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The Language of Flowers had always been something Est had been absolutely in love with since his grandmother taught it to him.
Est had never been loud, never been the kind of person who filled a room with noise. His sister Hannah did enough of that for the both of them, laughing and talking pulling everyone into her orbit while Est stood quietly at the edges with dirt under his fingernails and pollen on his sleeves.
He was quiet, a little removed from the world and for a long time, people had mistaken his quiet for sadness.He wasn't sad. He was simply saying everything through other means.
When his grandmother placed the dried violet in his hand and told him what it meant his whole life changed in a way that finally made sense.
Now ten years later Est was a twenty-five year old florist. The owner of the most beloved little shop called Haus of bloom at the end of a narrow lane.
It smelled of eucalyptus, rain and something warm that people could never quite name. He was not famous, exactly, but people knew him. People came from three towns over sometimes, just to let him put something together for them. He never asked too many questions. He just looked at them, quietly, for a long moment and his hands would begin to move.
However, Nut's request, on a grey Wednesday afternoon, was something else entirely.
"I don't understand, Nut."
Nut sighed, dragging both hands down his face. He and Est had grown up in the same neighborhood, attended the same schools and competed in the same terrible regional swimming competitions at age eleven where neither of them had won anything at all. They were friends, solid and uncomplicated. Nut and his younger brother William lived together in a flat above the old bookshop on the old Street, about seven minutes walk from Haus of bloom.
William had been that person. The younger brother who had decided, for reasons Est had never fully understood, that Est was endlessly interesting to tease. He said Est's name in a particular way that made the back of Est's neck go warm.
He had given Est the nickname "P'Est" their very first meeting. Which was grammatically correct for someone younger addressing someone older. Yes, but the way William said it, lazy and fond. Like it was the easiest thing in his mouth, had made Est want to walk in the opposite direction every time he saw him coming.
Est hated it. He had also, somewhere along the way, stopped being able to imagine being called anything else, which was a problem he had decided not to examine too closely.
"Alright P’Est. We're best friends, yes?"
"If that's what you want us to be," said Est, with a small shrug, which made Nut laugh. Est always genuinely forgot that Nut sought out his company of his own accord. It was simply one of those facts that never quite felt real.
"William is kind of." Nut paused. Searched for the word. "Sad. In that specific way he gets where he won't say so. He just sits there being extremely large and gloomy on my furniture. The person he likes apparently has no idea that William has feelings, which, I mean, fair, because William keeps them locked in a box somewhere, but still. He's been watching cooking competition reruns for three days and last night he made me eat soup he definitely did not put any love into."
Est put down his ears. "William isn't a child."
"P’Est, the last time I left him alone in this particular mood, he rearranged my entire bookshelf alphabetically and then denied doing it."
"Alright maybe he needs someone to keep an eye on him. I do not see what that has to do with this situation...."
"I have a date tonight. I cannot cancel." Nut pressed his palms together in a small plea. "Hong has been waiting for me to ask him for four months and I finally did. I cannot spend tonight on the couch watching William catastrophize. I need you to go sit with him."
Est stared at him.
"And I need flowers. For William. Also maybe for Hong too? He passed his board exams."
Est looked at Nut's face for a long moment. Nut had the particular expression of someone who was denying his most sincere face on purpose, which was almost worse than if he'd simply been shameless about it.
Est exhaled through his nose and reached for stems.
"For Hong," he said. "Cowslip, winning grace. White camellia, loveliness. Freesia, trust. Sweet pea, blissful pleasure."
"I love how you always tell me what they mean. I will immediately forget."
"Hong will ask me tomorrow. He always does."
Nut grinned. "And William?"
Est was quiet for a moment. His hands moved slowly over the flowers in front of him.
"Borage," he said. Moonflower and Daffodil. Gardenia, for luck." Est did not tell all the flowers meaning to Nu. Why? He doesn't know. He deliberately let him know just one.
Nut's mouth did something small and private and he nodded, handing over the money. "Take those to him at six? I'll text him you're coming."
Est shrugged. It was not a yes. It was also not a no.
"Thank you, P’Est!"
────୨ৎ────
When Est stood outside William's door at six in the evening with the bouquet under one arm, he felt profoundly and specifically awkward.
He was always there with Nut. The few times he had been here without Nut. It was because Hong and Nut had very unsubtly engineered a situation in which Est had no obvious way to leave. Which usually ended with Est and William in the same kitchen making tea without quite looking at each other. Also somehow talking for three hours.
