Flowershop Boys: Melancholy Marigolds: A Contemporary M/M Romance

  Emilia Loft

  Flowershop Boys: Melancholy Marigolds

  A Contemporary M/M Romance

  Copyright © 2020 by Emilia Loft

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  First edition

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  Contents

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  Also by Emilia Loft

  1

  Chapter 1

  Sunlight.

  Michael remembers it, golden, spilling through their round pothole of a window. Recalls the way it lights the dust motes floating in the air, when his mother sits him and his best friend Devin down in the kitchen, to give them their first budding plants each. Both pots of soil house a plant too young to have flowered fully yet, much like themselves.

  “What are these, mama?” Michael asks, fascinated by the bright golden petals arranged around broad, intricate centers. He touches his fingers to one of the petals, gentle.

  To his and his mother’s horror, Devin tries to flick the head of his flower off, murmuring the common children’s chant, “Mama had a baby and its head popped off.”

  “Devin,” his mother says, sounding scandalized. “That is not a dandelion.” When Devin springs back a safe distance, properly reprimanded, she laughs and pulls him in close again. “These are sunflowers, from my own garden out back. And now they’re yours.”

  She shows them how to water their flowering plants. How to check the soil to see that they haven’t drowned their flowers.

  Devin drowns his anyway, by accident; his theory is that overzealous watering will lead to overzealous growing, which proves otherwise at the test. Michael’s, on the other hand, flourishes wonderfully, from his careful watering and love.

  He talks to it quietly, like it’s a person, the way he’s seen his mother do. Sings to it when he’s sure Devin isn’t looking, and hums at it when Devin is. As a result, the sunflower unfurls into a bright, climbing thing, arcing toward the sun from its pot on the windowsill. Shoots up and up until it seems the very paragon of a sunflower, its leaves lush and green, like the ones emblazoned on their parents’ flower shop aprons.

  Michael’s always loved those aprons, home-crafted from soft, forest green cloth, each with a smiling sunflower embroidered across the front. Loves pressing his little fingers into each of the seven stars clustered around the sunflowers, before tracing the words beneath, the name of their parents’ shop: Starlight, Starbright.

  Eventually, Michael’s sunflower grows so tall that he has to lash it to a small pole to keep it upright.

  “Oh, Michael,” his mother says, surprised. “You’ve grown your own special jewel.”

  “What about you, mama? Are yours the ones in the garden?” Michael asks, as he climbs into her lap.

  She holds out her other arm, to beckon Devin over. Devin hesitates, before setting down his red fire truck and wiggling into her lap beside Michael, and she closes her arm around him, as if to let them both know they’ll always have a place with her. “I have them right here,” she says, smiling. “You are both my little jewels.” She ruffles their hair, fond. “Shining together.” After a thoughtful pause, she adds, “Do you know what else jewels do?”

  “Get stolen?” Devin quips. Michael giggles, soft; he knows Devin’s gotten that from all the superhero cartoons they’ve been watching.

  “When jewels of different kinds are set beside each other, they work together to shine all the brighter.”

  “Oh,” says Devin, very quiet. He takes Michael’s small hands in his, thoughtful. “I see.”

  Michael nods as if he understands this perfect pearl of wisdom, because Devin will explain anything he doesn’t understand later—and Devin does, like always, as they sway to and fro on their tree swing outside. The seat’s too small to fit them both side-by-side, so Devin folds Michael into his arms and lap, snug. Keeps him from falling off, as he shares the meaning of his mother’s words.

  That afternoon is the last, brightest, memory he has of his mother.

  What follows is a series of white-lit hospital halls, dim examination rooms and the sharp smell of antiseptic. A sense of otherness that’s all wrong. He hears about how his mother misses something called the Seaside. How her health withers in the City, as the doctors say. There are fancier words and more elaborate explanations, but all Michael knows is that she’s slipping further and further away each day.

  “Michael,” he remembers his mother whispering one evening, after she’s spoken to Devin and his father. She cradles his cheek, her palm dry and cool. “You have a real green thumb, just like me. Don’t waste your talent.” Her smile is bright, made all the lovelier still from the autumn light spilling in through the window. They’re at her new room at the hospice—her last room. She must be tired, because she sleeps for a long time after that.

  “Devin?” Michael asks later, when they’re on their way home. He doesn’t dare talk to his father, whose expression is dull and ashen. “What’s a green thumb?”

  Devin turns a watery smile upon him. “It’s what you have when you’re good at growing things.”

  “Oh,” says Michael. He holds his hands at eye level and inspects them carefully. “Mama says I have one, but my thumbs haven’t turned green yet.”

  Devin manages a choked laugh, even as tears stream down his face. “Oh, Michael.” He hugs Michael, hard. Holds his hand, too tight. They stay like that for the rest of the drive home,

  Devin’s fingers clenched around his, trembling.

  It’s only later, far from the presence of his father, that Devin explains what’s happened to his mother, because Michael won’t stop pestering him with When will his mama come home? And When will mama wake up? That, and there’s no one else to ask.

  “Remember how you tried to rescue my sunflower?” Devin says, after some thought. “The one I couldn’t make grow like yours did?”

