Chance to Bloom Read online

  And it wasn’t like he really had any prospects for settling down with a guy.

  Well, not really.

  The one guy he was interested in certainly wasn’t going to beat a path to Jack’s door… not with everything that currently stood between them.

  “Jack,” Brad elbowed him in the side. “Raise your glass, buddy. They’re talking about you.”

  Jack had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he hadn’t even heard Ben start to make a toast.

  “—a toast to old times, and thank God for keeping Jack safe all those years,” Ben was saying. “To good friends, and cold beer. To all the shit we’ve been through together and all the fun we’ve had. And to the next ten years being just as great.”

  “Cheers.” Jack raised his glass and nodded to his friends with a smile, then took another long drink.

  It wasn’t the first time Jack had wondered how his life might have been different if he’d come out to his dad and to his friends back in high school. Hawk Hawkins had had the balls to do it—despite all the whispers about how it would ruin his prospects at the NFL—and that had obviously worked out well for him. Hawk had always been the exception, though, in everything he did. But seeing Brad and Jamie not even trying to hide their love or their feelings really was a stark contrast to everything Jack had known—or had thought he’d known—about Bridgewater, about his old friends, even about his own dad.

  Maybe the world really had moved on. Maybe coming out wouldn’t be the scary, career-ending thing that he’d worried about for so long in the Marines. Don’t ask, don’t tell might not be the law anymore, but it was still a mindset, especially among the old guard. Jack had just assumed civilian life would be full of the same sorts of unspoken understandings.

  Maybe he was wrong, though. Maybe nobody gave a damn.

  It was all too much to take in at once. But for the first time in his life, the thought occurred to him that things didn’t have to be the way he’d always assumed. Being gay didn’t mean he had to stay closeted.

  Maybe the person who had been standing in his way and making him miserable for the past ten years hadn’t really been his dad, or the Marines, or the good ol’ boys he used to hang out with after school.

  Maybe the person who’d been holding him back for the past ten years was… himself.

  Chapter 11

  Ethan

  Ethan looked up from the reports he’d gathered just in time to see Frankie fish a piece of candy out of the little dish by the register and pop it into his mouth.

  “Did you even unwrap it first?”

  “Jesus,” Frankie jumped and shot Ethan a sheepish grin. “Do you have eyes in the back of your head or something? I thought I was being pretty sneaky that time.”

  Ethan laughed and rolled his eyes. Even on his best days, Frankie was about as subtle as a freight train.

  “What are you doing over there with all those papers, anyway?”

  Ethan gave a half-shrug as he glanced at the ever-growing stack of reports in front of him. It had been just over twenty-four hours since Jack had asked him to start gathering the shop’s financial information, and Ethan had already made his way through most of the items on Jack’s list, but damn, it was tedious.

  He’d finally moved from the office to the front desk to sort through everything, just for a change of scenery. Ethan had been sort of hoping that Frankie wouldn’t ask too many questions, though. It wasn’t a job Ethan particularly enjoyed doing, but he didn’t want to bitch about it too much. No sense in bringing Frankie’s mood down with talk of the impending sale.

  Still, he didn’t want to lie to his friend, either.

  “It’s, um, some reports and stuff that Jack asked me to get together.” Ethan nibbled at his lip, wondering how much he should say. “Sales numbers, expenses… stuff like that.”

  There. It wasn’t a lie, but it sort of glossed over the unpleasant parts, too. Good enough.

  “Do you know if he’s heard anything back from those corporate guys?” Frankie’s voice had dropped to a whisper, even though they were the only two people in the building. Jack had left to make a second trip to the bank—presumably to pick up the rest of the paperwork from his list—and had said he probably wouldn’t be back in the shop for the rest of the afternoon.

  Ethan understood why Frankie didn’t want to shout his questions from the rooftops, though. It felt like they shouldn’t be discussing the topic at all, much less while they were at work. It just felt… weird.

  But Frankie was still looking at him, eyebrows raised, waiting for a response, and Ethan knew from experience that the look he was giving meant he wouldn’t be put off for long, even if Ethan had been inclined to try.

  “I don’t know,” Ethan said. “I’m pretty sure Jack’s going to wait until after Valentine’s Day to do anything major, but… does it even matter? It’s just delaying the inevitable, right? Should I even care as much as I do?”

  They were all questions Ethan had asked before, both to himself and to Frankie, and Ethan knew verbatim what Frankie’s optimistic non-answer would be, even before he opened his mouth to speak.

  “I don’t think you could stop caring, even if you wanted to. And, you know, a lot can still happen in a month.”

  He knew Frankie had a point. It would just be more helpful if he could borrow a little bit of Frankie’s optimism—or even better, if Ethan could get some of his own optimism back. He used to actually share Frankie’s sunny disposition, but the stress he’d been under about his uncertain future had made him more nervous, more cautious, more pessimistic than he’d ever been before.

  Frankie had at least given him a glimmer of hope, though. Was there any hope that Jack might change his mind at the last minute? Ethan really didn’t know him well enough to say for sure what he was or wasn’t likely to do when it came right down to it.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Ethan said. “I wanna hope you’re right, that something amazing and wonderful might happen in the next month to change his mind. I just can’t really see what it might be.”

