan at all.

His cell rang at that very moment, which helpfully stifled his chuckles. He tugged it out of his pocket to see the caller ID, which was only the picture of his manic-looking best friend. Phil answered it immediately, lifting it to one ear and listening distractedly for any more sounds from Dan with the other. “Hey, PJ.”

“Hey!” came a cheerful voice, tinny through the speaker. “What are you doing right now?”

Phil glanced down at the still-open email. He felt very judged all of a sudden, the blunt words staring back at him, and so he closed the tab. “Working, kind of.”

“Cool, so not important,” PJ said breezily. Phil felt rather offended, but PJ barrelled on without pause, “So you’re going to be here tomorrow night, right? Seven o’clock.”

“Yes, I’ll be there,” Phil promised. “You’ve only reminded me every day for the past two weeks.”

“I’m just excited!” said PJ. “It’s my first official day living with Sophie! And I have good reason to be worried that you’re not going to show up. You’ve forgotten my birthday. Twice.”

Phil winced. PJ would never let him forget that.

“Be there or be square!” PJ bellowed. Phil had been expecting it and pulled his phone away from his ear just in time, otherwise, he’d be nursing a throbbing eardrum right about now. “Bring a date!” PJ added.

Phil sighed. “I wish.”

PJ laughed at him. “You’re an idiot. Ask that flower boy out; you’ve been pining over him for, what, three months now?”

Phil glanced around, suddenly afraid that Dan could somehow overhear his conversation. “Shh!” he hissed. “It’s not like that.”

“You’re there at the shop right now, aren’t you?” PJ sounded delighted, and Phil’s silence only proved his guess. “I knew it! Come on, Phil. You’re both wimps. Just ask him out.”

“I can’t,” Phil protested, still in a desperately low voice. “He...he already has a girlfriend.”

PJ howled with laughter. “You’re fucking with me! I’ve stopped in there and believe me, that boy does not have a girlfriend.”

“First of all,” said Phil, feeling the urgent need to defend Dan, “assuming someone’s sexuality based off their appearance or actions or whatever is not okay. Second, yes he does. She owns the shop. I’ve seen her. They’re definitely together.”

“You’re an idiot,” PJ said fondly, but at least he’d stopped laughing. “A delusional idiot.”

Phil felt rather like he wanted to punch PJ. Or maybe just stare at him very harshly. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do either through the phone, so he settled for sighing very weightily and hoping that got his point across.

It did. Having a ten-year friendship had some perks, after all. But PJ just sighed back at him. His tone was gentler when he spoke next. “Take your time figuring that out, then. No date tomorrow. But still, show up.” He then added pointedly, “If you’re at the shop anyway, Sophie has an empty vase.”

“What’s her favourite flower?” Phil asked, grateful for the change of subject.

PJ paused. Silence stretched for a few long moments.

Phil pulled the phone away from his ear and regarded it with disbelief as if PJ could sense the emotion through the phone. He probably could, knowing him. He returned it to his ear. “You don’t know what her favourite flower is?”

“She never told me!” PJ said defensively. “Anyways, do you know your flower boy’s favourite flower?”

Phil scoffed. “That’s entirely different. You’ve been dating Sophie for a year now. I’ve barely known him for three months.”

“Yeah,” said PJ. “But he works in a flower shop.”

“I’m not moving in with him tomorrow,” Phil pointed out. “You have no excuse.”

PJ sounded pitiful when he asked, “Well, how do I ask her now? She’ll just think I’m a twat for not knowing.”

“Not my problem,” said Phil cheerily.

PJ whined at him.

“Nope,” said Phil. He felt much better being able to get back at PJ for the constant comments about Dan. “Bye! Have to work. See you tomorrow!”

“You’re mean,” said PJ. “Fine. Bye.”

As Phil hung up, he was already reluctantly making plans in the back of his mind to help PJ figure out his newest crisis. It shouldn’t be that hard. He figured that tomorrow evening if he brought flowers to their flat, he would casually inquire if he’d gotten her favourites - or actually, what was her favourite?

A shrill tone rang out in the quiet shop, and Phil thought for a startled moment that PJ was calling him back. But no, his ringtone didn’t sound like that. It was coming from the counter.

“Dan!” he called, his voice almost drowned out by the loud tones. The moment he’d said it, he felt ridiculous. Dan could definitely hear it himself.

“Coming!” Dan yelled back at him. The ringtone stopped for a moment, then screamed demandingly again, and Dan came stumbling through the open doorway. His hair was dusted with pollen, and he looked out-of-breath from the brief sprint. “Hello?” he said desperately as he answered it. Phil watched his expression shift from tense, furrowed lines to a softer, gentle look as he recognized whoever’s voice it was. “Hi,” he said. It had to be his girlfriend.

Phil felt despairingly awful for wanting Dan to look at only him like that.

Dan had turned away from Phil, the phone balanced between his shoulder and ear as he wandered back into the room he’d just sprinted from. “Yeah, I’ve just started it, don’t worry,” he was saying, and then his voice faded away and Phil was left in the room with perky, bright flowers lining the walls and a chair that creaked heavily under him when he shifted his weight.

The fern that was tucked between his chair and the window leaned over him as he sighed, a frond brushing against his cheek. He batted it away and regarded it with a frown. “Stop pitying me,” he told it.

It, obviously, did not respond, but Phil imagined that if it could, it would tell him to stop being worthy of pity.

“You’re worthy of pity,” he retorted and then felt abruptly absurd for talking to a plant, no matter how sassy the fern looked. Fortunately, there was no one human in the room to judge him.

“I have work to do,” he reminded himself. He returned to his computer, ignoring the quiet ache that nudged at him every time he heard Dan’s murmurs in the back room.

He didn’t like Dan like that, anyway.

For the past four days, Phil had let himself entertain the thought of never going back to the flower shop. He toyed with the idea of moving all the way out of London, which might help his humiliation, and wished he was still in that stage of his life where he just ran away from every conflict. He resented his years-old resolve to stick with his problems until they were sorted. Because God, Sunday night had been horrible. It had gone so well until Dan had to leave. Phil never had, not in his worst scenarios where Dan found out that Phil was interested in him, thought that it would have gone like that.

He didn’t want to think about what had happened. He’d tortured himself enough replaying it over and over in his head.

And now it was Thursday again. Phil couldn’t even imagine bringing his laptop into the shop to set up in the corner and pretend everything was normal, but he hadn’t been lying when he’d told Dan that he wanted to be friends. Phil had never really thought that Dan might reciprocate his affections, even though he’d secretly wanted it and hated himself for it. He could never bring himself to get in between a couple, especially when Dan and Louise were so clearly happy together. Because of their brief conversations during Phil’s visits, though, Phil was convinced that he and Dan could be great friends. They really did have a lot in common, and Dan had even said that they could still be friends.

It was Cornelia’s birthday in a few days. Phil wouldn’t even have to make up a reason to visit the shop. This time, he told himself sternly, he would be fast about it. He wouldn’t linger and stare pathetically after Dan, not after Dan had told Phil that he knew what he was doing. He wouldn’t make an excuse to lurk in the corner and work on his computer. Phil could definitely go in, make small talk, and then leave. Maybe Dan hadn’t changed his mind about staying friends. Maybe he wouldn’t be creeped out by Phil’s presence.

Maybe.

“Am I being pathetic?” Phil asked the lava lamp beside his bed. It blobbed at him unsympathetically. 

“Thanks,” he said. “You’re so helpful.” He yanked the blankets further up under his nose, feeling very pathetic indeed. It was an hour past noon. He definitely needed to get out of bed. As if the traffic itself agreed, a loud horn blared outside, its obnoxious sound making it all the way into Phil’s flat. Phil considered just going back to sleep. But no, his sleep schedule would be more messed up than it already was, and simply not showing up at the flower shop like he usually did would definitely go under the ‘hiding from problems’ category.

“Why?” Phil questioned the room at large. Unhelpfully, nothing answered him. Phil heaved a tremendous sigh and hauled himself from the bed, almost tripping over his duvet as he flailed an arm for his glasses. He shoved the frames onto his nose and made his way to the dresser to half-heartedly get dressed.

Thirty minutes later, he stood in front of the closed door to his flat, staring at it intensely while he tried to work up the courage to open it. It wasn’t that hard. He just had to turn the knob and pull it open.