  Michael frowns; he had carefully watered Devin’s too, talked to it for longer, and sung happy songs at it, to make it grow like his own had. Had placed them beside each other in the end, their terracotta pots squeezed together on the windowsill, hoping the influence of the healthy sunflower would rub off on the other. It had remained a wilted, droopy thing, a testament to Devin’s lack of expertise with growing plants. “Yes.”

  “Well, the doctors tried to help mama like you tried to help the flower, but no matter what they tried, it didn’t quite work.”

  “Oh,” says Michael, before his lip starts to tremble, because this analogy, more than anything, has just driven home what has happened to his mother, faster than the grown-up words his father flung at him, or the fancy phrases the doctors used. “Does that…does that mean mama isn’t waking up?”

  When Devin finally nods, Michael flings himself into Devin’s arms and sobs, because he’s finally realized that the hope he’s held to have their days of sunlight again is gone.

  That the darkness is here to stay.

  * * *

  “Do you know where the name of our flower shop comes from?” Devin had asked once, before his family was sundered by loss. They’re lying on a red-checkered picnic blanket on a small, sloping hill outside their house, a
rms folded over bellies and legs crossed as they gaze into the night sky.

  Michael purses his lips in thought, and wiggles his toes in the soft grass. “From the poem!” he says. “The one that goes Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight—”

  Devin huffs in the way he does when he’s trying to sound grown-up. “Yes, yes. But your mama also told me that she and your papa named the shop for the stars they used to watch at night. On this very hill.”

  “Oh.” Michael shuffles closer to Devin, cuddling into his side against the chill of the night air. Giggles as Devin throws an arm over him, lazy, to stop him from squirming. “I wish we could take the stars with us, when we go inside,” he says with a sigh.

  Devin says nothing, only hums and draws Michael closer.

  Later, after his mother passes, when it seems like their whole world has dimmed, and even the grandeur of the night sky is not enough to brighten it again, Devin brings the sky into their room. That’s how he came to live with Michael. He had already lost his parents long before and knew how to banish the darknes. He cannibalizes parts from a Glo-In-The-Dark Space Kit he received for Christmas in years past, adhering sticky-tacked stars to what parts of the ceiling he can by jumping on the bed and slapping them on.

  Devin manages a moon and several clusters of stars before the bed pops a spring and he slams into the bed face-first.

  Instead of crying, though, Devin looks up and grins through his split lip and bloody nose. “Now we can have the stars with us, even when we’re inside!” he announces.

  Michael plasters a Scooby-Doo band-aid to the scrape on Devin’s cheek. Touches his lips to the band-aid to kiss the hurt away, like Devin’s done for his skinned knees, and throws his arms around him’s waist, squeezing hard to show his thanks.

  In time, he’ll remember it as the first instance Devin would hang the moon and the stars for him.

  It won’t be the last.

  * * *

  Devin becomes a permanent fixture in Michael’s life after his mother’s passing, especially when his father starts spending longer and longer hours at Starlight, Starbright.

  Even when he is home, he slinks away to his study, emerging only to take the occasional meal. He has little to say to Michael besides words of reprimand, like Devin would’ve remembered to be quiet, coupled with judging stares that say Devin could have done better, more and faster.

  So Devin takes it upon himself to make breakfast and dinner for them. Packs them grape-jelly and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, cutting them into triangles the way Michael likes. Walks Michael to and from school, and makes sure to hug Michael when he cries for mama in his sleep, staying to let Michael curl into him in bed even after his tears have dried.

  He still humors Michael when he checks each morning to see if his thumbs have turned green; Michael believes that if his mother said he had green thumbs, surely he must develop them sometime.

  “They’ll come,” Devin reassures him, when Michael looks up at him, expression watery and forlorn at the sight of his small, pale hands. “In time.”

  It’s on the one night, when Devin finds him whimpering in his sleep and trembling beneath the covers, that he takes a bright green Mr. Sketch marker and colors Michael’s thumbs green. Then he pushes into the space behind Michael and envelopes him in his arms. Michael’s body moves of its own accord to make room for him, used to the long-familiar and comforting motion.

  When Michael wakes up, he’s excited beyond belief, smearing his inky hands all over him. “Look, Devin! I have real green thumbs now!” he exclaims, holding out his hands and showing off his thumbs like a badge of honor. They smell suspiciously like mint, but Michael decides that maybe that’s how new green thumbs are supposed to smell—minty fresh.

  And while most brothers five years the elder might say, “That’s stupid”, or “Get off me, squirt”,

  Devin beams and kisses him on the brow. Lets Michael snuggle into him. “That’s great,”

  Devin says softly, proud. “It means you’re officially real good at growing things now.”

  This discovery isn’t enough to dull the knife edge of pain from his mother’s loss, but Devin’s pride in him because of it stirs something in Michael’s heart. He’s never known life without Devin, and maybe—just maybe—this flushing of his cheeks, this rapid hammer of his heart against his ribcage, is an extension of the nameless feeling he’s harbored for him.

  He figures out Devin’s deception much later, but by then it’s too late; Michael’s already realized what that nameless feeling is. That he’s stupidly, hopelessly in love with him, and the trick with the felt marker only makes him more so.