Est knocked.
There was a pause. Then footsteps. Then the door opened, William was there in an old grey shirt and sweatpants. His hair not entirely done and he looked at Est for a long moment with those black eyes of his that had always been very difficult to interpret. Also very difficult to look away from.
William had black eyes. Genuinely, brownish black. The kind that absorbed light rather than reflecting it. Est had thought about this more times than he would ever admit to anyone including himself.
"P'Est," said William. There it was. That particular way he said it.
Est held out the bouquet.
William took it, looked down at it, then back at Est. "Nut," he said. Not as a question.
"He asked and I agreed." Est stepped inside when William moved back to make room, because standing on the doorstep was worse. The flat smelled like coffee ,rain and something faintly like the cedar soap William always used. Est knew this because he had noticed it multiple times and each time told himself firmly it was irrelevant.
"You didn't have to come," said William, setting the bouquet down on the kitchen counter while looking at it.
"I know."
"You could have just dropped those off."
"I know," said Est again.
William turned and looked at him. Something was moving behind those black eyes, some calculation or question and then he simply said, "Tell me what they mean."
Est stills.
"The flowers. Tell me what they mean. You always tell the meaning." William leaned against the counter. "P’Nut says you explain them to everyone. I've never actually been there when you do."
Est sat down at the kitchen table. "Borage," he said. "Courage. Moonflower is dreaming of love. Daffodil is for love that hasn't found its way back." He paused. "And gardenia is good luck." He told what he did not tell Nut.
William was quiet, looking at the bouquet. "P’Nut told you."
"That you were sad? Yes."
"I am not sad" William said but he sounded like a man who was feeling very sad.
"Alright" said Est.
This was not really an agreement or a disagreement. It was something to say. It seemed like the right thing to say to William. Because when Est said that Williams shoulders fell a bit.
He sat down across, from Est.
"Who is it?" Est asked.
William shook his head once. Not an evasion exactly. More like he was moving the question carefully to one side.
"You don't have to tell me," said Est.
"I know." William was quiet for a moment. "It's been a long time. That's the thing. It's not new. I've been sitting on it for long enough that I don't even know what I'd do differently, I just know I never said it and now I've been watching someone else try to get their attention for the last two months and I..."
He stopped.
Est felt something cold and specific move through him. "Someone else is pursuing this person."
"Trying to. And this person..." William rubbed his jaw. "They're not oblivious exactly. They just don't look for it. They're not in the habit of expecting to be wanted. So they don't see it when they are."
Est looked at the table.
"It is really frustrating " William said, his voice softer now "when you have been trying to say something for a time and you do not know if people are listening or if your words are just being ignored."
"Have you really tried?" Est asked. "To say what you want."
William looked at him.
"My goal is not to hurt you. I am asking because I truly want to know."
"I have." William paused. "I drive forty minutes when they mention something they need. I remember everything they say. Every offhand thing, every small preference, I remember it all. I thought that was saying something."
Est said nothing.
"Apparently that is not, in fact, saying something," said William, with a brief and self-deprecating tilt of his mouth that Est found very difficult to look at.
"Should we order food," said Est, because he needed to look at something that was not William's face. "I saw a new Korean place opened near the high street."
"I have soup," said William.
"Is it good soup."
"It's adequate soup."
"We're ordering food," said Est.
The food arrived and they sat down to eat at the kitchen table. The evening just of slipped away, from them you know, the way evenings can when you are not really thinking about it.
William talked more than Est expected, which was different from how William usually was in groups. Where he listened more than he spoke and watched more than he engaged. Here he was different. It feels easier.
He asked Est about the shop. About how he'd learned what to pair with what, how he knew what people needed before they said it.
"I watch how they hold themselves," said Est. "The things they say right before they stop talking. Usually what someone needs is sitting right at the edge of what they almost said."
William looked at him with those black eyes for a long time. "That's a strange gift to have."
"It's just paying attention."
"Most people don't."
Est shrugged. "Most people are too busy waiting for their turn to speak."
"You're not like that."
"I was never very good at talking," said Est simply.
"I know. I like it." William said it like it was nothing, like it was just a fact he was reporting and went back to his food.
Est stared at his plate and told his heart to behave.
────୨ৎ────
The week after that, Nut came into the shop on a Tuesday with a very specific look on his face.
"What?" said Est.
