Chapter Text
The 13th of February.
In Nick's opinion, it was genuinely one of the worst days of the year.
As he heaved himself out of the driver's seat of the beaten up transit van, Nick genuinely felt like he’d done about three weeks’ worth of work crammed into the last three days. Here he was, at 6am, just back from the market on what should be (hopefully) his final flower run of the week, if he had anything to say about it. It was twenty-four hours until Valentine’s Day really started and he was absolutely exhausted.
Every year this seemed to happen. He would spend what felt like ages working out how many flowers they needed to pre-order from the wholesaler, only to find themselves with a rush of last-minute orders that necessitated an extra trip for (expensive) last-minute supplies. It meant that every bloody year he had to face the same traders he’d known half his life, sucking their teeth and moaning at him about the growers at the Dutch markets making margins tight and prices rise. No shit, thought Nick. Surely that's the basic concept of supply and demand.
Valentine's day always felt last minute. They would go through the first ten days of February with hardly a pre-order to show for it, and then everyone would start ordering in a last-minute rush a day or two before. Why are straight men so disorganised? He wondered this as he hauled yet another box of red roses out of the back of the van. It's not like the date of Valentine's ever changed, yet it still seemed to come as a surprise for the vast majority of men who wandered into the shop, bewildered by the whole process and grumpy they had to spend money on something they didn’t really want to.
He supposed he really should be used to it by now. His mum had opened Nelson's Floral Design shortly after his dad had walked out, leaving her to bring up two small children by herself. They'd lived in the small flat above the shop for a time, and Nick had earned his pocket money sweeping the floor and washing vases until he was old enough to learn the tricks of the trade and help out properly.
The shop hadn't changed much in all the years they'd been there. It still has its creaky wooden floor that was always a little bit grubby, and its big bright front windows which held an ever-changing display. Above the front door was a glazed panel that had once had the building number etched into it, but about five years ago Sarah had replaced it with a stained glass panel she'd made at an evening class - pink dog roses on a blue glass background. Her favourite flowers.
Nick enjoyed working at the shop; mostly, anyway. Maybe not over Valentine's, but on the whole he thought it was alright. He had always liked practical tasks, and keeping his hands busy, even if it was bloody knackering at times. He liked that flowers genuinely made people happy. Flowers celebrate new life, and ease grief, maybe make somebody's day a little bit brighter or let someone know they're in a friend's thoughts. Nick liked knowing that things he’d made could put a smile on someone's face. It was a nice feeling.
He couldn't say he felt that warmly towards his job right now though, on his third pre-dawn start of the week. Despite the early hour, the small shop was already a hive of activity. Sarah stood at the workbench, silently stripping flowers of foliage and sorting them into groups for orders. Next to her was Imogen, the florist who helped them out on weekends and in busy periods, chatting away ten to the dozen as she was wont to do. Nick was almost certain that Sarah had tuned her out; he had no idea how Imogen had so much energy.
Radio 4 played quietly in the background, his mum staunchly refusing to have anything else before The Archers had been on, after which they could all bicker over the station choice as much as they liked. Beneath the workbench, Nellie lay snuggled in her basket, looking like she was trying her best to ignore everything that was going on above her head.
Setting his stack of boxes down, Nick gave everyone a mumbled good morning before shuffling to the kitchen to make everyone coffee. He wasn’t usually a coffee drinker but his stupidly early start necessitated it, plus it was cold. He was wearing so many layers he could probably give the Michelin Man a run for his money, but even with thermals, two t-shirts, a thick hoodie and a coat he still felt bloody freezing. He carefully balanced the mugs so he could carry all three in one go, grateful that the warmth of the drinks allowed him to get at least some of the feeling back in his fingers before he started work. Imogen budged her things up the bench as he set her coffee down in front of her, making space for Nick to work.
“Where do you want me to start, Mum?” Nick asked as he took a quick gulp of his coffee, trying to drink as much as he could before it ended up going cold and full of stray bits of flower.
“Hmm, maybe start on the dozens? Imogen can help you and I'll finish this last bit of conditioning and then crack on with the mixed bunches.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Taking a pair of scissors from the side, he grabbed his roses and a bunch of foliage and got to work. It really was the most boring and unoriginal of orders, but it was at least easy to make in bulk. A rose, a piece of foliage, then twist the whole bunch a quarter turn anti-clockwise in your hand before you add the next. Repeat until finished.
Nick had made so many of these over the years he could probably do it in his sleep. He tied the bouquet off and cut the stems to length before setting it aside in a bucket of water ready to be wrapped. The three of them worked quietly for a couple of hours, occasionally bickering about whose turn it was to make coffee, or who had moved Sarah’s “good scissors,” or to speculate on how Valentine's day would go, and if any of them would actually receive flowers for once rather than just making them for other people. Probably not.
