"When you're black and white there's no use hiding in a field of colours," his umber eyes so solemn, "Anthony T. Hincks."
But when Cillian looked at Oliver, he couldn't help but disagree, because to Cillian, Oliver was all the colours o...
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III OLIVER ARRANGED the last of the thirty-six red Naomi roses into his bouquet and then took a brief moment to appreciate his work. This time the roses were a vibrant vermillion. Each satiny petal was perfectly rounded and healthy.
He bent a dainty wire around the stems of the bouquet and carefully wrapped a silk ribbon around the arrangement, effectively masking the wire underneath. He took extra caution in not accidentally knocking any of the petals—or worse, and God forbid, heads off of any of the flowers; which would have positively mortified Oliver. He tied the two ends of ribbon together into a neat, wide bow that acted as an anchor for the arrangement. He snapped a quick picture on his camera and emerged from the back room of Daley's Flowers, all thirty-six roses in hand.
"She must be one very special lady," Oliver mused, brandishing his beautiful bouquet with a smile. The man, who in Oliver's absence had taken to inspecting the display of purple orchids opposite the counter, turned with a soft chuckle. His hands returned to their places inside the pockets of his grey slacks.
"He certainly is," Oliver's customer replied, smiling fondly to himself, casually and confidently. Oliver halted slightly, an apology in his faltered smile. The man didn't seem to notice.
Oliver said he was sorry for keeping the man waiting, presenting his flower arrangement politely. "It was a pleasant wait," the man replied, retrieving his leather wallet from the back pocket of his slacks, "How much is that again? They're beautiful by the way." Oliver's heart squeezed at this and he shamed to wear, at such an offhanded compliment, a rueful dusting of pink upon his cheeks.
"Three dozen Classic Red Naomi Roses; that'll be eighty five pounds, please." The man extracted four twenty pound notes and a tenner.
"I've got to go," the man said, glancing again at his phone. "Keep the change." By the time Oliver had looked up from the cash register, the man was already halfway across the shop floor and making his way out the door.
Oliver was left once more to the green solitude of his little flower shop on the corner as his thoughts played Judas to him and wandered relentlessly back to the boy in black. Don't ask him why his brain worked in this way, like an old arthritic dog trying to lie down as it dragged itself in circles and more circles that always led back to the same tall boy; he wouldn't be able to give you a straight answer. Oliver placed his unruly mop of blonde hair in his hands. It was almost as if he was being haunted by Cillian—or should he say boy in black, because even calling him by his name felt a little too personal, too intimate. To learn his name at all was already a divine indulgence. Oliver left his position at the cashier and returned to his back room, his hands suddenly aching to touch a bouquet of baby's breath with lily of the incas.
LATER THAT DAY, Oliver had been finishing pre-cutting the wrapping paper to size for his arrangements in his storage room, humming along to a melody he couldn't quite place the name of, when he heard the familiar chime of a bell. Oliver's x-acto knife skipped the ruler's edge and ran up his finger. He yelped, all but throwing the offensive blade from his grasp. It clattered against his desk. Oliver scowled, pouting at the red blemish that was already forming. "Be there in a second!" he shouted, standing from his stool.
