A Single Daffodil

Wednesday mornings at Jane’s Flower Shop were always slower than most. No one was in too much of a rush to come in and buy flowers in the middle of the week, save for a cute elderly woman who’s looking to brighten up her house or the typical bored soccer Mom. Maggie usually reserved Wednesday mornings for her weekly inspection of our nurseries outside of Miami, to make sure all the flowers are being taken care of correctly and blooming at the right time. This also meant that Ronnie and I were left to fend for the store by ourselves until around noon.

“So, Vita. Wanna hear something random?” Ronnie asked as she sorted through a small vase of Sweet Peas. Today her bright, red hair was tied up into a tight bun and she even made the reckless decision to match her lipstick color to her hair. Ronnie always resembled a cartoon character, especially when it came to her outfits. Today she was wearing black dungarees --although, I knew she would have prefer them to be some sort of quirky, colorful print -- with a tight fitted, black crop top underneath them. While I kept my black polo shirt and skater skirt combo uniform, she changed up what she wore to work almost every day.

“Sure.” I responded, idly flipping through pages of previous orders from the past week. I was sitting on a wooden stool near the register.

“I got a part time job at American Airlines!” She said. “Just for the summer, anyways.”

I looked over at her and smiled. “Congratulations! What do you do?”

Ronnie shrugged, walking over to the buckets of fresh flowers at the front window and carefully placing the Sweet Peas next to the Sunflowers. “Nothing major. I work at one of the check-in desks at the airport. I print out boarding passes and take passenger’s baggage. It’s not much, but there’s great perks to working for the airline. I get to fly anywhere in America for free. Cool, right?”

“I thought you hated flying?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, but that was before it was free.” She pointed out. “And besides, now I can go visit that guy I’ve been talking to on Tumblr in San Francisco whenever I want.”

“Oh God, Ronnie.”

She laughed at my reaction. “What!? He’s a graphic designer!”

I shook my head at Ronnie and hopped off the stool to file the papers into the trays behind me. Ronnie had a penchant for meeting guys she’s never met in real life online.

Before I returned back to my stool, the front door swung open, striking the little bell above it to signal a new customer was walking in.

“Hola! Good morning!” Sophia strolled into the shop with a huge grin, holding a Starbucks carrier packed with four coffees. She was wearing her work out gear, her hair tied up in a high pony tail. “I brought goodies!”

“You’re up early!” I said, grinning with excitement when she took out a Venti sized cup from the carrier and handed it to me. I immediately took a sip of the steaming cup of coffee. Italian roast, no milk, two sugars. Perfecto.

“My pilates class was at eight.” Sophia responded. She turned to Ronnie and pulled out the second cup. “Here, I brought you Chai Latte. You like this one, yes?”

“Oh, yes, yes!” Ronnie beamed, gratefully taking the drink from Sophia. “Thank you so much, you beautiful, divine being.”

“Ay, I know.” Sophia shrugged like it was nothing, setting the carrier on the front counter. “I brought a Cuban coffee for Maggie, too.”

“I’ll go ahead and put it on her desk.” Ronnie announced, grabbing the smaller, non-Starbucks cup from the carrier. “She’ll be delighted!”

When Ronnie headed into the back area, Sophia stretched her arms up into the air before casually leaning on the counter casually. “Your father was on his warpath after the game last night.”

I let out a low whistled. “That bad, huh?”

“He wanted to kill Wade for missing the last shot.” Sophia made a ‘tsked’ sound. “The whole arena could hear him yelling in the locker rooms.”

The Miami Heat lost game two last night by two points. Two points. That is equivalent to one shot into the basket. I caught the highlights on the news this morning before work. Dwayne Wade had six seconds to make a shot to tie the game, but he missed it. I knew he was beating himself up the most about it.

I thought about going over to the arena before work this morning, to offer morale support --and to tell my dad to lighten up-- but I realized they were already on their private jet, flying to Chicago for games three and four. They won’t be back in Miami for the next week.

I sat back in my stool and blew a stray blonde curl off my face. “Wade will be fine. He has a thick skin.”

“What happened to you last night, anyways?” Sophia sipped her green tea, leaning even more forward onto the counter in front of me. “You didn’t come back to the arena.”