The door looked very apathetic to his dilemma.

“Why is everything being mean to me?” Phil complained. Maybe it was just the mood he was in, but it felt like literally everything in his flat was judging him. Particularly the coffeemaker, which had spat half of its boiling contents at him earlier. He’d barely managed to dodge the mess.

Of course, nothing replied to him. Phil might have felt a little crazy for talking to inanimate objects, but what was new?

“Okay,” Phil encouraged himself. “You can do this.” He wondered if talking to himself counted as being crazy. He’d read somewhere that it only mattered if he replied to himself, but he hadn’t quite reached that stage yet, so he figured he was safe. He reached out slowly, grasping the doorknob, and it turned easily in his grasp. Once he’d gotten it open, it was a lot easier to slip all the way into the hallway and shut it behind him. He locked it and sighed.

Then he trudged down the hall toward the stairs.

It took him about five minutes longer than usual to get to the shop with the way he was almost dragging his feet. He wasn’t looking forward to any sort of conflict. The entire way, he ran through his mind the many ways he could act wholly nonchalant and not stare at Dan at all.

“Hello,” Phil offered, as soon as he’d pushed open the door to the shop, which he considered an excellent start to pretending to be okay. He noticed the soft music that drifted to him, a stark contrast to the usual quiet that inhabited the store, and glanced around with a pleasant surprise. “Oh! You got music!”

“Yes!” a cheery voice answered him. “I finally got a replacement speaker. Doesn’t it sound so much better now?”

That...was not Dan. Phil blinked at Louise, who was grinning behind the counter, and he winced internally. He wondered if Dan had told her what happened the other night. “Hi, Louise,” Phil said, then winced again at his dull tone.

Louise didn’t seem to mind. “Hello, Phil,” she said, leaning on the counter and beaming at him. Phil noticed the papers shifting under her elbows. Dan was still here, then. “How can I help you?” she offered.

“Oh, um.” Phil let his gaze float around the shop, his mind drifting with it. “I’m looking for flowers.”

She waited a long moment, then prodded, “Yes, that’s what we sell.”

Phil ferociously willed away the flush he could feel burning at his cheeks. “Er, yes, I need...some flowers for a birthday. Something pink.”

“Pink!” she said. “Well, we have plenty of those. Birthday...hmm.” She slipped out from behind the counter and trotted over to him, navigating around the various bins in the middle of the floor. She had a twinkle in her eye. “So who’s the lucky person?”

Oh god, Phil thought. She was trying to find out if he was dating anyone. Dan had definitely told her about what had happened. He couldn’t just lie to her, but he had to convince her that he wasn’t trying to steal away her boyfriend. Not that Dan could be taken. He wasn’t a possession or anything.

“Sister!” Phil blurted, trying to keep his thoughts from wandering. “I mean, sister-in-law. Sort of. Her birthday is in a few days. I also got her something else, but I thought flowers should go with it, too.”

“That’s a lovely idea.” Louise was still smiling, somehow even wider.

Phil wondered frantically how he could subtly let her know that he wasn’t really interested in Dan, he just...maybe...thought Dan looked very lovely. He couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t be incredibly obvious. “Um. What flowers would you recommend?”

She immediately snagged a bouquet from a tub hanging on the wall. “Pink roses,” she suggested. “They’re wonderful for sisters and birthdays.”

“That sounds good,” Phil hastily approved. The flowers did look beautiful, and he knew Cornelia would like them. His gaze, without his permission, slipped past her and fell on the empty counter. He wondered where Dan was.

“Brilliant!” she said. Her long lashes brushed her cheeks as she blinked at Phil. “Is that all for you?”

He hesitated, glancing at the open door to the back of the shop. “Yes, that’s all.”

Louise returned to the counter and began ringing up his purchase. Phil followed her but remained on his side. He reached out to poke at the little bobblehead by the till, regretting everything. Dan was probably avoiding him. 

A moment later, as if summoned by Phil’s thoughts, there was a shuffling from the back, and then Dan appeared. There were deep bags under his eyes, and his hair was a limp mess. Phil thought he looked beautiful but immediately berated himself for it.

“Hi,” Phil said, hoping desperately for some clue about what Dan was thinking. “Um. How are you?”

“Fine,” said Dan. His tone was short. He didn’t ask how Phil was doing.

“Dan,” Louise said. She sounded gentle, and her hands had paused their movements over the till’s keys. “Are you going now?”

Dan made his way over to her and began gathering the scattered papers on the counter, clearly avoiding Phil’s gaze. “Yeah.”

Phil handed his credit card to Louise and cast furtive glances at Dan, who had shoved the papers into a bag that hung on his shoulder. Dan slipped past Louise, muttering a farewell, and started for the door. Phil felt a sudden urgency. He didn’t know why, but he had to talk to Dan. He wanted to apologize again, or maybe ask Dan if he was angry about how Phil felt for him. Hurrying after Dan, he abandoned Louise at the counter and barely catching Dan by the door.

“Dan!” he said, reaching out to snag Dan’s arm but thought better of it and yanked his hand back. He wanted to know where Dan was going, but also didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want to know if Dan was just leaving to get away from him. “Dan, are...are you okay?”

“I said I’m fine,” Dan said. He hadn’t turned to face Phil, but he had stopped.

Phil hesitated. “Is it because I…” Phil didn’t know how to say it, and he didn’t really want to bring up the incident. “I’m sorry,” he offered, pathetically.

Now, Dan turned to face him. His eyes were shuttered and weary, mouth in a thin line. The dimples were long gone. “Not everything is about you, Phil.”

It stung, and Phil took an involuntary step back, hurt. Not the words, which were indubitably right, but the way Dan had said them.

“I’ll text you,” Dan added, expression cool. It was a mocking echo of Phil’s parting, unfulfilled words on Sunday night. Then Dan turned and left. Overhead, Matt Bellamy sang softly to the flowers.

Phil just watched Dan leave. He felt hot with shame and cold at the dismissiveness all at once. The door whispered shut, and Dan vanished out of sight within seconds. Phil heard Louise’s voice.

“I’ve got you all bagged up,” she called. She sounded horribly sympathetic.

Phil wanted to leave and never come back. Instead, he turned and went back to the counter, accepting the birthday card and the wrapped flowers from Louise. The little Luigi bobblehead nodded at him consolingly. “Thanks,” Phil said quietly. He moved to leave, but Louise reached across the counter and rested a hand on his wrist.

“Phil,” she said, expression soft.

Phil wished he could shake her hand off; instead, he stilled and looked at her. He didn’t want her pity, but he didn’t dislike her. She was a lovely person, and Phil thought he would’ve gotten along with her a lot better if he wasn’t always wary of revealing his feelings for Dan.

“Don’t feel bad,” she said warmly. “He’s just tired. He’s got a lot on his mind, you know.”

Phil didn’t know. “Okay,” was all he said.

Louise clearly wasn’t satisfied with that. She leaned across the counter, her long curls falling forward and brushing against Phil’s hand. “He’s just busy and stressed,” she insisted. “He’s not really upset with you.”

“I’m not angry with him or anything,” Phil told her. He wasn’t sure why it was so important to him that she knew this. “It’s fine, I don’t blame him.” Of course he didn’t blame Dan if he was upset. Phil didn’t know how he would react if he was in a relationship and found out that one of his customers liked him.

“All right,” Louise said, but she didn’t move away. Instead, she lowered her voice, as if there was anyone there to overhear them. “Look, I know he’s just going to wait for eternity, and I don’t mean to pressure you or anything, but you should totally ask him out.”

Matt Bellamy’s crooning dulcet voice over the speakers almost drowned her out, and at first, Phil couldn’t quite understand what she’d just said. “Sorry?” he said.

She winked at him. “I’m not saying he likes you or anything, I’m just saying there’s an excellent chance he’ll say yes.”

Phil felt dizzy, all of a sudden. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around what she was saying. “Sorry?” he said again. “Are you...what?” His ears buzzed with static.

“What?” she said, now looking just as confused as Phil felt.

“Aren’t you- ” Phil gestured helplessly. “You know. You’re both dating.”

Louise stared at him, blankly. “Um…” she said, then repeated, “What?”

Phil felt lost. “You and Dan,” he tried, then stopped. He blinked widely.