  “I don’t know what will happen, either,” Frankie confessed. “If I did, I’d be making a lot more money as a fortune teller than a flower delivery guy. But I try to have faith that people will usually do the right thing, at least until they prove me wrong.”

  “I want him to do the right thing,” Ethan said. “I really, really want that. I mean, maybe it helped that I pointed out to him what a disaster it would be to try and sell the place before Valentine’s Day… but right now I feel like that just bought a little more time. I guess it was a good sign that he was at least willing to listen, though.”

  Thinking back on the conversation, Ethan did have to admit that Jack had seemed a little different, had at least looked interested in the things Ethan had said.

  “That sounds like a good start,” Frankie said. “You can’t force him to do anything, but you can at least steer him in the right direction and hope for the best. It’s all either of us can do, really.”

  It all sounded so simple when Frankie laid it out like that, but was it really that easy?

  “So,” Ethan furrowed his brow as he tried to follow Frankie’s logic. “You’re basically saying that we both need to keep doing what we’ve been doing, and just hope that he changes his mind sometime in the next month?”

  “Look, it’s like this—you love this place and so do I, right?” He shot Ethan a look but didn’t wait for a reply. “So now we’ve got a month to show Jack how great it can be to work here. We’ve got a month to make him fall in love with this job the same way we did.”

  “How, though? How do I tell him not to worry about that big, fat check those corporate guys will give him? How do I make it seem like a worthwhile trade-off for him to stay here and fill his dad’s shoes, when that seems like the last thing he wants to do?”

  Frankie laughed. “God, do you ever see the glass as more than half-empty? Where’s the happy-go-lucky Ethan I used to know? Of course we don’t say it
like that… that doesn’t even make me wanna stay here. But honestly? Even though your delivery is a little off, the content is pretty accurate.”

  Ethan sat for a minute as he thought about Frankie’s words. It stung to hear his friend confirm that he was becoming a pessimist, especially since that wasn’t the way Ethan wanted to be. But it was hard to see the glass as anything but half-empty in that scenario, no matter which way Ethan looked at it.

  “It’s like this,” Frankie continued. “You and I don’t love working here because of the money, right? We love the work, sure, but it’s more about the people, the community, the connection we get from working here. You’d at least agree with that, right?”

  “Yeah, definitely. We could probably make more money just about anywhere else, really. I just like to know that I’ve made a difference in someone’s life, even if it’s something tiny, like the fact that some flowers I’ve arranged made them smile for a few minutes.”

  “Exactly,” Frankie grinned. “That’s what I’m talking about. And that’s what we have to show Jack. Now, thanks to you, we have an extra month to do it.”

  Ethan cocked his head to the side. Frankie was definitely onto something. After all, it wasn’t as if Ethan or Frankie could go to work for some other flower shop and automatically love it the same way. No, Beverly’s Blooms was unique. It was a special place, and if the two of them had fallen in love with it so easily, who was to say that Jack couldn’t, too?

  It was certainly more plausible than Ethan trying to buy the shop, and he’d given that a shot.

  “You know,” Ethan said, a wide grin spreading across his face. “I think you might be right.”

  Frankie shrugged. “I usually am. But I think it’s the best chance we’ve got for keeping this place as it is, without selling its soul to some stupid corporation.”

  If they could show Jack how nice—how much fun—it could be to work at the flower shop, they might have a chance. It was still a slim chance, to be fair, but Ethan believed that he got a lot more out of his job than just money because of his love of the work and the people.

  They just had to get Jack to see it, too.

  “Agreed.” Ethan took a deep breath and stood up, feeling as though a heavy weight had been at least partially lifted from his shoulders. “So, I guess we know what we need to do.”

  “We need to be happy.”

  “We need to be perfect.”

  Ethan gave a wry smile. “We need to make him fall in love.”

  Chapter 12

  Jack

  From the workbench in the back corner of the shop, Jack watched—half-amused and half-amazed—as Ethan guided the elderly lady around from corner to corner, from arrangement to beautiful arrangement. The pitiful bouquet Jack had been attempting to put together was momentarily forgotten as the scene unfolded in front of him.

  The customer might have looked frail and grandmotherly—maybe even great-grandmotherly—but Ethan’s back had immediately straightened and his jaw had set as soon as she’d walked through the door, giving Jack his first clue that this particular customer was a little less warm and fuzzy than she might have appeared.

  Her rapid-fire questions in lieu of a greeting confirmed what Jack had suspected. This old lady was as prickly as the little shelf of cacti behind the counter.

  “No,” the woman was saying to Ethan, the tight, white curls on her head shaking emphatically as she spoke. “I’m tired of tulips. They’re overdone, especially this time of year. Not that I didn’t like the ones you sent for me last time, of course. Keep going.” She pointed imperiously toward the hanging baskets in the corner—the same kind that Jack was hopelessly trying to mimic—and issued her next edict. “Show me some of those. There’s a spot by my garage that could use a good hanging basket. If you have one that’s decent.”