Before long, it was 8am and time to open the shop up to catch the passing commuters on their way to the station, who seemed to make up a fair amount of their trade. Nick hauled their wooden A-frame out onto the pavement. Usually he’d write something pithy on the blackboard, but this year he couldn’t be bothered so the sign simply read: FLOWERS with a chalk arrow pointing to the shop door underneath. Simple, yet effective, he’d told his mum. She had looked less than impressed with his advertising efforts. He lugged a few trays of plants out there with the sign to make it slightly more attractive, before heading back inside.
As he was starting up the till, the first customer of the day strode into the shop. A tall man, expensively dressed and with a swoosh of brown hair, Nick supposed he might be quite handsome if you were into arrogant types.
“I need to order flowers. For tomorrow, obviously. I want them delivered as early as possible.”
“Sure,” answered Nick as he took out a new order form. “Our first local delivery round will start at 7am but if its further afield it might be around tenish, depends how many drops our driver has to do.”
“That’s not my problem,” the man said rudely. “Just make sure they get there as early as possible.”
“Okay, where are they going to?”
“I want two dozens of your best red roses, no cheap filler flowers.”
“So twenty-four red roses. Do you want them in a vase? Or just gift wrapped?”
“No, I want two separate dozens, going to two separate places.” He took out his wallet and fished out a folded-up piece of paper from one of the card slots. “They need to go to these addresses.”
Nick took the paper and glanced over the details. Nothing really surprised him anymore. He stapled it to the top of the order form to save him writing it all back out.
“And the messages? Do you want to write them yourself? I always think that's more personal. I can get you some little cards…”
“No, that's fine. You write them. I’m in a hurry,” the man snapped. “Just put - To my Valentine. Love always, Ben on both.”
“Sure.” Nick scribbled the message down, writing ‘x2’ next to it. “And finally I just need your contact details.”
“Why? I don’t want you contacting me.”
“Just in case there’s a problem with the order or the driver can’t find the address or something. We’re unlikely to use it but we don’t take orders without having something on file.”
“Fine, take this, but I don’t want to be contacted unless it's an emergency, understood?”
He handed Nick a business card that read Ben Hope - Private Equity above his telephone number. Nick stapled that to the form as well before putting it back into the order book and ringing the order through the till. After he paid, the man stalked out of the shop as Nick called after him.
“Thanks for your order, happy Valentine's day!” in his most forced cheerful customer service voice, before adding, “... you absolute scumbag” under his breath. It was going to be one of those days.
Nick had realised pretty early on that there is nothing like working in a flower shop over Valentine's day to question whether romance has really ever been alive at all. For every customer that seemed to show genuine affection towards their significant other, there were at least three who seemed to begrudge showing anyone any love at all and at least one who was just downright sleazy. Maybe this was why he was so terrible at relationships, he mused, maybe this job had made him too cynical when it came to romance.
Customers trickled in steadily over the morning, the order book filling up with deliveries to be made the next day. At midday, Sarah ordered them all a pizza and insisted everyone sat down and ate something hot before they got back to work. Nick’s back and arms were starting to ache. His feet were tired and his hands were filthy to the point he wasn’t actually sure if he was ever going to be able to get them completely clean again. He was fairly sure he had dirt ingrained into his fingerprints by this point.
“David should be here soon,” Sarah told him between mouthfuls. “He said he’d help this afternoon, we have a few deliveries that need taking out so he can get on with that.”
Great, thought Nick. Just what today needed. His arsehole brother whose ability to hardly do any actual work, but still whinge about everything, was as yet unrivalled. Still, at least if he was doing deliveries he wouldn’t be in Nick's way too much; he could just get lost on the delivery round and rack up parking tickets in the van like he usually did instead.
Pizza finished, they all got back to work. Sarah took a turn to man the shop for a bit, Nellie milling around her feet as she tidied displays and cheerfully talked to customers. She maintained that she enjoyed Valentine's day; she liked the short sharp rush of activity and the buzz that went with it. Nick thought she was mad. Valentine's day was clearly the worst of all the floral holidays.
Soon enough, David swanned in like the prodigal son, giving Sarah a kiss on the cheek and smirking at Nick who scowled back.
“Do me some flowers mum? I want to send some roses to Louise.”
“Who’s Louise? I thought your girlfriend’s name was Emma?” Sarah asked, somewhat sceptically.
“I dumped Emma last week, she was getting boring. Louise is one of her mates.”
Sarah sighed and rolled her eyes, but went to get a form anyway. “For god's sake David. Tell me this Louise's address then.”
“I don’t have to pay for them do I? I work here!”
Nick spluttered and choked on his tea.
“Work here?! Where have you been then? Because it wasn’t you going to the market before sunrise this morning and it’s definitely not you freezing your arse off with hands full of rose thorns whilst you deal with miserable customers.”