“We’re...dating?” Louise asked. Her brows were wrinkled. “No?” She said it more as a question than a statement. “Um...no. Why would you…? Oh. Oh, no.” Her face was melting into a look of comprehension, and then she dropped her face into her hands. Her shoulders began to shake.

Phil watched her helplessly. He still wasn’t quite sure what was going on or how he’d elicited such a reaction. He didn’t know if she was laughing or crying.

“Oh my god,” Louise said into her hands. Her voice was muffled. “Oh my...god. Wow.” She lifted her head, and her forehead was scrunched. She was giggling quietly, helplessly. “Phil,” she said. “Um. No. I’m definitely not dating Dan. He’s, uh...he’s all yours.”

“Oh,” said Phil, not sure what else to say. His brain was refusing to comprehend what she was saying, especially when she was still laughing like that.

Louise reached out and patted Phil’s hand, very sympathetically. “Phil,” she said. She had managed to catch her breath but was clearly still hopelessly amused. “Oh, Phil. No offense, but you’re both utter idiots.”

Phil couldn’t help but be offended. “We’re idiots?”

“Phil.” She leaned forward meaningfully. “I’m not dating Dan. Okay? Feel free to ask him out. Literally anytime now.”

“Oh,” said Phil, again, and then, “Oh!”

Louise nodded, her lips pursed with the effort not to laugh even more.

“But.” Phil looked down at the bouquet in his hands, then around the shop. He didn’t know what to do with himself. “But you - I saw you. You kissed him.” On the cheek, but that counted, right? And she regularly called him by endearing names like ‘darling.’

“We’re affectionate friends. Friends.”

Phil’s mind spun. It couldn’t settle on one thought. Dan wasn’t with Louise...Dan might like Phil...Dan probably hated him. The Luigi bobblehead nodded at him again, and this time Phil imagined that it was laughing at him, commiserating with his idiocy.

Louise patted his hand again, sensing his chaotic thoughts. “Listen,” she said. “Dan’s going to be here again tomorrow. We’ve got to prepare for a large party order on Saturday, so he’ll be working with me. Maybe you could...stop by.” She raised an eyebrow pointedly.

Phil knew it was hopeless to even try and make sense of what had just happened until he got back to his flat and drank another cup of coffee. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she repeated. Her eyes were small with mirth. Hozier started singing to them both over the speaker.

Phil turned to go, feeling abruptly weightless, but then he spun back to her. “Um,” he said. “What’s Dan’s favourite flower?”

Louise pointed at a rack of flowers.

“Thanks,” said Phil. His own voice sounded strange to him, high and breathless. “Okay. Bye.”

“Bye!” said Louise, beginning to giggle again. She waved, but Phil didn’t see it as he stumbled through the front door.

So. That had just happened.

Dan missed Phil, ridiculously. It’d been a total of seven days since Phil had stopped by the flower shop. Logically, Dan knew that he was probably just busy with the project he was working on, but Phil had left the shop early last Thursday, presumably to pack for his trip to see his parents, and he hadn’t even come on Monday. Although Phil came in only on Mondays half of the time, he almost always showed up on Thursdays around two o’clock. It was Thursday again, almost 3 in the afternoon, and Phil was late.

Dan had to force himself not to stare at the door. It was torture.

“You know, you could help!” Louise said from the back room.

Dan did not want to help. In fact, he was disgruntled that Louise was even here today. He had specifically told her soon after Phil had started coming by that she was to leave as soon as her shift ended at noon on Thursdays, but apparently a shipment had arrived late today and she had to be here. Dan was sure that she just wanted to watch him try to talk to Phil.

“Dan!” called Louise, with a firm tone.

Sighing very heavily, Dan heaved himself off the stool and went into the back. Louise was clutching a handful of ribbon spools and a heap of disorganized flowers. She looked relieved upon seeing him.

“Good,” she said, thrusting the flowers at him. “Go sort these into the bins. I accidentally dropped them.”

Dan sighed again, very put upon, but took them. He trudged into the front room, beginning to separate the flowers and drop them into the correct cases. Louise followed him, trying to untangle one of the ribbons.

“So…” she started brightly, “when will Phil be here?”

Dan scowled at the hydrangeas. “He’s usually here by two.”

“Oh,” Louise said, sounding disappointed. “He’s late. Do you think he’s coming?”

“I don’t know.” Dan moved to another bin and Louise trailed behind him. “You need to ask him out,” she encouraged.

Dan rolled his eyes, though he had his back to Louise and she couldn’t see it. He didn’t want to talk about Phil, but Louise was persistent.

“Coffee,” she suggested. Her hands moved rapidly over the tangled ribbon. Dan could see the movements over his shoulder and he was reluctantly impressed by her ability to unknot things. It probably came with having two daughters that loved getting things tangled up.

“He brings coffee,” said Dan. “Every time. Either from his home or the coffee shop down the block.”

“Get his number,” Louise said firmly.

“Ugh,” said Dan in reply. His handful of various flowers was almost halfway sorted and he wanted out of this conversation. The hanging ivy pot above him had been overwatered and it dripped onto his shoes as he fit a pair of tulips into their proper container.

“Invite him to your piano recital next month!” said Louise, suddenly excited.

Dan felt bleak at even the mention of his recital. “God, no,” he said. “I haven’t even gotten my last piece finished yet. And stop reminding me about that.”

Louise patted his shoulder sympathetically. She had to reach up very far to do so, but didn’t seem to mind the effort. “You’ll do great,” she assured him. “You have a few more weeks to finish it and practice.”

Dan crammed the last bunch of daisies into their bin. “Yeah,” he agreed. He wasn’t going to tell her that he hadn’t even started it. “When are you leaving?”

Louise would probably have been insulted if she wasn’t used to Dan’s bluntness by now. She just poked Dan in the side as a reprimand and said, “Probably in a few minutes. I’ve gotten most of it unpacked.”

“If he comes in while you’re here,” Dan told her, “do not speak to him. At all.”

She was smiling. “Okay, Dan.”

“No, really,” he insisted. “Don’t.”

“I said okay.” Louise patted him again, her eyes scrunched with the effort not to laugh loudly at him. She headed to the back again and Dan stared after her in frustration. Sometimes, he wondered why he even worked here. If they hadn’t been friends and she hadn’t needed to spend more time with her daughters, he would never have accepted her job offer. He didn’t fit in here. It was too...bright.

The ivy pot dripped onto his head.

“Fuck off,” Dan told it. He went back to the counter and dropped onto his seat again. Louise hadn’t told him to follow her, after all. He glared at the sheets and sheets of scrawled notes and music across the counter. They were awful. Nothing seemed to come out right, and he wanted to just shred everything and start all over again. He wanted Phil to be here and cast secretive looks at the papers so Dan could maybe, this time, have the courage to tell him what he was writing. He wanted...he wanted a lot.

He wanted Phil to ask him out.

But it had gone so awkwardly that first time he thought Phil was going to ask him out, technically the second time that they had met, that Dan had been too afraid to bring it up. It had been almost three months ago, a few minutes after Dan arrived to take the shift from Louise and the second time Phil had ever come in.

Dan hadn’t realized Phil had been in the shop until he’d held out a handful of tulips for Dan to ring up. Dan had been leaning over his sheet music, angrily scribbling over the last twelve horrible notes he’d written, when the bright yellow tulips were thrust under his nose. He’d almost fallen backwards off the stool and had flailed, grabbing Phil’s outstretched arm to regain his balance.

“Fuck,” Dan had said, hastily correcting his balance and releasing Phil’s arm. “Sorry!”

“It’s fine.” Phil had smiled at him, but it hadn’t been a mean smile, and Dan had liked it instantly. “Are you okay?”

Dan had mumbled assent and clambered to his feet, ringing up the purchase. He’d snuck little glances at Phil, almost in disbelief that such a beautiful man had come back to this little hole-in-the-wall shop. He could barely remember the first time that Phil had come in, about three weeks ago. “It’s been a while,” he’d said, handing the flowers and Phil’s change back to him, then felt sheepish that he had said it.

“You remembered!” Phil had said. He looked thrilled. “Yes, I...I’ve been busy. But I wanted to see you again.”

“You did?” Dan had felt that annoying little patch on his cheek starting to burn.