  Jack snorted, then quickly looked down as both her head and Ethan’s snapped in his direction. Jack tried to play it off as a cough, but didn’t dare glance back up until he heard Ethan’s soothing voice again, extolling the virtues of the hanging baskets they had on display.

  How could Ethan stay so patient, so serene, when the customer was being so aggressively… particular? It was definitely beyond anything Jack could have managed. He might have been trained for war, but he’d be the first to admit that he was no match for old Mrs… Lindstrom? Lincoln?

  Whatever Ethan had called her, she was way out of Jack’s customer-service comfort zone. Ethan, on the other hand, was handling her questions and demands and thinly veiled insults like a pro.

  “I think we’ve got a few that you might like, Mrs. Linley.” Ethan shot Jack a look as the corners of his lips twitched. Was that quick near-grin meant for Jack? “If not, Jack and I are going to make a couple more later today. We’d be happy to do a custom one for you, if you’d like.”

  She sniffed, and her eyes flicked back toward Jack for a moment, making him feel like a deer in headlights.

  “A custom one? Hm. Maybe.” She cocked her head to the side for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I think I’d like a custom arrangement. I might stop by again tomorrow and see what you’ve come up with, or…”

  “Or I’m sure Frankie would be more than happy to deliver it to you when it’s done.”

  She smiled, the first time Jack had seen even a hint of happiness. “You’re a mind reader, Ethan. I don’t know how you do it.”

  Ethan returned the smile and gave a little wink. “I do my best, Mrs. Linley. Was there anything else we could help you with today?”

  “Not a thing,” she said, already walking toward the door. “You’ve been a gem, as always. I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

  “Looking forward to it,” Ethan said, giving a little wave as she walked out.

  Only after she had been gone for nearly a minute did he turn around again to face Jack, slowly exhaling as he walked back across the shop to the workbench where Jack still hadn’t made much progress.

  “Sometimes she comes right back in,” Ethan explained, nodding back toward the door. “So I like to stay up there for a bit, just in case.”

  “I don’t know how you do it, either,” Jack said, grinning as he repeated the words Mrs. Linley had said a few moments before, although in a slightly different context. “I think I’d be tempted to lock the door when I saw her coming.”

  Ethan laughed. “She keeps us on our toes, that’s for sure. But I like to think of it as a challenge—sort of a game—to figure out what she really wants when she’s here, and she’s almost always thrilled with the end result. It’s definitely been more hits than misses over the years. I’m sure we’ll come up with something good for her this time.”

  Jack’s gaze flicked from the pathetic-looking arrangement in front of him to Ethan, then back again. “Um, I hope by we, you’re referring to you and Frankie, because… yeah, I think what I’m doing here would probably qualify as a miss.”

  Ethan grinned and nibbled on his lip for a second as he walked around the work table, looking at the arrangement from several different angles. “Well, it’s a start. It’s not like you’ve ever had to do anything like this before.” He hesitated for a moment, then gave a little shrug. “I can maybe give you some pointers, though… if you want.”

  That was exactly what Jack wanted. Not just because he wanted his arrangement to be good—he didn’t like to do things half-assed—but if he was going to be working in the shop for at least the next month, he also wanted to give it everything he had.

  Ethan and Frankie had been running things more smoothly than Jack could ever have done, but they were used to having a third pair of hands, and especially so close to a major holiday—the holiday, as Ethan had said. And even though Jack’s knowledge and capabilities with flowers was no comparison to what they were missing with Gary gone, Jack felt he owed it to them—and to himself—to follow through on his commitments and at least make a good-faith effort to help.

  At the moment, though, it was hard to see how anything he was doing there could be cl
assified as help.

  And if he was being honest, there was another reason Jack wanted to be in the shop more.

  Ethan.

  He was glad to be working with Ethan, together, on the same level. Jack wanted Ethan to see him as more than a boss, definitely more than the distant bad guy he’d been feeling like lately. And even though he wasn’t sure why, or exactly what he hoped to gain from the experience, when Ethan cocked his head to the side and looked at him with that bright smile and those sparkling eyes, it was difficult for Jack to think about anything else.

  Sure, he wanted Ethan’s help, but with every passing day, he was beginning to realize that he wanted more than that. At the very least, he hoped for Ethan’s friendship. But it was getting more and more difficult to look at him without wanting to reach out and pull him closer, to see if his skin was really as soft as it looked, or to run his fingers along that little spot at the base of his neck where his pulse fluttered. To see if his full, generous mouth tasted as sweet as it looked.

  Jack’s cock throbbed insistently at the thought, and it was only after Ethan nibbled on his lip again and raised an eyebrow that Jack belatedly realized he’d never replied to Ethan’s offer of help.

  “Yes, I want it,” Jack said, trying to ignore his cock as it throbbed again from under the table. “Any help you can give would be appreciated.”

  Ethan’s features smoothed back into an easy smile as he stepped closer to Jack, his bare arm brushing against Jack’s as he reached for the basket of flowers.

  Yep, just as soft as it looks.

  Jack felt a little frisson of excitement, an electric tingle rush through his body, and no matter how many times he told himself—especially his hands and his traitorous cock—that what they were doing was strictly business, it was impossible not to let his mind wander just a little with Ethan standing so close.