It started as a hobby. My mom was a rose gardener and my dad was a botanist. He showed me how to create hybrids when I was maybe six or seven years old. It took root and I’ve been obsessed with growing roses ever since.
My free hand grips the aluminum door handle to Ever In Bloom and I say a little prayer because it can’t hurt my chances, right?
My heart is racing like I’m running for my life, and in a way I guess I am. How can an ugly fuck like me think he’s got any chance with a beauty like her?
Okay, maybe I’m not ugly, but I also realize I’m a little scary. I don’t walk, I stomp. I don’t talk, I grunt.
I’m bearded.
Grouchy as hell.
Never been a player.
I wouldn’t know slick if it slept next to me.
I’m all flannel and muddy boots. But I know what I want and I suppose I’m just too dumb to know any better because here I am once again, throwing myself on the altar of humiliation just for a glance at my girl.
Yep. My girl.
I’m so fucked.
Deep breath, I tell myself, but my cock is already soaking my thick-duck-cloth k
haki work pants. I’m commando just cuz that’s just my way, but when I get around Rose I should be wearing a few extra layers to help hide my size XXXL hard on.
I always feel like a bull in a china shop when I stop here. My hand grips the bottom of the crystal vase holding the six Ever After roses and the muscles in my shoulders twitch.
Rose is so soft, so delicate, and I’m so not. Every part of me is oversized and I know it makes me even less approachable than my general bear-like demeanor.
The cluster of little door bells make this sort of fairy-dust tinkling sound when I walk inside. My eyes are already locked on her and everything else in the world fades away. She’s fresh faced as usual and more stunning make up free than any cover model.
She’s sporting her lime green apron with an ivory sweater and skirt under. That little dot of a mole above her lip calls to me. I wonder what it tastes like. I wonder what all of her tastes like.
Bombs could be lighting up the street outside and I wouldn’t know because she’s here, and I don’t just see her, I catch her scent.
In amongst all the thousands of flowers that fill the air that compete for my olfactory attention, it’s only her I can process.
She’s like winter and honey. That clean smell when it gets cold in the mountains and you know the first snow of the year is imminent. But it’s tipped with this thick sweetness. Something that took time to develop. Not like processed sugar or cotton candy. No, it’s like raw honey. Natural and purposeful.
I live in this second because I know it’s going to end. She’s fussing with an arrangement of common red long stems and in a way I hate that she has to touch such regular flowers. She’s rarer than the roses I grow, and in my mind they are the only flowers her delicate fingers should touch.
She huffs at the arrangement and turns to see me approaching.
It’s her eyes that turn my heart beat to a hummingbird pace. They are deep set and mysterious, a rich, heavy blue like the indigo on my mother’s blue willow china, and cracked with black speckles like opals dusting her irises.
I’ve memorized every stunning detail of her face in the two or three times she’s allowed me to be close enough, taken hours by myself, eyes closed as I committed every freckle and texture to memory.
In my head I’m telling her all the things I wish I could say. But I have to hold steady as I approach the little counter, my heart breaking as I see her hands freeze and begin to tremble.
Please, don’t walk away this time.
“Rose.” I love just saying her name. It feels so right on my lips. I nod and do my best to soften myself but around her my entire body hardens.
Her soft, pink lips tighten and her teeth set into her lower lip. I know she won’t reply, but just having her eyes on me is enough to ignite a lust that streams through me like molten lava.
“I brought you these. They’re my latest. I call them ‘Ever Afters’. No one has them yet. I have a waiting list of buyers at three hundred bucks retail a bud, but as always there’s no charge for you. Just samples. You can charge what you want, but I wanted you to have them here first.”
Her cheeks brighten as I set the vase on the counter. The six roses have buds the size of my fist. The petals are a shade of lavender that doesn’t even look real, with swirls of white through them like marble. They will bloom and last for three weeks or more.