‘Gawd blimey, he’s a big bugger, isn’t he?’ Ian exclaimed when Will walked into the shop with Blossom dragging all four heels behind him. He was all in Lycra and flushed of face, his thinning fair hair damp and flattened, which meant he’d must have already finished his daily ten-mile bike ride.
‘He’s a she and she’s not big, she’s big-boned,’ Will said defensively as his mother came out of the back area, her little domain, where she made up bouquets. ‘Hi, Mum, meet Blossom.’
Mary Bloom blinked her eyes like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. ‘Oh, Will, no!’ she said. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘I’m looking after her for a few days,’ Will said, glancing around at the flowers. They kept the more expensive blooms inside the shop, along with plants, several racks of cards, and a shelf of flower-centric gifts from scented candles to flower receptacles of every shape, colour and material. Amber glass vases shaped like owls, single flower phials made of enamel, pretty floral china jugs that his youngest sister Sage loved to hunt down in charity shops.
Talking of whom, Sage was always going to be an easier crowd than Mary, who was running her fingers through her wispy, pale blond hair and muttering about ‘turning up with a dog without a word of warning’.
‘Where’s Sage?’
‘She’s out on deliveries,’ Ian said, perched on the high-backed stool that had once been Bernie’s domain. ‘She’ll be back in a bit. Shall we get her to call you?’
‘I have to go out for a few hours and I need you to look after Blossom,’ Will said, trying to gently tug her forward, but Blossom sank down on her bottom with her head in its usual downcast position. He reached down to pat her but she shied away from his hand. She was one hell of a death knell to his ego, was Blossom. ‘She can just stay in the back. She won’t be any trouble. I mean, she doesn’t do anything.’ Not that Will blamed her. ‘She’s traumatised.’
‘In the back with me?’ Mary pulled an anguished face which was at odds with her usual cheery smile. ‘She might bite me. She might bite a customer! We’re not covered for that in our insurance.’
Ian gingerly lowered both feet to the stone-flagged floor (he must have done a lot of uphill cycling that morning) and crooked a finger at Blossom.
‘I wouldn’t bother, she’s not keen on men,’ Will said, as Blossom inched forward to greet Ian.
‘Well, he might be a big bugger but he’s a handsome bugger,’ Ian decided as Blossom plopped herself down again and placed a paw on Ian’s leg. ‘Better leave some treats for him.’
It was ridiculous. Will was thirty-nine. Like anyone just shy of forty, he’d experienced both triumphs and (mostly) disappointments of a romantic nature. He’d been rejected many, many times before, but none of these rejections had stung quite so fiercely as being constantly rejected by a small, underweight dog who, it turned out, didn’t mind men so much. She just minded it when the man was Will.
Even locking down the contract with the Shoreditch venue to provide flowers for a year’s worth of super-luxe, super-bougie weddings was small consolation. Back in the day, when Will had worked in the shop after school and on weekends, wedding flowers had consisted of bouquets, buttonholes, centrepieces for the reception and, if the budget stretched to it, garlanded church pews.
Now, the wedding and events side of the business had changed beyond all recognition. People wanted all manner of floral adornments for their weddings and fancy dos, from flower arches to cascading trails of greenery suspended from the ceiling of marquees and function rooms, and flower walls so their guests could pose for pictures in front of a backdrop of seasonal blooms. Two years ago, Will had invested some money into the business so that Rowan could transform two empty units in the mews behind the shop into a studio and take on a small dedicated team, which swelled in number when wedding season was upon them. William was proud of his younger sister and how she’d rejuvenated the ailing family business, but right now he had far more pressing things on his mind.
‘I know she’s been through a lot, but I’ve been unfailingly respectful of her boundaries and she wants nothing to do with me. Just two seconds with Ian, who thinks she’s a he, and she’s all over him,’ he complained to Rowan on their way back to the shop.
‘Are we talking about a dog or your latest girlfriend? It’s hard to keep track,’ Rowan said, nudging Will in the ribs as they walked out of the posh wine shop opposite Blooms’ with a couple of bottles of Prosecco so Rowan’s team could toast the good news.
‘You’re not even a little bit funny,’ Will sniffed, yanking Rowan back as she stepped out into the road and straight into the path of a 102 bus.
‘It can’t be a girlfriend because you haven’t dated anyone since you got back from New York,’ Rowan mused as she let Will guide her twenty metres to the zebra crossing. ‘I still don’t even understand how you ended up agreeing to foster a dog on behalf of a complete stranger.’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
Rowan shrugged. The afternoons were getting shorter and shorter; the streetlights were already on, their glow reflecting off Rowan’s pale blond hair. Her pretty, gentle features were at odds with her teasing smile and the mischievous twinkle in her eyes – Mo had always said that she looked like an Alpine milkmaid, and if she hadn’t been named after a flower, Mary should have called her Heidi.
‘It’s a bit of a left-field move for you, the whole dog thing. I can’t believe you’d even want a dog. Not after what happened with Muttley. I still think about that and cry sometimes,’ she said now in reply to Will’s slightly huffy question.
‘Yeah, me too,’ Will admitted with a sigh.
‘That’s why I think it’s odd that you’ve suddenly acquired a dog, not that you’re doing someone a favour. Which reminds me, can you come over and change a light bulb?’
‘Really? Really? Surely in the name of gender equality you should be changing your own light bulbs, or else getting Alex to do it for you.’
‘Oh, bless him, he gets vertigo just standing on a tube platform,’ Rowan said fondly of her husband. ‘And this is the light bulb on the landing. One false move with the ladder and it’s a plunge straight down a steep flight of stairs. But I can’t call out an electrician just to change a light bulb, and Ian would do it, but he helps out so much on the practical side – the other day he designed and built a four-poster bridal canopy – and he refuses to let me pay him.’
Ian used to own the hardware shop across the road from Blooms’ (it was how he and Mary had first met) and was the most hands-on person they knew. But he’d recently retired so he could ride his bike, mend his bike and talk about riding and mending his bike with his biking friends. When he wasn’t helping out in the florists and designing and building flower-supporting structures for his stepdaughter.
They’d safely got across the road without any mishaps. ‘I don’t know why it’s all right for me to risk breaking my neck,’ Will complained, although he knew he’d end up changing the light bulb. ‘I do have my own life, you know.’
The twinkle in Rowan’s eyes was replaced with something more serious. ‘Do you?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘I meant to ask, how did your final session with Roland go? Is that why you’ve suddenly acquired a dog? Is it a therapy dog?’