Page 1 of They Love Me Knot (Starsfalls Omegaverse #2)
Daphne
A s I struggle to breathe through the face full of flowers, I remind myself this is what I always wanted.
No, not the face full of flowers.
Well, maybe a little. They smell amazing.
What I meant was, I always wanted to work in a cute little florist shop.
One where the workers know the meaning of each flower, stem, herb, and even the occasional fruit and vegetable they use to create their bouquets and arrangements.
A shop that doesn’t just throw together a few roses and baby’s breath and call it a day.
Queen of Hearts Florist (with the face-hugging flowers) is that shop.
The owner knows everything there is to know about plants, and she can produce any style of bouquet or arrangement, from the classic dozen roses (which are beautiful, I have no animosity toward the classics) to wild sprays of greenery and fruit and flowers going every which way.
She can also tell you what each individual stem and grouping means, from asters for sentimental remembrance to zinnias for everlasting friendship .
Now I’m here, learning from the best after years of working in shops where no one cared about the florals as much as I did, and I’m not as happy as I should be .
“Tuck the white crocuses here and then bring over the pink peonies,” Anicka says.
“Of course,” I say, quickly but carefully arranging the flowers and hurrying to get the others.
We’re working fast to put these arrangements together for a big order, a last-minute bonding ceremony for a pack that decided they just had to do it this weekend.
Anicka wasn’t fazed by the order, smoothly transitioning into telling the omega what style of florals we could have ready for this weekend.
If I had been the one to take that call, I don’t think I could have rattled off as many options as she did, despite having worked in florist shops for almost ten years.
That’s nothing compared to Anicka’s almost half a century of experience.
If I didn’t know better, I would almost think she’s been doing this for centuries. With her sharp eyes and long, iron-gray hair, Anicka reminds me of a wise witch who lives in the forest making potions from her plants.
I’m not sure if it’s offensive to describe your boss as a witch, but I mean it in the best way possible.
Who wouldn’t want to live free in the woods, doing what you want, eating what you grow or catch, and trading your potions and brews with the townspeople for anything else.
Despite my admiring description, I don’t plan to tell Anicka that’s how I think of her.
She’s a helpful but formidable woman, and I don’t want to be on her bad side (she scares me a little).
I add the peonies to the centerpieces and adjust the stems to vary the heights. While I work alongside Anicka and Poppy, the part-time florist, my thoughts stray again to why I’m not happier at my dream job.
Surely it can’t be the store itself. It’s the best florist I’ve ever seen, from the quality of the plants to the high standards of customer service.
Most of our flowers and greenery are purchased from local farms, importing just a few specialty stems. I always wanted to work somewhere that cared about supporting local farmers.
Anicka is an amazing boss and I’m learning a lot from her, and Poppy is nice too.
Good products, good coworkers, and innovative florals are everything I ever wanted.
No more chain store florists who hardly know the names of the flowers and don’t care about creating the best bouquets possible for their customers.
Not to mention it’s the cutest little shop on Main Street, with a dark green wooden exterior and large windows. It has two bay windows we style every week, so it always looks like the shop is bursting with flowers and plants.
It’s not Queen of Hearts’ fault then.
The only other big change in my life has been moving to Starsfalls.
I’ve lived here for six months now, and I think I’ve settled nicely into small-town life.
I used to live in one of the biggest cities in the country, but it’s not like I need the city life.
I don’t think I’m missing that at all. I love walking around this small town, browsing the boutiques and sampling the coffee shops and eateries.
It’s nice to have things within walking distance if you don’t feel like driving.
I even walk to work most days, since I’m renting a little townhouse just a few streets over.
You could walk around downtown in the city, but cars were definitely required for most things.
Everyone in Starsfalls is so nice, and not too nosy or in your business.
There is some gossiping, but it’s nothing malicious, mostly talk about what events are happening and the associated drama (like The Great Chocolate Shortage just before the biggest romantic holiday of the year) or who’s dating who, and didn’t he used to date her sister? ?
Dating.
A shudder wracks my body, icy fingers of horror tickling my spine.
I’ll never date again. Even if I wanted to swim in the dating waters, how would I do it?
Get on one of those dating apps where people ask for nudes before even saying “hello” or “how are you,” or go to a bar and take home some random person?
And then what’s the best outcome? I get into another relationship that drags on for years, the alphas claiming to care about you and love you…
until they find someone better. Then they say they never really meant anything they said, and why would I believe they did?
Just because they told me they loved me and wanted to spend their lives with me doesn’t mean that was the truth.
It was obviously my fault for believing them. How foolish of me.
We weren’t bonded or anything, but I told them I wanted to get more established in my career before settling down. They agreed to wait, which I thought meant they cared about me and my goals. Now I know it’s because they didn’t love me, or even respect me.
After that six-year relationship, I’m not interested in dipping my toes in the relationship pool ever again, much less diving in.
I can’t trust alphas now, or anyone really.
Who’s to say those alphas (or betas) won’t stick around just until they find someone better too, a younger omega with a better fake laugh (I know her laugh was fake, because their jokes aren’t that funny.) It’s not her fault they dumped me, but it’s still irritating to be replaced so quickly.
I feel bad for her, really (mostly), and hope she’s a faster learner than I am .
They’re not worth all the fake laughing she’ll have to do. I would have told her not to waste her time with my ex-pack, but she didn’t ask me, and I didn’t want to seem like the pathetic ex warning her away, so I left her to make her own choices.
Mentally complaining about my exes doesn’t make me feel better.
Sure, they treated me badly when we broke up, but I really loved them before that.
I loved their bad jokes because they came from my alphas, and their “too busy with work to see you” schedules were fine because it made me appreciate the time I got to spend with them even more.
We were still discovering new things about each other, like they recently learned that I don’t like baked potatoes, only fried or mashed or boiled.
There was so much more to learn about each other, which meant we were never bored when they had time for me.
The more I think about it, maybe our good times weren’t that good either.
I know I’d told them plenty of times that I didn’t like baked potatoes, but they still took me out to baked potato buffets at least once a month (and why did our city have so many restaurants specializing in baked potatoes anyway?
?). They also expected me to laugh at their jokes every time, and would wait for me to giggle, staring me down until I did.
And now I’m wondering if their “too busy at work” schedules may have actually been “too busy banging anyone but you.”
Even realizing they weren’t the alphas I thought they were doesn’t comfort me. My insides are still just as twisted up and wrung out as they have been for the past seven months.
At least landing this job at Queen of Hearts let me move far, far away and start fresh in a cozy town.
Now, if my brain and heart would just get the memo that we’ve moved on, I could finally start enjoying the happily single forever, pack-free life in Starsfalls.
“Daphne, do you want to arrange the florals at the ceremony with Poppy tomorrow? You don’t need me there to direct it, but I can be there if you want the backup,” Anicka says, interrupting my self-reflection.
I blink, running through what she said to make sure she said what I thought she said.
“I can handle it with Poppy, the two of us can get everything done,” I say.
Anicka already trusts me to handle big jobs on my own!
Well, this isn’t a huge job, but there are at least a van load of flowers for the bonding, and that’s a sizeable amount to set up.
I haven’t even been here a year, and she already recognizes that I can run events on my own. Well, Poppy will be there too.
But still.
Being in charge of the flowers for the bonding ceremony finally perks me up, and I feel more positive than I have in a while.
I can’t wait to weave the flowers into the arch, arrange the centerpieces on the tables, and deliver the bouquets and boutonnieres to the appreciative gasps of the bonding party.
Maybe whatever part of me is being a downer is starting to realize life is good now.
Great job, great house, great town, and no deadweight alphas holding me back.
I have everything I need.