“Are you just jealous that I have someone to send flowers to? Maybe if you made your mind up about who you wanted to shag you wouldn’t be such a pathetic loser who spends all his time with his mum.”
“Fuck off David.”
“Boys! That is enough!” Sarah put her foot down. “David, another word from you and you will be paying for your own bloody flowers. Go and load the deliveries onto the van.”
David smirked again, took the van keys from Sarah’s outstretched hand, and stalked off. Sarah squeezed Nick’s shoulders in a way he supposed was meant to make him feel a little better.
“Don’t listen to him darling, the right person will come along, you’ll see.”
Nick loved his mum, but couldn’t help but feel that she was spectacularly missing the point. The right person might come along, or they might not, he wasn’t sure it mattered to him anymore. What mattered was that David seemed to think it was acceptable to make digs about his sexuality whenever they spent more than a few moments in each other's presence and the constant biphobia was making him tired.
"Thanks, Mum." His voice was barely above a whisper. He didn't have the energy to get into this today. Seemingly satisfied, Sarah went back to the counter to wrap bouquets.
From the workbench, Imogen glanced over to see if Sarah was in earshot and once sure that she wasn't, came and gave Nick a squeeze of her own.
"Your brother is an absolute dick," she hissed into his ear. Nick couldn't help but let out a tired little laugh.
With David out of the way the rest of the afternoon went fast. Bouquets were made, customers were served, an enormous amount of tea was consumed and the vast mountain of flowers slowly decreased to more manageable levels. It was getting towards closing time and Nick was starting to dream about the hot bath he had planned for when he got home, soothing his aching limbs so he would have the energy to do this all again tomorrow.
He was thinking about going to get the A-frame back in, when the front door to the shop was pushed open again, the little bell above chiming to announce yet another customer. In the middle of the shop floor stood a man with dark curly hair, dressed in a warm woollen pea coat, and with a rucksack slung over his shoulders. Nick figured he must have just got off the train and stumbled across the shop; he wasn't one of their usuals. Nick would definitely have remembered him.
The man looked rather bewildered, as if he’d not set foot in a florist’s before and didn’t quite know what to do.
“Hi. Can I help?”
“Hi. Yes please? Some friends of mine just had a baby and I want to send them some flowers but I wasn’t expecting everything to be so…red and rosey?”
“It’s Valentine’s day tomorrow, that tends to be how it goes.”
A look of realisation dawned on the man’s face and he smiled. He had dimples, Nick noted. It made him feel a bit warm inside his chest.
“God, I’d forgotten about Valentine’s day." He looked a little embarrassed. "Not forgotten exactly, because it's sort of everywhere, but it's not really my thing so it just didn’t occur to me. That explains why I can’t seem to buy anything except red roses anywhere.”
"Was there something you had in mind?"
"Hmm, I sort of liked the idea of having all the colours? Like a rainbow?"
Nick hummed for a moment before pulling out another order sheet.
"What about a spring mix? Narcissi, tulips, anemones, muscari? I can get those in all the colours of the rainbow, it would look really pretty."
The customer positively beamed at the suggestion. There were those dimples again. Before Nick really knew what was going on, he heard himself saying, "I can't get them tomorrow but if I went to market early on the fifteenth I could make and deliver it the same day?"
What are you doing?! That's your day off you idiot! An annoying little voice at the back of his brain piped up. Nick chose to ignore it.
"That sounds perfect, are you sure you don't mind?"
"Not at all, let me take down the details."
They leaned on the counter and filled out the order form. As Nick handed him the pen so he could write the card, their hands touched just ever so slightly.
To Tara & Darcy,
Congratulations on the birth of beautiful baby Ellis, I can't wait to meet him.
Love, Uncle Charlie xoxo
P.S. A spring rainbow, from your favourite rainbow Spring!
The customer was chuckling at his own postscript. It was cute, Nick thought to himself.
"Can you write your contact details on the form too, please, just in case of any problems with the order."
"Sure."
He scribbled Charlie Spring at the bottom of the page, along with his mobile number. Ahh, Nick thought. The postscript joke made a bit more sense now.
"Great." He rang the order through the till. "I'll get that out as soon as all this madness has calmed down." Nick waved an arm vaguely in the direction of the workbench that was still covered in flowers and foliage.
"Thank you so much, I really appreciate your help."
Charlie brushed a stray curl away from his face and buttoned his coat up as he turned towards the door to leave. "I hope tomorrow goes well!" he called over his shoulder.
Nick huffed out a small laugh.
"Well, if your friends get their flowers, you'll know I'm still alive at the end of it."
He was aware that it came out a little more bitterly than intended, but frankly he was too tired to care.
Charlie gave him a sympathetic smile, before closing the door behind him.