I rolled my eyes and scoffed, slamming my coffee cup back down on the counter. I folded my arms a little too aggressively before I replied. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I drove straight home from the Four Seasons last night, even though I knew I could still make the last three minutes of the game. I was just too worked up over my second run-in with the English twot on the fifteenth floor. The minute I got home, I immediately changed into my pajamas, wrapped myself in about twenty blankets and made hot chocolate, despite the fact that it was summertime and not winter. I even turned on some random Tom Cruise movie to keep my anger at bay.

I was also so determined to forget how annoyed I was last night, that I never got a chance to tell Sophia about it via text or a phone call when I got home.

Actually, now that I think about it, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell Sophia about this Harry character asking me out on a dinner date. If I did, she’d literally drag my ass back to the Four Seasons, by the ear, to find him and tell him yes.

As my internal debate of telling Sophia or not droned on inside my head, another ding of the bell indicated a customer walked in.

Without hesitation, I recited the same thing I always said when someone walked in. “Welcome to Jane’s-no. Fuck no. Get out!”

My face immediately felt hot as a mixture of anger and disbelief set in. I was frozen to my seat, unable to move.

Because there at the front door of Jane’s Flower Shop, amongst the innumerable amount of vases filled with flowers, stood Harry Styles.

Sophia, who was completely stunned by my sudden burst of profanity, started to scold me until she whipped around to see who had walked in. It took her about .02 seconds to freak out.

“Ay dios mio!!” She screamed excitedly, jumping up and down. She raced over to him and squeezed him into one of her suffocating hugs. He looked alarmed and uncomfortable, probably because her great Columbian boobs were about to fall out of her sports bra. “It’s you, it’s you! Ay, yi, yi! This ez so exciting! Vita didn’t tell me you were coming!”

“So, the rude florist’s name is finally revealed.” Harry said, grinning in my direction.

My eyes practically fell out of my head after widening them with shock. I placed both hands on the counter as I stood up on the first ridge of the stool. I was trying to appear taller for intimidation --something I learned from watching Lebron James get angry on the court. “I’m rude? Do you want to die, kid? I have a steel shovel and a sizable backyard. I doubt you’d be missed.”

Harry didn’t seem phased. In fact, he chuckled at my fiery threat. That disarmed me completely.

Meanwhile, Sophia was still clinging onto Harry’s arm with absolute delight, her eyes now turning into beating hearts. I have never been so embarrassed of my best friend in my entire life. I wanted to die.

“How in fucksname did you find me?” I demanded.

“Well, Vita, you ran out of the hotel so fast last night, that I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.” Harry replied easily. “So I heckled the front desk until they told me where you worked.”

He was nothing, if not persistent. Jesus.

That’s when Sophia came back to life. “Ay, that is so romantic-wait.” She turned to me. “You never told me you were with Harry Styles last night!”

“Technically, I wasn’t.” I grumbled to her before turning back to Harry. “Alright, you can go now before you put my traitor best friend into cardiac arrest. Adios, Dickwad!”

“Vita!” Sophia was appalled by the way I spoke to him. Honestly, I was equally shocked at how aggressive I was being towards him. I don’t know what it was. I guess he was just bringing out the worst in me. Sophia tugged Harry into the shop further. “Sorry about her. I’m Sophia, the best friend. What brings you into the shop?”

“I wanted to see if Vita changed her mind about coming out to dinner with me.” No longer did I have to fill Sophia in about last night. Harry took it upon himself to do it for me. He turned to look at me with a mischievous grin. We both knew he had Sophia under his spell. “She was being rather difficult about it last night, even though I told her I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Sophia, on the other hand, was losing her damn mind over this. She started clapping and jumping again, speaking in Spanish too quickly for me to even try and understand. There were a couple of ‘Ay dios mio’s in there though, that’s for sure.

“She says yes! Si, si! Of course she will.” Sophia answered for me.

“Is that so?” Harry asked, expecting an answer from me.

I opened my mouth, trying to imitate the same excitement Sophia was showing. “Yeah, totally!!”

Harry looked at me with complete and utter surprise. “Really?”