But Phil had been blushing too. “I...yeah. I, actually, I wanted to ask you if -”

The front door had blasted open, interrupting Phil, and he’d taken a hasty step back from the counter. Louise had swept in, her blonde curls flying. She’d rushed past Dan and into the back, then emerged seconds later.

“Forgot my phone,” she’d said to Dan. She hadn’t noticed Phil, whose bright orange shirt matched the case of garish marigolds behind him, but she reached up to fix the twisted collar of Dan’s t-shirt.

He’d leaned a little toward her, barely sparing her a glance. He hadn’t wanted to look away from Phil, who had gone quiet and unobtrusive. “You’re useless,” Dan had told her, but she’d just laughed and stood on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek.

“See you tonight, darling.” She’d left immediately after that, and Dan was left alone again with Phil. He had been irritated that Louise had reminded him of her friend’s wedding that she’d convinced him to play for tonight. He didn’t want to think about it until it was actually happening. Generally, he never wanted to think about things until they were upon him.

“You wanted to ask me something?” Dan had said to Phil, trying to forget what Louise had mentioned. He’d hoped desperately that Phil would ask him out. Ask him anywhere.

“Oh,” Phil had managed, glancing after the door that was still inching its way shut. “I just...wanted to ask you. Where you got that shirt.”

Dan had glanced down at the plain black t-shirt that he wore. “Um. Primark? I think.”

“Cool!” Phil had shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “Okay. I’ll...see you later, then. Bye!” He’d left the shop in a flustered rush and Dan had been left standing awkwardly alone.

Dan had felt ridiculously self-conscious and uneasy after the encounter, but it had faded by the next time Phil came in, exactly a week later. Phil had never asked him out, though, and Dan certainly wasn’t going to mention anything. Then Phil had started coming every week, sometimes twice a week, and every time he stepped through the door with his bright smile and stupid face, Dan’s hopes of being asked out were renewed. Maybe today would be the day...if Phil ever actually got here.

“Daniel!” Louise was bellowing, and Dan’s head snapped around. He didn’t realize that he had been off in his own head, but from the tone of Louise’s voice, she had called for him a few times already.

“What?” he yelled back at her.

“What’s wrong with the speaker?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “I’ve told you about it like ten times already. It hasn’t been working for almost four months, so I put it in the back.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Louise. “I guess I should replace it.”

She’d said that about five times already.

“You should,” Dan agreed. “It’s sad in here with no music playing.”

Louise came out of the back room, typing away on her phone. “I’m adding it to my shopping list,” she announced. “I’m sure the flowers will appreciate it.”

Dan sighed and leaned against the counter, his back to the door. The sheet music slipped under his elbows and he barely managed to retain his balance on the narrow stool. “I don’t think they’ll care. Most of them are clipped and dead anyway.”

Louise pointed a long finger at him, her pink nail accusing. “Don’t say that,” she ordered. “They’ll hear you.”

“You sound like Phil,” Dan said, smiling fondly at the thought without intending to do so.

Louise caught the expression and her eyes narrowed. “If you don’t ask him out,” she said, still pointing, “then I’m going to.”

“He’d be a good dad,” Dan told her.

“I bet he would,” she said, tone laced with sarcasm, “and I’m sure that means a very different thing to you than it does to me, who has actual kids.”

Dan was offended at her insinuation. “I do not have a daddy kink!” he insisted.

That, of course, was when he realized that the door to the shop had been opened. Louise’s eyes widened with glee and Dan cringed so hard he thought his head might retreat into his neck.

Please don’t be Phil, he thought wretchedly. He turned his head ever-so-slowly.

It was Phil.

Louise cackled from behind Dan.

“Hi,” said Phil. He was smiling.

Dan wanted to throw himself into the bin under the counter to join his crumpled attempts at sheet music. “Hhhhh,” was all he could get out.

Louise emerged from Dan’s shadow and out past the counter. “Hello!” she said to Phil. “I’m not allowed to speak to you. Goodbye!”

“I actually fucking hate you,” Dan said, but he hadn’t actually said it. He had thought it very intensely at Louise. She almost certainly received the message, with the ferocity of Dan’s glare, but she only waved cheerfully at them both and then left.

Dan closed his eyes, very briefly. “Can we pretend that didn’t happen?”

“Sure,” Phil agreed amiably. The amusement was clear in his voice.

Dan opened his eyes but couldn’t bring himself to meet Phil’s gaze. He noticed the lack of a computer bag on Phil’s shoulder. “Not staying?” he forced himself to say, instead of wallowing in his mortification.

“Oh, no, unfortunately,” Phil said. He looked disappointed upon saying it. “I have a meeting with my supervisor, actually. It’ll be terrifying. I wanted to stop by and get some flowers for him.”

Dan thought that it was a strange thing to get for one’s boss, but who was he to judge? He had never gotten gifts for Louise or his talent manager. Maybe that’s why he was a terrible employee.

“Okay,” he said. “What did you want to get?”

Phil looked at him, a pleading smile on his lips. “I dunno. What do you think I should get? What bouquet do you think could imply ‘sorry for being slow at my job and I promise I’ll get this one in on time’?”

Dan gave him an unamused stare. “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t know anything about flowers and their meanings? And I don’t think there are any that will give quite that...specific…of a message.”

Phil moved closer and it was only then that Dan really paid attention to the thick-rimmed glasses he was wearing, matching the black stripes on his tight button-up shirt. His sleeves were too short, and his jaw was bristly with an afternoon shadow. He looked fucking hot. Dan wanted to punch him, maybe. It should be illegal to go out in public looking like that.

“Fine,” Dan said, instead of just staring at Phil’s bare arms. He yanked out his phone and glowered at the black screen, which unapologetically reflected the deep bags under his own eyes and his uncontrollably messy hair. He felt hideous compared to Phil. “I’ll look up ‘flowers for a boss.’”

“Thanks!” Phil said brightly, as if he didn’t have his own phone and search engine that he could use to look it up.

Dan thought that Phil was probably a sadist. There was no way he didn’t know what he looked like and the effect he would have on anyone nearby that had good eyeballs and a healthy sex drive. Dan pressed his phone screen a little too hard as he typed in ‘how to make someone ask you out,’ then hastily deleted it and asked Google ‘what are good flowers for a boss.’ Google confidently informed him that there were many excellent choices and gave him a list.

“Carnations,” Dan told Phil after briefly perusing the options. “Light red ones. They express admiration or whatever. And they go well with baby’s breath.”

Phil’s glasses made his eyes seem impossibly bluer than they usually were. “That sounds great!” he said.

Dan regretted that the filler flowers and the carnations were all in the racks behind him. If they hadn’t, maybe he could get closer to Phil and get an unobtrusive, closer sniff of the cologne he could smell from here. That wasn’t creepy at all, he tried to convince himself. He turned to pull down a generous handful of baby’s breath and added them to a pre-arranged bouquet of pale red carnations, then wrapped and bagged them. Phil had moved right up against the counter, his long fingers resting against the edge of it.

“Here you are.” Dan offered the flowers and Phil traded them for a credit card. As Dan rung up the purchase, he could see Phil poking at the bobble-head Luigi by the till.

“Is this yours?” Phil asked.

“Do you like Mario Kart?” Dan asked in reply.

“I love it!” said Phil. Luigi wobbled under his prodding finger.

“So do I,” Dan said, incredibly pleased for no reason that he could identify. “But I almost never play it.”

“Neither do I,” Phil admitted. “It’s no fun playing by myself, and my brother doesn’t visit very often.”

Dan didn’t know whether to feel better that Phil also had no friends that played Mario Kart or ridiculous for wanting to admit that he didn’t either. He handed Phil’s card back. “That’s sad,” was all he could think of to say.

“Yeah,” Phil agreed. He put the card away and just stood there for a very long moment, clearly musing something over. A finger came up to rub hesitantly at his lower lip and Dan couldn’t tear his gaze away from the movement. “Do you…” Phil began, tentatively, “well, this is probably weird, but...do you want to come over sometime and play with me?”

Dan thought hysterically for a second that ‘play’ meant something very different, and then it struck him. Phil was inviting him over. “Yes!” he said, probably too desperately.

Phil looked exuberant. “Really? I mean...great!”

“Great,” Dan echoed, his stomach twisting in excitement.

“Great!” Phil said again. His eyes behind the glasses were brilliant with delight. “I’ll...maybe Sunday?”

