The morning passed in a blur, the kind that left Elias unsure whether he had actually lived through it or merely observed it from a distance. Meetings stacked against each other, voices blending into one long stream of noise he barely registered. The only thing that felt real was the faint scent of white tulips lingering in his office, subtle but persistent, like something refusing to be forgotten.
By noon, he’d stopped pretending he wasn’t distracted.
He stood near the window, watching the city move in its usual rhythm—cars threading through traffic, people rushing across crosswalks, the bay shimmering under a cold sun. His reflection looked back at him in the glass: composed, sharp, unreadable. The version of himself he presented to the world.
But beneath that surface, something shifted.
A quiet, persistent thought kept tugging at him.
He shouldn’t have gone for coffee with her.
He shouldn’t still be thinking about it.
He shouldn’t—
A knock on his door cut off the rest.
“Mr. Vance?” His assistant poked her head inside. “Your two o’clock is here.”
He nodded, but didn’t move. “Tell them I’ll be five minutes.”
She hesitated, surprised but professional enough not to question it. “Of course.”
When the door closed, Elias exhaled slowly. Five minutes. He wasn’t even sure what he needed the time for—only that the rush in his chest needed room to settle.
He turned away from the window and back toward his desk.
The tulips were still there.
Their stems leaned ever so slightly toward the light, as if reaching for something they couldn’t name. He didn’t touch them, but he stood there longer than he meant to, the silence around him thinning into something almost unfamiliar.
A presence, faint but warm.
He didn’t believe in signs.
He believed in logic, in structure, in things that stayed where he put them.
But the flowers were none of those things.
And neither was Clara.
He finally forced himself back to the door and stepped into the hallway, the polished floors reflecting a steadiness he didn’t feel. His footsteps echoed with a little too much clarity, as though the building itself sensed he was off rhythm.
On the way to the conference room, he caught sight of a smear of color—someone carrying a bouquet down the corridor, laughing with a coworker. He didn’t know why it made him think of her again, but it did. Soft edges. Warm tones. The quiet she carried with her like a second presence.
He pushed the thought away just as the conference room door came into view.
But then he stopped.
Not because of anything in front of him—
But because of the memory of her turning back in the café doorway, her smile small and knowing.
He wondered, for the first time in years,
what it meant when someone left a piece of their silence with you.
And why he couldn’t seem to close the door on it.
The meeting ran longer than expected.
Elias listened, contributed where necessary, signed documents, clarified projections, but none of it settled into his mind the way it normally did. Every now and then, his thoughts drifted—to white tulips leaning toward the light, to the warmth of a quiet café, to the way Clara had smiled at him like she already understood something he wasn’t ready to admit.
When the meeting finally ended, he stayed seated as the others filed out. The room felt hollow once it emptied, like silence had shape and weight. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, willing his mind to find its usual clean lines again.
But they refused to return.
A sharp knock broke the quiet.
“Sir?” His assistant stepped back inside. “There’s a delivery for you. Should I bring it in?”
He frowned. “A delivery?”
“Yes. From Wren & Bloom.”
His breath caught—barely, but enough for him to notice. “Bring it.”
She left and returned with a small box. Brown twine wrapped around soft paper, a familiar handwriting on the tag. He didn’t open it right away. Instead, he sat there, staring at the neat folds of the wrapping.
He wasn’t used to being… thought of.
When he finally pulled the twine loose, the paper fell away with a whisper. Inside was a single sprig of rosemary, tied with a thin ribbon, and a handwritten note.
*For your office.
Rosemary means remembrance—
but also clarity.*
*—C*
His fingers paused on the edge of the card.
Remembrance.
Clarity.
Two things he didn’t think belonged to him.
He exhaled slowly, the kind of breath that loosened something inside his chest. The sprig of rosemary felt oddly alive between his fingers, fragrant and sharp.
Why had she sent this?
What was she trying to say?
Before he could answer the question, his phone buzzed. A message from Julian Hart.
**— Need to discuss your statement for the upcoming board review. Important. Dinner?**
Elias stared at the message a long moment, the rosemary in his hand a quiet counterpoint to the cold professionalism of the notification.
Dinner with Julian made sense.
Logical.
Necessary.
But another thought slipped in, unwelcome and persistent:
Clara would be closing the shop around this hour.
He stood before he realized he had moved.
The decision wasn’t sharp or rational.
It was a door pushed open by instinct—
a pull he could no longer ignore.
Within minutes, he was in the elevator, the rosemary tucked carefully in his coat pocket. The descent felt longer than usual, the numbers ticking down in steady, unhurried light.
When the doors opened, the cold air hit him immediately. Evening had already settled over Evermere, the sky dimming to a shade between blue and silver. He started walking, each step faster than the last, driven by something he didn’t name.
He wasn’t sure what he would say when he saw her.
Or if seeing her was even the right choice.
But when he turned the corner and saw the warm glow of Wren & Bloom shining through its front window—
He knew one thing with startling clarity:
He was no longer pretending he didn’t care.
Comments (0)
See all