“No. Are you kidding me?” I growled. “No way in hell. Now, get out of my shop.”

Sophia scoffed. “Vita, behave. You’re embarrassing me.”

I stood up on my stool again. “I’m embarrassing you!? You’re the one frothing at the mouth and rolling around on the floor for this guy!”

“Hey, what’s all the commotion out here?” Ronnie finally emerged from the back room. I honestly forgot she was here. When she spotted Harry standing in front of the counter with a sheepish smile, her eyes bulged out of her skull. “Holy shit, you’re Harry Styles!”

I sighed in defeat, slowly easing myself down onto my stool. “This is my nightmare.” I muttered.

After taking a slow and long sip of my coffee, my eyes flickered over to where Harry was standing. He was watching me very carefully with his beady -but beautiful, as much as it pains me to say it - eyes. His bottom lip was tucked under his front teeth as he clearly tried to figure out something clever to say.

Before he could even utter another word, however, the store phone rang without warning. I immediately jumped up, leaping for the phone before Ronnie could even register it was ringing.

“Good morning, thank you for calling Jane’s Flower Shop, this is Vita speaking.” I said into the phone breathlessly. I turned my back to the three bozos in front of me so I could concentrate on the phone call, rather then get too intimidated by Harry’s alluring stare.

“Hi Vita, it’s Mary Davis.” The voice responded. “I’d like to make an order of flowers for my five year old niece.”

“Absolutely!” I cheerfully responded. “Let me put you on hold for one second while I get the paperwork.”

When I pressed the hold button, I whipped around to Harry before heading into the back room. “I need to take this. See to it that you won’t be here by the time I get back.”

Fortunately for me, by the time I finished the phone call with Mrs. Davis and walked back out into the store, Harry was no longer there. I felt a wave of relief wash over me as I returned the phone back on it’s stand. Unluckily, I was stuck with a giggling Ronnie and satisfied looking Sophia, who was feverishly typing away on her phone. I didn’t even want to ask what the hell was going on but curiosity got the best of me.

“He better not be hiding in the bathrooms.” I announced, to catch Ronnie and Sophia’s attention.

Sophia was the first to answer me. “Of course not. He had to leave for a radio interview. Ay, I’m still freaking out! Vita, he is so handsome!”

“Gross.”

“What is wrong with you!?” Ronnie asked. “Sophia told me he asked you out to dinner! When an international pop star asks you to dinner, you say yes!”

“I don’t like him.” My stubbornness kicked in fast as I crossed my arms over my chest and kept my stare on the red roses in front of me. “He’s an egotistical douche.”

“I did not get that vibe off him, like, at all.” Ronnie defended. “Did you see the tattoos on his arms? Damn.”

“So sexy!” Sophia added.

“Well if you two are so hot on him, why don’t you go on a date with him yourselves!” I exclaimed, throwing my arms out in frustration.

“I don’t think we’re the ones he’s after.” Ronnie smirked in my direction. “You must have left quite an impression on him if he went as far as finding out where you work.”

“I’ve made my intentions pretty clear.” I stated. “I even jabbed him in the chest with my finger once.”

“In all the years I’ve known you, Vita, I’ve never seen you lash out at a boy like this!” Sophia exclaimed. “What’s the deal?”

I walked over to a bucket of daisies and started pulling off the petals, one by one. It was sort of a nervous habit of mine. “Look, I don’t like his vain attitude. I’ve seen too many guys like him around here. He’s gorgeous and he knows it. It’s probably annoying him that I haven’t said yes yet. The minute I do, he’ll be over it. He’ll be onto the next one. It’s all about winning the chase with guys like him. I’m saving myself the bother.”

Sophia was staring at me like I had two heads. Ronnie looked like she was taking what I said into consideration. I was almost convinced that she’d act as an ally about all this until she spoke. “Yeah, but he’s British though.”

Once again, I felt defeated. Instead of arguing further, I grabbed my coffee and walked back into the inventory room to start on Mrs. Davis’s flower delivery. Of course while I started picking out the Snapdragons and Lilacs, I couldn’t help but wonder why on earth was Harry so determined to clear his name with me?