“Yes,” Dan said.

The bag crunched under Phil’s grip. “I’ll text you the address to my flat!” he said. “It’s not very far from here. Do you like pizza?”

That was a ridiculous question. “Of course I do,” said Dan. “Who doesn’t?”

“We’ll have pizza and Mario Kart, then.” Phil’s fingers were tight around the bag of flowers.

Dan couldn’t look away from him. He was aware that he was grinning ridiculously at Phil, but Phil had the same wide smile, so Dan didn’t feel self-conscious about it. “That sounds perfect,” he told Phil. He wondered feebly if it would count as a date. It felt like it might.

“Okay. Good. Great.” Phil took a step backwards toward the door. “I’ll see you then!”

Dan waved, an awkward flap of his hand, but Phil’s delighted expression didn’t waver as he left the shop. “Bye!”

A few seconds passed and Dan had to catch his breath from the suddenness of everything that had just happened. He felt breathless and giddy with disbelief. He needed to tell Louise. Grabbing his phone from where he’d dropped it, he typed out an urgent message to Louise. ‘invited to phls flat snday not a drill’

His phone rang approximately two and a half seconds later. Louise’s tone was shrill on the other end. “What?” she demanded. “What happened? Tell me everything!”

Dan hunched over the counter, his voice high with the excitement of it. “Phil! The Luigi bobblehead! He asked me to play Mario Kart at his flat! With pizza!”

At this point in their friendship, Louise could easily decipher his gibberish sentences. “So it’s a date?” she screeched.

“I mean, sort of,” his words stumbled over each other, “maybe? To be determined, I think.”

“If you get laid, you owe me,” she said, ecstatic.

“Louise!” he said in reproval, but he was too exhilarated to be bothered by her crudeness. Music notes had begun to spin and dance through his mind, spurned by his mood, and he ached to get them down before they left him. “I have to go,” he told her.

“But you haven’t told me what he said!” she complained.

“I have to write,” he said and promptly hung up on her. His phone chimed with message notifications almost instantly, but he’d already abandoned his phone to snatch up the pencil. It flew across the ledger lines as he urgently scrawled the notes that flew through his mind.

“Um, hi again,” said Phil, and Dan almost threw the pencil.

“Sorry,” said Phil, the apologetic laughter clear in his expression as Dan’s head flew up in fright and his gaze found the figure by the door.

“I fucking hate you,” Dan said. He was lucky he hadn’t been sitting on the stool or he definitely would have fallen to the floor with the adrenaline that had coursed through him at the unexpected voice. He hoped Phil hadn’t been standing there long enough to hear him babbling at Louise.

“I said I’d text you,” said Phil, “but I don’t have your number.” He raised the phone in his hand, face contrite. The bagged bouquet was limp in his other hand.

Dan finally was able to breathe and he shoved his phone across the counter, fingers of his other hand still clenched around the pencil with the intensity of his writing. “Send yourself a message with it.” He realized his mistake the instant Phil picked up his phone, and his mouth dropped open in sudden terror, but Phil apparently hadn’t read Louise’s rapidly-appearing messages, as his expression remained consistently neutral while he typed away at the phone. He handed it back a few moments later, his own phone vibrating with the notification. “Thanks. Sorry again for scaring you.”

“You didn’t - I wasn’t.” Dan tried to glower at him, but the effect was ruined by the thrill of his anticipation. “I don’t even like you.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” Phil grinned, waving his phone with the message that he had received from Dan’s phone. “Okay. Bye for real. I’m going to be late.”

“Bye,” said Dan, watching him go this time.

He very much appreciated the tight jeans Phil wore.

“Sorry!” said Phil again, closing the door and locking it. He looked adorably flustered. “I was - I forgot what time it was. I was trying to do laundry. Sorry. Hold on.” He scurried toward an open door near the back of the flat. Dan stared unapologetically at the ripples of his bare back. “Make yourself at home!” Phil called back as he vanished into the room.

Dan blinked rapidly to try to clear his thoughts. He’d wanted to bite. He wondered if Phil regularly wandered about his flat in nothing but trousers and socks when he was doing laundry.

“What do you like on your pizza?” Phil called. There was a crash from the room. “I’m fine!”

“Uh…” said Dan. “Anything, I guess.” He glanced around the living room, taking in the slumped sofa and matching ottoman that stood in front of Phil’s wide television set. There were a dining table and chairs between the sofa and the kitchen counter, which was open and visible from the front door. Houseplants, stuffed plushies, video game and movie posters, and candles were everywhere. It all seemed undeniably...Phil.

Phil came out of the bedroom, fighting his shirt as he tried to fit both of his arms through it at once. “Goddamnit,” he said. His head finally poked through and his hair looked wild. “Sorry, again,” he repeated for probably the fifth time. “I thought it was like an hour earlier than it is. I was trying to wash my bedsheets.”

“Why’s that?” Dan said. He winked and immediately regretted it.

A red tint was climbing Phil’s cheeks. He nudged a floor plant that was reaching for his legs with long leaves. “Uh, actually...I spilt milk on them. Like half of a cupful.”

“How?” Dan asked, disbelieving. It would have been a preposterous lie. He desperately wanted to make a joke about ‘cream,’ but resisted.

Phil waved a hand. “It involved a carbonating machine. Don’t ask.”

That just made Dan want to know even more, but he changed the subject and said instead, “So, pizza? Was there something that you don’t like on it?”

“Not too much cheese,” Phil said. “But I like all pizzas. Ooh, especially the Sizzler.”

“That was discontinued,” Dan pointed out.

Phil looked grumpy. “Yeah, I know. I’ve emailed them like fifty times. It’s my favourite.”

“Well,” said Dan, barely resisting a smile, “we could create a pizza.”

Nodding very seriously, Phil agreed, “We could. We will. But how hungry are you right now? We could play some Mario first before ordering. Since it’s only six.”

“Not very hungry,” Dan admitted. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the shirt that clung tantalizingly to Phil’s chest. It looked like it was much too tight, but Dan certainly wasn’t going to complain. “What about you?”

“Not very,” Phil echoed. He headed for the kitchen, yanking open various drawers and looking hilariously confused at the contents of each. “Do you like Ribena?” he asked.

Dan had followed him and he leaned against the bar between the dining area and the kitchen. “Yeah, of course.”

“Good!” said Phil. “Because I don’t have anything else except water.”

Dan snorted a laugh. He watched Phil as he moved around the kitchen and prepared two glasses of Ribena. “So,” Dan said, for once feeling like a conversation might come relatively easily to him, “how did the meeting with your supervisor go? Also, how was your trip to visit your parents this last weekend? I forgot to ask while you were in the shop on Thursday.” It helped that he genuinely wanted to know and wasn’t just trying to make small-talk.

Phil took a careful sip out of one of the glasses and apparently deemed it worthy, as he offered the other glass to Dan. Taking it, Dan followed him back over to the living and sat down on one end of the sofa, avoiding the tiny cactus on the side table.

Phil hadn’t answered him the entire time, but he did now as he set down his drink on the side table that was on the other end of the sofa. “The meeting was...a meeting,” he said reluctantly. “I hadn’t finished my project in time so I had to ask for an extension. But that’s only because the client had requested more work and I didn’t have nearly enough time to do it.”

Dan nodded understandingly, taking a sip of his Ribena. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Anyway, totally exciting,” Phil said, rolling his eyes. He moved to the TV and began setting up the game. Dan watched him unashamedly, enjoying the sliver of skin that appeared between Phil’s shirt and pants as he bent over.

“But!” said Phil. “Visiting my parents was loads of fun. My brother and his girlfriend were there, as I think I mentioned, so we all spent time together and it was great. We played Monopoly and I won.” He looked pleased with that declaration. “I don’t win very often. My parents usually control the entire board and crush all of us, but this time my dad was trying to cook something in the kitchen so Martyn and I kept my mom in jail most of the time.”

Dan couldn’t fight the grin that had inhabited his face. “That does sound like fun.” He wished his family visits were like that. They weren’t bad, just quiet and familiar, with nothing exciting like board games or friendly competition, or just hanging out for the sake of being together.

“It was.” Phil nodded. He stood, stretched, and then yawned before settling onto the sofa beside Dan. “But what did you do while I was gone? Anything super exciting?”

