Page 4 of The Florist and Her Alphas

Six Years Later

It’s five a.m. on a Thursday morning, and I’m awake in my shop already working.

The stems are heavy in my hands, cool and firm under the running water as I cut each one at a sharp diagonal angle, listening to the soft snick of the shears. The work is methodical, quiet, and the only thing I trust.

Warm yellow light spills from the single Edison bulb hanging over my zinc-topped worktable. The old cast-iron radiator hisses in the corner, a steady tick that keeps time with Piaf on the record player.

I settle each stem into the bucket. The water turns cloudy, then clear. The peonies are barely open, tight-fisted and pale pink. By afternoon, they’ll be huge, spilling over the edges of whatever vase holds them. I like them best this way, where I can anticipate how beautiful they’ll be.

My grandmother’s gardening apron is tied around my waist. The canvas is soft from years of wear, stained along the hem with soil that will never fully wash out.

I wore this apron the night Magnus Thornton’s pack raided my family’s home six years ago, and I’ve kept it ever since.

I yawn loudly as I work. I haven’t slept. Again.

The nightmares come less often now than they did in the first year, but they come harder when they do. I woke at three a.m. with my heart hammering against my ribs and the sheets damp with sweat. I lay there in the dark listening to the radiator tick in the apartment above the shop until I couldn’t stand it and came downstairs to work.

The last peony goes into the bucket. I wipe my hands on a dish towel and push through the curtain into the front room.

Morning light cuts through the divided-pane windows in long, clean bars. The mahogany counter catches the light along its sanded edge. The brass bell over the door hangs still. I love the sound it makes. A small, clear note that says someone is here and wants what I grow.

I tidy the tulips in the front cooler, rearranging the yellow ones so they face the light. The chalkboard sign on the front door reads CLOSED. I flip it to OPEN.

I step outside. The morning air is cool. I pick up the piece of chalk from the whiskey barrel beside the door and rewrite the standing board in my looping handwriting.

Today: PEONIES. RANUNCULUS. ANEMONES. GARDEN ROSES. TULIPS. EUCALYPTUS.

I stand back and look at it. The letters are even. The colors are right. This is the life I built. Four hundred square feet of Brooklyn brick and every inch of it mine.

Suddenly, the back door bangs open. “Lia! You’ll not believe the absolute fucking nightmare that just walked into my bakery at five in the goddamn morning.”

Mira.

Flour in her hair, a chopstick holding her dark chestnut bun in place, a streak of white across her left cheekbone. She’s wearing her cream sweater under the embroidered Brioche & Bramble apron, and the tiny gold baguette charm at her throat catches the light when she moves. The silver hoop in her left nostril glints. She’s carrying a paper bag that smells like butter, and two coffees in a cardboard carrier.

“Well, what happened?” I ask, smiling. Even though she’s the baker next door, she’s my best friend. Something must have really pissed her off.

“Okay,” she says, setting the coffees on the counter with enough force to slosh. “So this man comes in at five on the dot, and goes, ‘Excuse me, can you have fifty loaves of bread ready in an hour?’ Does he really think I have nothing to do all night, baking millions of loaves? I told him I would need at least a three-day notice, and he cussed me out before leaving. Who the hell does he think he is?”

“Oof, that’s rough,” I say, shaking my head. I’ve had my own share of customers who didn’t give a shit what I thought when they raged about flowers that I didn’t have. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she says as I reach for the coffee she brought. “How about you? You look like you didn’t sleep.”

I open the paper bag to find a decadent pastry still warm, the caramelized sugar crackling when I break it open. I hand her half, and she takes it.

“I never sleep,” I say.

“How come?”

The question hangs between us. I could tell her. I have almost told her a hundred times, standing in her bakery, because we were both omegas, and she would understand me.

But it was too embarrassing to admit what I went through years ago.

“Just excited to work in my shop and see the flowers bloom.”

She nods. Doesn’t push. The trust between us is the kind that doesn’t need words to prove itself. She’s the only person in this city who knows what I am without me having to say it.

Mira gives me a hug.