Chapter Text
Nick Nelson starts his day just like any other: sipping an earl grey tea from across the street (splash of cream, one sugar), hunched over his laptop at the sales counter of his boutique plant shop, Nellie’s. Today he is once again on the phone with plant distributors, begging anyone who will listen to send him more alocasias. There must be a national shortage, he thinks, because they’ve been flying off his shelves before he can even create care labels for them.
“I’ll take any variety you’ve got! Please! Yes…mhm…mhm…yes, I’m sure they are…mhm…yes, I’ll hold.”
Exasperated, he runs his free hand through his thick blonde hair, pushing it out of his eyes so he can read the fine print on his purchase contract for a shipment of 300 assorted two-year-old cacti from a greenhouse in Costa Rica.
Just as he gets to the section that releases the shipping company from liability should the inventory arrive with spider mites, Nick hears the jangle of the bells hanging from the shop’s front door.
He calls out a welcome to the customer, not raising his eyes from his small computer screen so as to not lose his place in the dense text.
“...yes, I’m still here. Thank you. Sure, when your tropicals manager gets back later this week, please have her call me back. I swear, there must be some sort of obsession with alocasias here in Kent, I simply cannot keep them in stock! Thanks again. Speak soon.”
Nick sighs as he hangs up the phone. Although no progress has been made on his urgent request, Nick strives to never ever lose his cool with customer service agents, no matter how utterly useless they are.
As he returns his attention to the e-contract for plants he has secured, someone clears their throat from the other side of the register.
Nick had promptly forgotten that there was anyone else in the moderately sized store. At full capacity, he could probably fit about twenty-five customers inside, although it would certainly be cramped given the towering fiddle leaf figs, lush palm fronds, and bushy ferns splitting the space into smaller zones. Nick loves the feeling of intimacy that the inventory creates in the way he’s set up his store.
The store owner peels his eyes from his laptop to greet the customer more personally this time.
Before him stands a strikingly handsome man with floppy brown curls and hypnotizing blue eyes.
“Hi,” the man offers a closed-mouth grin to Nick.
It takes Nick’s breath away.
Although he’s only an arm’s length away, the counter between them makes it feel like Nick is miles from this beautiful mirage of a person. The animal instinct that rears its head tells Nick to lean forward and close the gap. He needs to drink in the deep, tantalizingly aquamarine eyes looking back at him.
Luckily, Nick is a professional, and chokes out what he hopes is a much more acceptable response than what every cell in his body is screaming at him to say and do.
“Hi.”
The man’s eyes study his face in a way that makes a blush rise from Nick’s neck like the bottom of a timer’s sand counting down the seconds until he needs to think of something, anything to say. Although Nick’s flush betrays him, he conversely finds himself grateful for his body’s natural reaction to being flustered, because as the man watches Nick’s reaction, the cutest dimples grow deeper and deeper on the man’s face as a toothy smile widens.
“Uh, hi. Sorry, I hope I’m not interrupting, that sounded like an important phone call. But, uh, I’m kind of in a hurry, I’m here for a birthday gift,” the man explains, “and I am completely out of my element.”
A birthday gift. So this stranger is not a plant lover. That’s ok, Nick has converted many people over the years who had convinced themselves they had brown thumbs.
Who is this birthday gift for? His wife? Girlfriend? Crush?
Nicholas. You have said one single word to this man. You can not be pondering his relationship status. You need to help him find his sweetheart a birthday gift, so that way he can prove his ongoing love for her. Say something. Anything!
“Well, let me help you! I know a thing or two about houseplants,” Nick manages to reply, despite his throat drying up like the Sahara.
This earns Nick a snicker from the customer.
Nick comes around the counter, internally cursing his two left feet that only ever make an appearance when in the presence of someone he’s trying to play it cool around. He kicks a ceramic pot showcasing a large snake plant, which shakes rather violently from the impact, giving away Nick’s clumsiness.
“You ok?” the man asks.
Great, he’s clocked Nick’s nerves.
“Oh, yeah, thanks. Sometimes I wonder why I opened up such a small plant shop - my body is a bit too brawny for so much easily-damaged inventory, isn’t it?” God, with these two left feet, how does he also manage to put his foot in his mouth and sound like he's hitting on this unsuspecting person?
By the grace of all that is holy basil, the man gifts him another smile as he gives Nick a once over. As he approaches, Nick can now see that the man’s eyes are swirled teal with darker blues. They remind Nick of the Atlantic ocean. The tie dye irises pause, just for a moment, on Nick’s upper arms. Thank goodness he opted to wear his favorite blue t-shirt today, the one that manages to stay double-cuffed around his muscular biceps.
“So. What kinds of plants does the birthday person like?” Nick asks once the man meets his own brown eyes.
The man’s face is overcome with the most adorable look of horror. “Um…green ones?”
Nick lets out a laugh that is probably a little too enthusiastic, but by god, it makes the entrancing person before him light up.
“Ah, I see. You really are out of your element. Here, let’s go look at some succulents, right over there,” Nick hovers one hand a few inches away from the stranger’s Fjallraven knapsack, using the other hand to gesture in the direction of a floor-to-ceiling librarian’s card catalog. Nick is particularly proud of this repurposed cabinet, having won it at an antiques auction the year prior. He’s styled it with smaller leafy plants spilling out of the many tiny drawers. Atop the display surfaces are trays of his more modestly-sized succulents that are best-sellers for people like this man.