Dan had to regather his thoughts. They’d scattered when Phil’s knee had pressed against his own. He absent-mindedly accepted the controller that Phil handed him. “Er...I mean, not really. Just work. And on the weekends I usually just sit around at my flat to play games and be lazy all day.” He mused internally, considering if that made him seem pathetic and lonely, and decided that it might, so he added, “And I went out with Louise.” He felt an urge to tell Phil about his attempts at writing an actual piece of music, but couldn’t make himself bring it up.

“Fun!” said Phil, when Dan said nothing else. He’d powered on the game and the familiar sounds of Mario Kart were chirping at them. Shifting in his seat, his leg fell away from Dan’s. Dan missed it immediately. He wondered if Phil had done it on purpose. “Okay!” Phil said. “Best of three?”

Dan narrowed his eyes at him, the thrill of competition surging in him. “You’re on, mate.”

~~~

They played for a solid hour, banter and threats flying, before Phil let out a loud whine of defeat, biting his controller as he threw himself sideways across the couch. “Why?” he moaned.

Dan let out a cackle of triumph, his arms high above his head. He stretched casually, smirking down at Phil’s posture of despair. “I am the Mario Kart champion!” he declared.

Phil was still angrily chewing on the corner of his controller. At least Dan knew where the teeth prints had come from that were on his own. “You didn’t tell me you were an expert,” he accused.

“I give my prey very little warning before I completely obliterate them,” Dan told him. “But that was pretty pathetic. Best out of twenty, and you still only won three.”

Phil sulked at him, a frankly adorable frown tugging at his mouth. He’d thrown his feet up onto the couch when he fell sideways and his toes were digging into Dan’s thighs. Even rumpled in casual clothes and teeth clenched tight on the plastic of his controller, he still looked unbearably attractive. Dan wondered if he could convince Phil to bite him instead of the controller.

“I hate you,” Phil confidently told Dan.

Dan just laughed and poked his toes. Phil screeched and yanked them away, and Dan filed that reaction away into the rapidly-filling ‘Phil’ box in his mind. “Sure you do. Best out of thirty?”

“No.” Phil looked disgruntled. “I’m ordering pizza. Then we can play something I’m good at. Like Mortal Kombat.”

Dan decided not to tell Phil the hundreds of hours he’d spent playing that game in his room as a teenager. There was no need to spoil the surprise of Phil’s imminent destruction. He stood, collecting the long-empty glasses on the side tables. “Fine. I’ll get more Ribena. Order the pizza. I like barbecue or the chicken bacon ranch pizza. Get it half-and-half with whatever you want.”

Phil had fallen back fully against the couch armrest, sprawling his legs across the still-warm seat Dan had vacated and pulling out his phone to tap at it. Dan pulled his gaze away from Phil’s impossibly long legs and headed to the kitchen. He found the Ribena, but almost collided with the still-open cabinet doors. He cursed colourfully when his shin banged into a drawer that was hanging out. He hadn’t even seen Phil open this one earlier. He considered reprimanding Phil for it but decided they weren’t yet at that point in their...relationship. Friendship. Whatever this was.

Dan was filled with a sudden resolve to figure out just what it was, so he hurriedly filled the glasses with a Ribena-water mixture and went back into the lounge. Phil was still stretched across the sofa, his legs taking up an intolerable amount of space. Dan reluctantly shoved at them instead of giving in to the temptation of just sitting on Phil.

Phil pulled his knees up against his chest in place of letting them fall off the couch. He squinted as his phone. “Okay,” he said. “It’s half barbecue and half Hawaiian. Do you like jalepeños?”

“Yep. In moderation.” Dan settled himself into his seat. He put one of the Ribena glasses down onto the side table and took a sip from the other, musing over how to actually bring up the subject of...this. Did he just come right out and ask if it was a date? Phil hadn’t exactly made it clear. And he hadn’t made any moves unless bumping into him and then quickly shuffling away counted as a move.

“It should be here in about thirty minutes!” Phil announced.

Dan considered that, maybe, he should just wait and see how the night went. Surely Phil would give him a signal soon.

Phil snatched the controller from where it’d fallen beside him and he shook it threateningly at Dan. “Time for battle, mate.”

“Oh, you’re on,” Dan assured him. He abandoned his Ribena and they were right back at it again.

~~~

It was a good two hours later. Dan was slumped across the side of the sofa, still feeling unbelievably stuffed full of pizza. His legs were tucked under him and he watched Phil half-heartedly direct his character through Skyrim. Dan didn’t understand the comfort level he had after so little time spent with Phil. Was it weird to feel so utterly relaxed after barely three hours spent in his company? They’d sort of gotten to know each other for the past three months, sure, but this was the first time Dan had felt like he was spending real time with him. He wanted to know everything about Phil. Maybe that’s what was weird.

“Ugh,” said Phil. He had just died on-screen. “Stupid wolves.” He paused the game and dropped the controller, falling sideways across his own side of the sofa and clutching his stomach with a groan. “I never want to move again.”

“We ate far too much,” Dan agreed. He couldn’t look away from the length of Phil’s neck as he stared aimlessly up at the ceiling.

“Hey, Dan,” said Phil, not looking over at him.

“Hmm?”

Dan could see the corners of Phil’s lips tugging up. “What does a flower therapist ask her patients?”

“Please don’t,” said Dan.

“Are you feeling bouquet?” Phil laughed before Dan could even react, his mouth breaking in a wide grin. “Get it?”

“You’re the worst kind of person,” Dan told him.

Uncaring, Phil hauled his legs up on the sofa and stretched them out across the distance between them. He stopped just before his toes hit Dan’s thighs, gaze still affixed to the ceiling above them. Dan wanted to poke his feet again to see how he would react but was ultimately too lazy to actually reach over and do it. Once more, he wondered if this was a date. He’d never been so at ease before with someone he might be on a date with. Then again, he’d never been confused if he was on a date or not.

The dip of Phil’s collarbone taunted him.

Fuck it, Dan thought. There was no way to know unless he asked. 

The moment he had decided this, his phone, abandoned on the ottoman, shrilled loudly at him. Phil’s head fell over to look at it. Dan glared at the buzzing device, willing it to shut up and give back his silent moment. It rang once, twice, three times.

“Are you going to answer that?” Phil asked. His voice sounded rough and tired. God, Dan wanted to know if this was a date.

“I guess.” Reluctantly, he leaned forward far enough to snag the phone. He scowled at the caller ID with bemusement. “What the fuck.” Louise knew perfectly well where he was tonight. There was no reason for her to be calling him. “Hello,” he answered it, no inflection in his tone whatsoever.

“Dan!” Her voice was high with nerves. “I’m so sorry!”

He sat up instantly. “What’s wrong?” Phil was watching him keenly.

“I’d never do this, you know me,” she insisted. She sounded fantastically apologetic and stressed at the same time. Something banged on her side and Dan flinched the phone away from his ear. When he brought it back, she sounded out-of-breath. “I just got a rush order for a wedding tomorrow morning! I have to make eighty different bouquets. Please, I swear I’ll make it up to you, but I need your help. They’re due at four o’clock.”

Dan glanced at the clock on his phone. It was just past nine. If he got there in the next thirty minutes, they might be able to get it done in time. There was no way she could do it by herself. “Christ, Louise.”

“I know!” she said. “I would never accept an order like this, but they’re paying like triple the normal amount since it’s an emergency and a big wedding. Their other florist dumped them because the bride’s dad tried to hook up with her or something. I dunno. Just. I’m really sorry, I know this is like your date with Phil but I really, really need help.”

Dan sighed. It was a very weighty, disgruntled sigh. “Goddamnit. Fine. You’re making this up to me.” And he would never get her flowers like Phil had gotten for his boss.

“I will!” she promised. “I promise I will. And tell Phil I’m sorry too.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he said. He hung up and let the phone dangle from limp fingers.

Phil had sat up, his legs drawn to him. “Louise?” He had a resigned look on his face that Dan hated.

“Yeah,” Dan said. “Some flower emergency. She needs my help. She’s really sorry.”

“It’s fine. I mean, we were kind of in a food coma and barely doing anything, anyway.” Phil waved a hand as if it didn’t mean anything, but his expression seemed like it did, just a little.

