The One Without Words

❀ chapter two | he hates flowers ❀

When I got to the flower shop on Monday, Talia, as usual, was already there. Instead of a t-shirt and leggings, she wore a long pencil skirt and a frilly blouse. Raising an eyebrow, I set down my school backpack by the cash register. Then I noticed... Jack. He sat on a chair behind a stack of crates filled with floral foam and baby's breath—the worst name for a flower ever—and was tapping away on Talia's tablet.

"Alright," she said. "It's time for me to go. Job interview time; wish me luck! Jack, you're working until six, okay?"

He nodded without looking at her.

"Romy," she said, turning to me. "Today, he's here to watch and learn how things work. Show him the basics. He'll be using my tablet so he can start on ideas for our website."

"Great," I droned.

Talia winked and walked out the shop, the bell above our door tinkling. Just like that, she left me here with him, and I watched her head of perfectly-styled waves disappear. This must be a test. The ultimate test of my patience.

Afternoon sun streamed through the window. A strange thing to see, considering how clouds usually shrouded the sky, far from the Hawai'i sunshine I grew up on, but I didn't mind. I liked how the cloudy autumn turned the leaves gold and red. How it felt like city was in the middle of a forest with towering pine trees at every park, the mountains in the distance.

But enough about scenery. I moved a crate out the way so I could face Jack. "Are you working on the website?"

He nodded once without looking up.

I raked my eyes over him, scrutinizing, searching for something to tell me more about him. Maybe a stain on his shirt, indicating he didn't care about appearances. Maybe an expensive jacket, indicating he cared too much. But nothing particularly stood out, other than the bright pink birthmark on his forehead hiding underneath his hair. He was somewhat tall—not a difficult feat when I was barely 5'3"—and not as much of a pasty, looked-like-he-hadn't-slept-in-years white boy as one would expect. His skin had a golden, freckled glow to it, like he'd somehow found the sun.

"So, what made you want to work here?" I asked.

Jack didn't move. I thought he was flat-out ignoring me until he tapped something on the tablet, agonizingly slow, and held his arm out to show me.

I hate flowers.

I snorted. "How can anyone hate flowers? But let me guess. Your mommy made you work here?"

He shifted his posture from slouching over the tablet to leaning back in his chair, balancing it on two legs.

"You know, my parents had me start working here to develop my people skills. I still think it's fucking ridiculous. It's not that I don't have people skills. It's more that I don't care to use them sometimes. For you, though? I think your mom probably understands you have a long way to go."

His eyes—a muddy, brownish green—remained fixed on one of crates. But a muscle in his jaw twitched, and I smiled.

"You can quit whenever you want," I suggested. "I'd actually appreciate that. Talia's cutting my pay by a third for you to be here."

Finally, for the first time, he looked at me. But he didn't scowl like with his mom the other day. Features blank, he reached into a crate of flowers. Pulled out a pink rose. Drew it to his lips. And without breaking eye contact, he tore off a clump of petals with his teeth. Then chewed them. Hard.

I burst out laughing. "Hey, if you're hungry, why don't you take a ten and go get some food?"

He took another bite of the rose. A petal stuck out between his lips. Then his blank expression broke. He scrunched up his nose, bolted up, and ran out the shop. Outside, he spat the clump of petals on the ground, and I couldn't stop laughing. I was holding my stomach as he straightened himself, walked back inside, and returned to the tablet.