Nick’s brain catches up to his body, and he snaps his hand down and shoves it in his front trouser pocket, willing it to stay put instead of reaching out to this man again.
As the pair walk across the creaky wooden floors to the towering shelf, Nick notices that they both must duck below the huge overhanging monstera leaves, meaning the man is only slightly shorter than Nick. One of the man’s curls barely catches in the fenestration of a leaf, and he raises a hand to gently pat his hair with his long, slender fingers.
Not that Nick is noticing the shape of the man’s fingers. Or how he wishes he knew what they felt like stroking his cheek.
“It’s like a rainforest in here!” the man notes with a sense of wonder.
“That’s my goal! Bringing a little Amazonia to Kent,” Nick proclaims. He’s going to have to treat himself to a second cuppa later on to celebrate his ability to form complete sentences in conversation with this customer.
After only a few steps that feel like a lifetime, the men stop in front of the card catalog. Nick musters the inner strength to actually do his job and help this poor lost man. Courageously, he asks the question he needs to know the answer to, so he can squash his life-ruining ten second crush on this stranger who is completely unaware of Nick’s inner turmoil.
“Does your friend live somewhere with a lot of windows?”
“Yeah, actually. She’s got viney things hanging in most of them. Her flat is really cool.”
Ok. This is good. The birthday person is a girl, but he didn’t correct Nick on the term ‘friend.’ It doesn’t rule out a girlfriend or crush, but he did clarify that she's not someone this man lives with. That’s a positive.
“Ah, ok, so it sounds like she’s got lots of natural light. That’s great! So I bet any of these would thrive in her home,” Nick points to the main shelf of beginner-friendly succulents. He can’t be sure how well this person’s maybe-friend-maybe-partner can take care of the more finicky plants like the touch-sensitive kiwis, and if the plant he sends this man away with dies, he will probably never return to Nellie’s, thinking that Nick sells plants that are doomed from the start.
Nicholas, what is your problem?
The man leans over and hums, gazing across the selection of plants with odd shapes and unusual growth habits. His attention is drawn towards an echeveria that is blooming with lovely orange flowers. Nick is close enough to smell the man’s cologne - very subtle, unlike a lot of the men who come through here looking for gifts for their significant others. Chypre, with a bit of leather.
“I think this might be the one! It’s blooming her favorite color,” he states with a gentle smile.
He carefully extracts the flimsy four-inch plastic pot from the tray that’s packed tight with other nursery containers.
The man turns his head to once again grace Nick with another few moments of heart-stopping eye contact. He wants to drown in these deep blue eyes. Nick tries to cover up his panic, and the man puffs out a coy chuckle and averts his eyes, as if…ashamed? “Uh. Can you show me some pots that might work with this?”
Nick preemptively stuffs both of his hands back into his jeans, not trusting them to not reach out to brush the man’s locks off his face. In a level-headed, strictly professional manner, he leads the customer to the back wall of the store, which is where all the planters are displayed. He nods to the shelves at the man’s eye level, slightly below Nick’s own.
“You’ve got a four-inch lady here, so any of these will work. I’ve got mostly locally handmade options, but I do have a few plastic pots that come in your more vibrant colors.”
The man reaches his empty hand to graze the glazed pottery, but catches a glimpse of his wristwatch. “Oh! I really do need to get going! I have a meeting with my loan officer in ten minutes at the bank up the road.”
He selects a bulbous pot that is painted in oranges and yellows reminiscent of a romantic sunset. One of Nick’s personal favorites.
Nick takes the plant and the pot from the customer and quickly steps to the register. The man requests that Nick package the gift in a paper bag securely enough to survive the eight-block jog, as well as his bus ride home.
Putting on his best customer service voice, Nick thanks the man and picks up the bag by its handles. As he hands the purchase across the counter, Nick misjudges the distance to the man’s awaiting hand.
His index finger brushes against the ridge of the man’s knuckle, and if Nick hadn’t been staring intently at the interaction, he would have thought literal sparks burst from the brief touch. Any composure that Nick had managed to summon flies right out the window and down the street.
Though the contact lasts only for a fraction of a second, Nick knows that his world has been flipped irrevocably on its head. The store owner freezes, and although his mind is wiped blank in an instant, he sees the man’s hand also stops in its tracks.
Hazel eyes meet blue, and now it’s Nick’s turn to mumble an embarrassed laugh as he stares back. His face is on fire, and the deep blue pools of this person’s eyes do nothing to extinguish the rising emotion spreading across his skin. In fact, they only add fuel to the blaze.
“Uhm-”
“Thanks for your help. Have a nice day,” the man stutters before pivoting and rushing towards the exit.
Nick feels paralyzed as the doorbells echo in tempo with the shutting door. He stares out the door’s glass pane far longer than it takes for the man to leave his view. Apart from his burning face and chest and the ‘thank you’ screen still displayed on the tablet as evidence, Nick can’t be sure that the previous five minutes were anything more than a dream.
For fuck’s sake, Nicholas. Really?