"Nothing," said Nut. "I'm just buying flowers."
"You don't buy flowers unless there's a reason."
"I can't just appreciate flowers?"
"Nut."
Nut leaned on the counter. "So Hong mentioned that this person named Finn has been coming by to see William at work a lot lately. Apparently he's very nice. Brings William coffee. Laughs very easily."
Est continued wrapping the stems in his hands. "That's nice for William."
"Hong thinks William is not particularly interested." Nut says leaning back.
"Hong should perhaps not speculate."
"Hong is almost always right, which is annoying." Nut watched Est's hands. "You wrapped those stems so tightly just now."
Est looked down. He had. He loosened his grip. "What kind of flowers do you want?"
"Something nice. Surprise me." Nut was quiet for a moment. "He asks about you, P’Est. William. When Hong and I see him, he always asks how you're doing."
"We're friendly. Of course he asks."
"P’Est."
"Nut."
"You've been in love with my brother since roughly the second year of university and I've been very patient about it."
Est set his shears down. He looked at Nut. Nut looked back at him with the calm, unblinking certainty of someone who has known something for a very long time and has simply been waiting for the right moment to say it out loud.
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Est.
"You do," said Nut, gently. "And this Finn person isn't going to wait forever. That's all I'm saying."
Est put together a very beautiful arrangement of pale yellow flowers for Nut and charged him full price and did not say another word about it.
He thought about it all night.
────୨ৎ────
The second time Est ended up at William's flat alone was not Nut's doing. That was the thing.
It was a Thursday. Est had closed the shop early because a pipe had burst somewhere adjacent and the whole lane smelled of wet concrete. He had walked home the long way, past old street. Because the long way was pleasant and not because William's building was in this street. Those two things were unrelated.
He had not intended to stop.
He stopped.
He stood outside the bookshop for about forty-five seconds and told himself he was being an idiot. Right then his phone buzzed, it was William, who had apparently seen him from the window, which was mortifying and the message said simply:
come up if you want. I made good soup this time.
Est went up.
The soup was, objectively, very good. Est told him so and William. He looked pleased in that particular way he had where he was trying not to look pleased and failing slightly.
They sat on the couch this time rather than the kitchen table. There was a book open face-down on the cushion beside William that Est recognized.
"You're reading that?"
"Yes," said William. "You mentioned it in September."
Est stared at him. "That was eight months ago."
"I know. I kept meaning to get to it." William picked it up, turned it over in his hands. "You were right. The first fifty pages are slow but it opens up."
Est didn't say anything. He was thinking about what William had said the week before.
I remember everything they say. Every offhand thing, every small preference.
He was thinking about the coffee. William had. On two separate occasions over the past year, produced for Est the exact brand of Thai iced coffee that Est had mentioned exactly once. That too in passing, as his favorite. He had thought William had simply asked Nut. He had not, at the time, considered the alternative.
"William," said Est.
"P'Est," said William, in that voice.
"The person you like." Est looked at his hands. "Is it someone I know?"
William was quiet for long enough that Est looked up.
Those black eyes were on him, very still, very direct.
"Yes," said William.
Est's heart did something unhelpful. "Does Nut know?"
"P’Nut has been conspicuously not asking about it for approximately two years. Which means yes, P’Nut knows and is choosing to let me make a mess of it myself." William set the book down. "He has more faith in me than is probably warranted."
"You're not making a mess of it."
"P'Est. I made you soup in the hope that you'd walk past my building."
Est went very still.
"I saw you from the window," said William. He said it plainly, the way he said most honest things, like facts he was simply reporting. "You walked past and slowed down and," He exhaled. "I sent the message before I could think about it too much."
"I didn't have to stop," said Est. His voice came out quieter than he intended.
"I know. But you did."
They sat with that for a moment.
Then William said, a little more carefully, "There's someone. At my office. Finn. He's been…"
"Nut mentioned," said Est.
"I'm not interested in Finn."
"Alright."
"I want to be clear about that."
"Alright," said Est again, his heart now doing a number of things he wished it would stop doing.
"But I also." William leaned forward, elbows on his knees and looked at the floor. "I've sat on this for long enough that I genuinely don't know how to say it without it sounding like either nothing at all or too much. And I don't want to say it wrong. You of all people deserve it said correctly."
Est looked at the side of William's face. The line of his jaw. The way he was holding himself very carefully, like something that was trying not to spill.
Est thought about borage. Means Courage.