Dan managed to get to his feet and Phil stood with him, nudging the empty pizza box to the side. Dan made his way to the door and let Phil get ahead of him to open it, but he didn’t leave right away. He hesitated in the doorframe. A plant by the door, the first thing he’d seen besides Phil’s naked chest when he’d arrived, reached its long leaves to swipe against his face.

Phil, too close, reached up and brushed it away from Dan’s cheek. He looked fond, and Dan hoped.

“Phil,” he said. He wondered if the tone of his voice had sounded strange, but it was hard to concentrate when Phil was this near to him, undoubtedly staring at Dan’s lips.

Phil’s gaze flickered up and met Dan’s. His eyes were warm in the light from the hallway.

“Is this. Are you…” Dan didn’t know how to say it. “Are we - what.” He stopped, frustrated with himself. “What is this?” That wasn’t how he’d meant to say it. He tried to regroup his thoughts.

But Phil had glanced down at the phone still in Dan’s hand and he took a hasty step backwards. He swallowed visibly. “This was fun!” he said. “We should hang out more often. I can - I’ll text you.” He smiled, and it looked sad, but it was a real smile. “We’ll be great friends, I can tell.”

“No,” said Dan. Or at least, he thought he’d said it. Maybe he’d only thought it. There was no way Phil only wanted to be friends, Dan was sure. There was a reason for all of this waiting Dan had done, wasn’t there? There was a reason Phil had come every week to the little flower shop where Dan worked, watching him when he thought Dan wasn’t looking. There had to be a reason Phil stared at him for too long, stared at his lips. 

Dan took a step forward, closing the distance Phil had made between them. “Phil,” he said, and this time he’d actually said it aloud. His voice sounded too firm, even to his own ears. “You watch me. It means something, doesn’t it?”

Phil skittered backwards. His blue, blue eyes were wide and panicked. “No!” he said. “Of course not. I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. I mean, it doesn’t mean anything. Look, I wasn’t trying to…” His arms flailed. “You didn’t notice. I thought.”

Dan couldn’t make sense of anything Phil was saying. The words were scrambled together and made no sense in Dan’s head. Maybe they weren’t actually English.

“Look,” said Phil. He was still flustered. “I’ll stop.”

“Don’t!” Dan burst out. He couldn’t bear the thought of whatever Phil meant by stop. Stop coming to the flower shop? Stop talking to Dan? Stop giving him those wanting looks that Dan had evidently been misreading this entire time?  “Please,” said Dan. He searched desperately for meaning in what Phil had said before. He felt unmoored, flummoxed. Nothing was going the way he’d thought it would. “You can come to the shop. Anytime. We can be friends if you want.” That must be what Phil wanted.

Phil’s face was collapsing with relief. “Okay,” he said. “Friends. Yes.”

Dan’s phone buzzed again. Louise was impatient with her urgency.

Phil shifted from foot to foot, hand on the door. “I’ll text you,” he said, casting another inscrutable glance to Dan’s phone.

“Okay,” said Dan.

The door was shut in his face, Phil’s movements hasty with his desire to get away from Dan.

Dan waited for a few very long moments. Something felt tight and wrong in his chest. This wasn’t what he’d expected. He didn’t know what he’d expected. Anything but this.

“God,” Dan said then, a curse, maybe, or a plea to some higher power to give meaning to what just occurred. Either way, no answer revealed itself. That was fine. Phil wanted to be friends. Dan could do just friends. He could do anything if it meant Phil would still be near him. So, yeah. It definitely hadn’t been a date.

“God,” Dan said again. 

He left.

The timer in the kitchen beeped loudly and Phil hurried back to turn off the coffeemaker. It loved to malfunction if he didn’t cater immediately to its demands. Once, when he had forgotten that he’d turned it on, and was listening to music in his bedroom while he cleaned, he had emerged from his room to find the coffeemaker sputtering happily away as it spat, burning liquid all over the kitchen floor. He still had no idea how it had happened.

He got to it now, just in time before it started gurgling dangerously. He collected a travel mug from the counter high above the sink and filled it, splashing in a generous amount of milk and sugar and stirring more violently than it warranted.

Keys dangling between his teeth, Phil grabbed his computer bag from the counter and hauled it over one shoulder, then shouldered through the front door with the coffee balanced in his hand. He somehow managed not to drop anything as he fumbled the items so he could lock the door.

It was Thursday again, and that meant almost no customers at the flower shop. It was a perfect day, albeit a wet one, to work on his project. He realized, after he had already trudged down the stairs and out onto the street, that he had forgotten his umbrella, but it wasn’t raining too badly and he didn’t feel like going the three flights back up to get it. The shop was only a few blocks away, anyway.

It was fortunate that his computer bag was waterproof, as Phil himself was dripping steadily by the time he reached his destination. The flower display out front appeared perky from the rain, soft petals beaded with droplets of moisture. Phil brushed a finger over one, scattering raindrops, and then pushed open the door to go inside. It was instantly warmer than the cool air outside, a gentle draft wrapping around Phil. He brushed wet hair out of his eyes and glanced around.

“Phil!” said Dan, sounding pleased. He always did, as though he was surprised that Phil was still showing up.

“Dan!” Phil rejoined. He reached the table in the corner and set down his bag and coffee mug. The mug clacked loudly against the wooden surface. “Do you mind if I sit here to work?”

“Not at all,” said Dan. He was again swaying dangerously on the stool behind the counter, a pencil dangling between his loose fingers and papers sprawled on the surface in front of him. His hair was especially curly today, Phil noticed.

“Have you had many customers?” asked Phil.

“No,” Dan said, not sounding sorry about it. “It’s very slow today. I’m trying to write to pass the time.”

“Oh, nice,” said Phil, and didn’t pursue the topic though he urgently wanted to know more about it, more about Dan. But Dan didn’t like talking about whatever it was that he constantly scribbled at, sighed over angrily, and eventually crumpled to throw in the trash bin under the counter.

Dan sighed, as Phil thought he would, and looked down at the papers littering the counter. “I guess.” He circled something on one with a casual flick of his wrist and his gaze came back up to Phil. “You’re soaked,” he noted.

“Yes, it’s raining,” Phil said, rather pointlessly, as they could both hear the pattering sound coming from outside. “And I forgot my umbrella.” He wiped fingers through his damp hair again, wishing suddenly that he had done something with it other than the usual quiff. It poked up in odd places now, no doubt, rebelling against the humidity.

“You’re hopeless,” Dan said, but he was smiling. “How did the...er, the housewarming party go? Last Friday?”

“Oh!” said Phil. He had almost forgotten about it, bizarrely, in his excitement to see Dan again. “It went well. We all got ridiculously drunk and I had to sleep over. I wanted to say thanks for the flower suggestion. They loved them.”

Dan waved a hand dismissively. “I literally looked up the meaning you asked for on Google. I told you, I know nothing about flowers.”

“Really, thanks,” Phil insisted, remembering PJ’s and Sophie’s delighted reactions over the bouquet of beautiful sunflowers, right before they had both begun to tease him about his ‘flower boy.’

“Fine, you’re welcome,” Dan said, sounding reluctant.

“Good.” Phil felt like he’d won an important argument, even though they hadn’t been arguing at all. Dan glanced down at the counter and Phil thought maybe he had been looking too intensely at him again. He looked away hastily and pulled out his computer, struggling with getting it plugged in like usual.

There was silence for a few minutes as Phil opened the files on his computer and sorted through them, then Dan spoke.

“Do you only ever come here during the afternoons?”

Phil was a little surprised, but it wasn’t as if he’d ever actually told Dan that he only came to see him. There wouldn’t be much point coming by when Louise was the only one working. His computer was an excellent excuse to sit in the corner and sneak glances at Dan from time to time without appearing creepy. “Yes,” he replied because he didn’t know what else to say. “I mean...my schedule works like that. I’m not a morning person.” It wasn’t a lie.

“Neither am I,” Dan admitted. “That’s why I only work afternoons and evenings. Louise takes all of the morning shifts because she knows I’d never be here on time.”

Phil thought despondently that that was a very considerate thing for a girlfriend to do, but he would probably do the same thing if he had Dan. “Oh. So that’s why I see her so rarely,” he said, as if he didn’t plan out his visits to just see Dan.