  As stupidly in love as he is, though, Michael’s no fool, and he buries this new feeling deep and dark within himself. He can’t bear for Devin to stop his hugs and kisses and cuddles. Can’t bear for Devin to look at him with horror dawning in his eyes, as he says, I love you too, Michael.

  But not like that.

  * * *

  Everything changes in Michael’s world one afternoon; tilts it completely on its axis, on a day that’s grey and overcast but otherwise unremarkable.

  Michael’s waiting alone at the bus stop to go home, since Devin has some library project today and has to catch up with him later. He’s holding a little planter of flowers from his teacher, proud of the irises in it that he’s raised from seeds. He plans to give them to Devin when he gets home, as a surprise, because if anyone is the embodiment of hope, valor, and wisdom, it’s him.

  “Friggin’ pansy,” one of the kids waiting at the stop spits at Michael, jostling him by the shoulder on his way past. The boy and his ragtag cluster of friends are in the ninth grade, and Michael’s heard they’re the toughest kids in the school, running a small racketeering operation and filching kids’ money at lunchtime.

  It’s clear that their reputation precedes them, because Michael spots the other kids cringing away, with no one rising to his defense.

  The bullies surround Michael, kicking dirt at his shoes even as he backpedals and tries to hide behind a tree. Laugh, cruel, as Michael stumbles over its roots instead, barely managing to save the planter.

  “Bet you he plays with dolls and wears girls’ clothes at home,” another of the bullies snickers. “Should we check if he’s wearing them now?”

  “He doesn’t,” says a new voice. “And he isn’t. But even if he was, it wouldn’t matter.”

  Michael could cry in relief, because when he looks up, he sees him, taller and stronger than him in every way—then he remembers to be afraid, because Devin is still a year younger and a head shorter than these bullies, and there are three of them.

  The tallest of them, with a mop of red hair and a blaze of freckles across his face, steps forward, cracking his knuckles. “Yeah? Who’s this little wimpling to you?”

  “He’s my friend,” Devin growls in warning, herding Michael behind him. Michael can feel him bristling with anger from the fingers pressed into his shoulder, protective. “Don’t call him names.”

  “Or what?” Freckle-Face asks. His friends laugh with him, like some kind of twisted, synchronized choir. “You gonna throw little purple flowers at me?” He reaches around Devin, to smash the planter from Michael’s hands. It spills across the school’s perfectly manicured lawn, an explosion of soil and purple petals and upturned roots. “Oops.”

  For this, Michael does start to cry.

  Devin spares a moment to press a crumpled tissue to Michael’s face and dry his tears, before whirling suddenly and socking Freckle-Face in the jaw. The shocking crack of teeth and bone startles Michael right out of his misery, and even as the other two goons jump him, Devin holds his own, giving as good as he gets, until the three bullies run away with their clothes torn, their faces and jeans stained with grass and dirt the same.

  “You okay?” asks Devin, kneeling and folding Michael into his arms. When Michael nods, Devin presses a kiss to his brow, soft and warm and soothing. Michael has no visible hurt
s, but him’s kiss goes a long way toward healing the hurt in his heart.

  They’ve missed the bus by now, and have to walk a longer distance home, but Michael first gathers what’s left of the irises from the ground, and presses the twisted stems into Devin’s hand. “These were for you,” he says. “My teacher said they’re for valour. Bravery,” he explains, when Devin blinks at him.

  Devin laughs, and takes Michael’s hand as they start the trek home by foot. “Never change, Michael,” he says. “Never change.”

  Michael fishes out the crumpled tissue Devin gave him and tugs him’s hand to pull him closer, to wipe away the blood from Devin’s nose and mouth. Thinks to press a kiss to Devin’s cheek, but Devin turns just then, to say something, and his lips end up brushing against Devin’s.

  “Oh,” says Devin, quiet. “Michael, is this…? I mean, are you sure.” There’s no oscillation between This isn’t right or Brothers don’t do this, as if Devin’s just accepted this for what it is. Like maybe he’s been waiting for this moment too.

  Michael springs back, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. No, it was an accident, forget it, he means to say. “Of course I’m sure, don’t tell me I don’t know what’s in my heart,” he snaps instead, before realizing he’s reversed what he thought and meant to say.

  “Oh,” Devin says again. There’s the longest pause, in which Michael is terrified he’ll say some iteration of That’s gross or You’re too young to know what you want, but Devin just smiles and draws Michael into his arms again. “All right, then.”

  And when he kisses back, soft, hesitant, tasting of peppermint gum and copper, Michael thinks that maybe his love isn’t so hopeless after all.

  * * *

  “Tell me a bedtime story about something besides Paddington Bear,” Michael huffs that night, crossing his arms. “Or Huggly the Monster. You’ve read each book like ten times over.”

  “All right, all right,” Devin laughs. He nudges Michael aside in the bed, and Michael wiggles to the edge to make room for him. They’re starting to grow too big to fit in the same bed, and while he’d sit in Devin’s lap instead, they couldn’t look at the pictures together as comfortably. “I’ve got one tonight from the library.”