He thought about daffodils. Something that hasn't come back to you yet.
He thought about Nut's voice in the shop. You've been in love with my brother since roughly the second year of university.
"I'm not going anywhere," said Est. "You don't have to say it tonight."
William looked at him. Something shifted in those black eyes, something that went soft at the edges.
"Okay," he said, very quietly.
"But you should probably say it soon," said Est. "Before I lose my nerve about my own version of it."
William stared at him.
Est looked back, steadily.
"P'Est," said William.
"Hmm?"
"Are you telling me…."
"I am telling you absolutely nothing. I am drinking your soup and going home and you can think about it." Est picked up his bowl. It was empty. This somewhat undermined the exit. He set it back down.
William made a sound that was either distress or the beginning of a laugh. And Est felt the corner of his own mouth trying to do something.
"This is," said William. "This is genuinely the most frustrating conversation I've ever had with a person I…"
"Goodnight," said Est, standing.
"P'Est---"
"Goodnight, William."
He left immediately. He walked home in the dark with his pulse in his ears. Felt like something bright and precarious sitting in the center of his chest. He told himself he was not smiling and was very clearly smiling.
────୨ৎ────
Three days later, Nut came into the shop again.
"Okay," he said, by way of greeting.
"Okay what?" said Est.
"William called me. He told me nothing specific but he said and I quote, 'I think P'Est is going to make me lose my mind' and then hung up." Nut sat on the stool by the counter. "I need to understand what's happening."
"Nothing is happening."
"P’Est."
"I may have." Est adjusted a vase. "Implied something. Without saying anything directly."
"Oh no."
"It's fine."
"P’Est, William has been direct about approximately four things in his entire adult life and subtlety is going to make him spiral." Nut pressed a hand over his eyes. "He's going to build a whole architecture of uncertainty and live inside it."
"He's a grown man."
"He made me soup once because he was sad and it tasted like warm nothing. Bland as hell. Do you want him making warm-nothing soup again?" Nut looked at him. "Just tell him. Whatever you implied, just say it with words. Flat and direct with absolutely no implication, Please."
Est looked at a bundle of anemones he was supposed to be trimming.
"He might not have meant what I thought he meant," said Est. "That night."
"I promise you," said Nut, with the exhausted patience of a man who has been watching two people do this for two years, "he meant it."
────୨ৎ────
It was a Saturday when Finn from William's office showed up at Haus of bloom.
Est did not know it was Finn until Finn mentioned William's name.
He was pleasant enough. Easy smile, quick to laugh, the kind of person who takes up space in a room without trying. He asked Est to put together something impressive and mentioned offhandedly that it was for a colleague he wanted to ask out.
"He's hard to read," said Finn cheerfully. "But I think the gesture might help."
Est assembled the bouquet with very steady hands. He picked out flowers he knew looked beautiful. He picked out yellow tulips, a declaration of love. He picked out red salvia, forever mine. He wrapped them precisely tied the ribbon and handed them over. Finn paid and left with a smile.
Est stood in the empty shop for a moment.
Then he picked up his phone and called Nut.
"William is sulking for some reason," said Nut, before Est had said anything.
"Finn from William's office showed up and I made the man a bouquet, Nut."
"Oh no."
"Yellow tulips. Red salvia. All flowers related to love"
"P’Est, I am coming over--"
"Don't come over. I'm fine." Est sat down on the stool. He was objectively, not entirely fine. There was something sitting in his chest that felt a great deal like the daffodil.
Unrequited.
Something that hasn't come back to you yet. "Perhaps I misread it."
"You didn't misread it. I've been watching him look at you for two years. He looks at you like." Nut paused, searching. "Like you're the only fixed point in the room."
"Nut."
"I mean it."
"He might say yes to Finn." There's a fear, an unknown emotion in Est’s voice.
"He won't."
"You don't know that." Est bit his lip while fidgeting.
"P’Est. I know my brother. He won't." Nut's voice was certain and quiet. "But you need to say something to him before you talk yourself out of it. Do it tonight. Please. I am asking you as your best friend and also as a person who is very tired."
Est looked at the empty spot on the counter where the tulips had been.
"Alright," he said.
────୨ৎ────
He texted William at seven.
Are you home?
Very simple.
William replied in under a minute.
Yes. Come up if you want. I have the good soup.
The soup again.This boy is obsessed with soup. Est sighed, shook his head and put on his jacket.
