She noticed him before he came in.
She always did.
Some people entered a room like punctuation—brief, forgettable. Others arrived like questions. He was neither. He was a pause. The kind that changed the sentence whether you acknowledged it or not.
She watched him through the glass, standing across the street too still to be indecisive. Men like him didn't hesitate because they were unsure. They hesitated because they were deciding what damage would cost them least.
When he crossed, the street seemed to narrow around him.
The bell chimed.
She felt it then—the shift in the air, subtle but undeniable, like the moment before rain. The shop had learned him already. Flowers were sensitive like that. They leaned toward light, away from cruelty. They did not recoil from him.
That mattered.
"You came back," she said, because pretending surprise would have been dishonest.
He looked at her the way people did when they weren't used to being spoken to plainly. As if he were recalibrating.
"I said I might," he replied.
True.
He had said it carefully, as if words were contracts.
She studied him openly now. The tension in his shoulders had changed—less sharp, more tired. Whatever he carried today was heavier than before. Not louder. Just deeper.
"You look like you won," she said.
He blinked. "Is that what this looks like?"
She considered. "It looks like something ended."
His jaw tightened, but he didn't deny it.
She turned back to the flowers, giving him permission to exist without performance. That was something she'd learned young: people who were always watched eventually forgot how to breathe.
She selected stems with intention—eucalyptus for grounding, ranunculus for softness, thorns left intact where they belonged.
"Do you want anything in particular?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said, after a beat.
She smiled faintly. "That's honest."
Silence stretched—not uncomfortable, just present. She could feel him watching her hands, the way they moved with familiarity and care. People underestimated repetition when it was gentle. They thought only force created mastery.
She tied the bouquet loosely and set it aside.
"You carry yourself like someone who's always braced," she said, not looking at him.
The air shifted.
"That's an observation," he said carefully.
"So is this," she replied, finally meeting his eyes. "You don't scare me."
Most men reacted poorly to that. They mistook fearlessness for invitation or insult.
He did neither.
Instead, something in him went still.
"That's unwise," he said quietly.
"Maybe," she agreed. "But fear has never made me better at choosing people."
Something flickered across his face then—surprise, edged with something like relief. Or grief. It was hard to tell with men who had learned to bury themselves.
She wondered, briefly, what it would take to make him laugh.
That thought startled her.
He stepped closer—not into her space, but nearer than before. She noticed how careful he was with distance, as though he understood exactly how much he took up.
"People usually want something from me," he said.
"And do you want that to be true here?" she asked.
He hesitated.
That hesitation told her more than confidence ever could.
She slid the bouquet toward him. "Take this."
"For what?" he asked.
"For reminding you that some things don't need to be earned," she said. "They just need to be kept alive."
His fingers brushed hers when he took it—brief, almost accidental. The contact landed like a held breath released too suddenly.
She felt it.
So did he.
He withdrew his hand first.
"Why do you do this?" he asked.
She tilted her head. "Do what?"
"Speak to me like I'm… human."
The question wasn't accusatory. It was fragile.
She chose her words carefully. "Because you are. And because pretending otherwise is how people get lost."
His gaze sharpened, searching her face—not for weakness, but for pretense.
He didn't find any.
"Tell me your name," he said.
She held his gaze. "You didn't tell me yours."
A pause.
"Lucien," he said at last.
The name fit him—softened by the way he spoke it, sharpened by what he withheld.
"I'm—" She stopped herself. Smiled. "Not yet."
He exhaled something like a laugh. It surprised both of them.
Outside, the city pressed on, loud and impatient. Inside, the shop held steady.
She watched him stand there, bouquet in hand, shadows loosening their grip by inches.
He looked like a man standing at the edge of something he didn't yet know how to cross.
"You can come back," she said gently. "You don't have to buy anything."
Lucien nodded once. "I know."
But he lingered, like someone memorizing an exit he hoped not to use.
When he finally left, the bell chimed again—lighter this time.
She stood very still.
Her heart was steady, but alert. She wasn't naïve. Men like him didn't drift into lives without consequence. Storms rarely announced themselves as storms.
Still, she touched the counter where he had stood and felt no dread.
Only possibility.
Outside, Lucien walked away carrying flowers like a contradiction.
Inside, she cleaned her tools and thought, not for the first time:
Some shadows weren't meant to be escaped.
Some were meant to be understood.
And some?
Some learned how to bloom.