Dan nodded in agreement but said nothing else and the conversation trailed away. Phil clicked at his laptop, all at once hating himself for wanting Dan so much that it ached at him. The minutes passed in silence. Phil wasn’t actually very productive, but then again, he never really was when he could be catching glimpses of Dan out of the corner of his eye instead of editing video clips.

The door swept open with a burst of cool air and the scent of rain, and Phil almost jumped at the suddenness of it in the quiet of the shop. A rotund, dripping man plodded inside, his shoes squeaking against the tile floor. The door closed quietly behind him.

“Good afternoon!” the man said cheerfully, to both Dan and Phil. “How are you today?”

“Er, fine,” said Phil, indescribably awkward as the man’s small eyes scrunched at his answer.

Dan had not replied, and he still said nothing, hunched over the counter. “How can I help you?” he finally said, seeming fatigued with only those few words.

The man didn’t seem bothered by his lack of courtesy. “I would like some flowers!” he said. “Something romantic.”

“Roses are the typical choice,” Dan droned, gesturing at the tubs on the wall, “and tulips or lilacs are also an excellent choice for a partner. Would you like help in choosing a colour?”

“Those pink ones!”

Dan glanced toward where the man had pointed. He seemed like he wanted to say something, Phil noticed, but he didn’t and instead took the pink bouquet out of its tub. Phil turned his attention back to his project as Dan wrapped the flowers and completed the transaction, polite, but clearly bored. The man collected his purchase and left the shop as cheerfully as he had come.

As silence descended upon them once more, Phil remembered that he had to buy flowers as well. That was, supposedly, why he came here, after all. He swept his mind frantically and then recalled with a sudden relief that he was going to the Isle of Man that weekend to see his parents. “Flowers!” he blurted and was startled by the loudness of his tone in the shop. For the second time in as many minutes, he felt terribly awkward.

Dan didn’t seem to mind, looking up from the papers that he had been staring at unmovingly. “Yes,” was all he said, prompting.

“For my mum,” Phil said, feeling a blush starting to burn at his cheeks. “I’m going to see my parents. I need to bring some flowers.”

Dan had propped his chin in one hand, watching Phil closely with an expression that only made Phil’s face feel hotter. The loose black shirt that he was wearing dipped at his movement, baring pale skin. “Flowers for your mum?”

“Yes,” Phil said, refusing to feel embarrassed. His cheeks weren’t getting the memo. “She likes them.”

“No, no, that’s sweet,” said Dan. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were deep with mirth. “What kind of flowers does she like?”

“Er, daisies. And carnations. But I want to get her something different this time.” Phil hesitated. His eyes fell pathetically on the slope of Dan’s slender neck and the jut of his delicate collarbones. He felt wobbly at the sight of them, as though they made Dan seem more vulnerable somehow. “Is there anything you would recommend?”

Dan looked exasperated at being put on the spot, but after a long moment, he smiled widely. “Yes,” he said. “Chrysanthemums.” He pulled a phone out from under the counter and typed away at it for a few seconds before announcing, “They symbolize optimism and joy. If your mum is anything like you, they’re perfect for her.”

Phil’s face, which had been cooling back to its normal colour, burned again at the subtle compliment. “That sounds good,” he said weakly.

Dan returned the phone and dropped his chin back into his hand, resting his elbow on the counter. The stool creaked ominously underneath him, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Also, chrysanthemum. Great pun material.”

Phil laughed, appreciating that immensely. Dan looked pleased with himself.

“So when are you visiting them? They live on the Isle of Man, you said once?”

“Yes,” Phil agreed. “I’ll probably go on Friday and stay until Sunday or Monday. My brother and his girlfriend are going to be there as well. They’ve both got some time off from their jobs and - well, you know. I can take time off whenever I want, as long as I get my assignments in on time.”

Dan seemed actually interested in what Phil was saying, which was a striking contrast to his wearied attitude with the customer. Phil was ridiculously flattered and despised himself for it. “How often do you visit them?” Dan asked.

“Every month or so, at least. It’s weird not seeing them all the time. I told you I lived with them for a year after I graduated while I was trying to get a job, right?”

“Hmm.” Dan considered it. “No, I don’t think you did.”

“Oh, well. I did. I turned down a pretty big job offer because I wanted to freelance, and I regretted it for a while, but then I found this opportunity. It’s amazing - I get to work by myself like I wanted, but it’s technically a regular job.” Phil touched his mouse pad to keep the computer screen from dimming and he stared at the folders that were open when he spoke again. “Anyway, yeah. I moved up here when I got this job. I do have to go to meetings occasionally, but it’s great.”

“I bet,” Dan hummed. “How did your parents take it?”

Phil snorted with laughter. “Oh, I’m sure they were glad to finally get me out of the house. Actually, they moved a few months after I moved out. That’s why they live on the Isle of Man now. I mean, my mum calls a lot and she says she misses me, but...you know. I guess parents want freedom from their kids too.”

“Probably,” Dan said. His expression was pensive.

“What about your parents?” Phil asked, desperate to keep the conversation going. 

“Oh, they’re...parents.” Dan huffed, a small smile on his face. “I don’t have quite the same relationship with them that you have with your parents. I mean, I go back for Christmas. Their birthdays and mine, sometimes.” He had been leaning far over the counter, but when the subject changed to his own family, he sat back, barely managing to keep his balance on the stool.

Phil thought maybe he should ask about Louise’s family and how Dan got along with them, but he didn’t actually want to know. He felt Dan would get along great with Martyn and his own mum. He’d probably never be able to find out. “That’s fine,” he said, forcing his thoughts back to the topic of Dan’s parents. “Not everyone has to get along well with their parents.”

“Yeah,” Dan agreed, peering down again at the papers in front of him. He traced a long finger over one and his face twisted in displeasure at it. He crumpled it and tossed it out of Phil’s sight, under the counter and presumably into the trash bin. “So. Chrysanthemums. What’s your mum’s favourite colour?”

Phil accepted the subject change, shifting in his seat to glance over the rows of colourful flowers that lined the walls in racks and tubs. “Which ones do you have?”

Dan almost fell off his seat standing up. He sounded put out when he said, “Too many. Louise goes overboard. Here, this is the shelf with them.”

Wondering if he was supposed to walk over to the rack of flowers by the door, Phil stood anyway and made his way over. Dan pulled a perky yellow flower out of a tub and offered it to Phil, who took it with trepidation.

“Yellow,” Dan said. “Also,” he brushed a hand over the others to demonstrate, “pink, purple, blue, and this multi-coloured one. You could get a bunch of different colours, or just one colour in a bouquet.”

This close, Phil could clearly see the little freckles dotting Dan’s face and the silver hoop in his ear. He looked so much softer here, rubbing a thumb over sensitive petals, than he did behind the counter seeming vaguely distant and in his own head. Phil was struck by the urge to press his fingers into Dan’s cheeks until his dimples appeared again. He realized he was subconsciously reaching out for Dan and he snatched his hand back before Dan could see the movement.

“What do you think?” Dan asked. He had plucked a few flowers and crushed them together in a tight grip. The flowers drooped sadly at the mistreatment.

Phil looked at them. “More blue,” he suggested.

Dan added more blue flowers. Phil had to agree that it was very pretty, and he told Dan as much. Dan’s face crinkled and his dimples materialized. Phil willfully resisted adding that Dan was prettier.

“I can keep them for you until you leave if you want,” Dan said. He tugged a few more flowers from the bin and added them to the bristling bunch of colour. Phil handed him the yellow flower than Dan had given him earlier, and Dan poked it into the middle of the bouquet.

“Okay,” Phil said.

“Okay,” Dan said back. He went back behind the counter and flourished scissors and ribbons, snipping at the blossoms and tying them together. He had finished and dropped them in a vase of murky-looking water by the time Phil realized that he was just standing there watching Dan work.

Phil hurried back to his seat in the corner. His computer had gone dark and he hit a few keys until it lit up again. “Er, I guess I’ll work on this,” he said sheepishly.

Dan slid back onto his seat. He was still smiling as he ducked his head and pushed at the papers scattered on the counter. “I guess I’ll work on this.”

Phil again wondered what Dan was doing with those papers. He hoped he would find out eventually. Bending his head and going back to the computer, Phil was soothed by the occasional, distant scratching of a pencil against paper.

Phil reached the halfway point of his assignment and Dan didn’t throw away any more papers that day. Phil felt like they’d both accomplished something important.