William opened the door and looked at Est. Something in his face immediately shifted. The same thing Est had seen on the couch three days ago, that softening at the edges.
"P'Est," he said.
"I made Finn a bouquet today," said Est, before he could stop himself.
William went very still.
"He came in. He didn't say who it was for at first. He said he wanted something impressive for a colleague." Est stepped inside because this conversation was too large for a doorway. "He mentioned you after I'd already started."
William closed the door. He was not looking at Est. He was looking at the middle distance, jaw tight, those black eyes dark and unreadable.
"Alright," he said, in a voice with no expression in it at all.
"I wanted you to know," said Est, "because I think you should have said something before I had to put together someone else's flowers for you."
Silence.
"William."
"I know," said William, very quietly. "I know. I've been." He stopped. Started again. "I had a speech. I had an actual rehearsed thing I was going to say. Every time I almost said it I thought about how if it went wrong you'd have to stop coming here," He turned and looked at Est properly with those black eyes were not unreadable at all at this point . Actually, they were extremely readable, they were saying one very clear thing. "I can't have that happen, P'Est. I can't."
"It's not going to go wrong," Est said calmly.
"You don't know--"
"William." Est crossed the room and stood directly in front of him. "I told you the other night that I had my own version of it. Did you think I was making conversation?"
William stared at him.
"I have been coming to your flat on the pretense of checking on you for Nut for three visits now," said Est. "The last one Nut didn't even ask me to make. I have been watching you read a book I mentioned in September and trying very hard not to do something about the fact that you remembered it." He held William's gaze. "I like you. It is not a new development. Nut is aware. Hong is aware. I believe the entire flower shop knows based on how I reacted when Finn walked out the door."
William's breath came out unsteady.
"So," said Est. "Say the thing. Please."
"P'Est," said William and his voice had gone very low and very soft. "It's you. It's been you for long enough that I don't actually remember when it started. And I should have said it before Finn or anyone else had the chance to and I'm sorry that I didn't."
Est grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him.
William made a surprised, soft sound against his mouth. Then his arms came around Est immediately, like they had simply been waiting for permission. Pulling him in close and kissing him back with the kind of thoroughness that only came from two years of not doing this.
He took his time. His lips brushed Est's upper lip first, gentle and deliberate. Learning the shape of it and Est's fingers tightened in his shirt. Then he shifted, capturing Est's lower lip between his own, pressing slow and warm until Est made a small helpless sound. William's grip on his waist pulled him closer.
It was warm and unhurried. William's hand came up to the back of Est's head and tilted him gently. Est made a small helpless sound into the kiss that he would not be thinking about later. William's other hand pressed flat against the small of Est's back that drew him in closer.
One hand sliding up Est's back and the other coming up to cup his jaw like Est was something he intended to be careful with. Est opened up to him and William's tongue swept warm into his mouth. Est forgot entirely what he had been planning to say next and decided it didn't matter.
They stayed like that for a long moment, breathing each other in, unhurried, William's thumb tracing the line of Est's jaw while he kissed him like there was absolutely nowhere else to be.
When they finally pulled apart, Est's hands were still twisted in William's shirt. He had no memory of when he had stopped thinking.
"You kept the tea name," said Est.
"It's on a sticky note in my desk drawer," said William and he sounded wrecked in a very restrained quiet way.
"You're an idiot," said Est fondly.
"I know," said William and kissed him again, slower this time. One hand curved around Est's jaw and Est leaned into it entirely. Because there was no longer any reason not to.
They ended up on the couch eventually. Est tucked under William's arm, William's chin resting on his head. Both of them quietly existing in the new shape of things.
"Finn," said William at some point.
"What about him."
"Did you put anything specific in that bouquet?"
Est was quiet for a moment. "Yellow tulips," he said. "Meaning Declaration of love. Red salvia means forever mine."
"P'Est."
"You weren't going to say anything, William."
"I was."
"You weren't."
"I had the soup."
"You always have the soup." Est shifted to look up at him. William looked down his black eyes were very warm. Est thought that he had been wrong all this time about them being unreadable. Because they were saying something very clear and had probably been saying it for a long time. "The soup is not a confession."
"I know. I know, P'Est." William pressed a kiss to his forehead. Certain in a gentle way. "I'm sorry it took me so long."
Est settled back under his arm. "You can make it up to me."
"The good soup."
"I want the good soup, yes." Both knowing they're not talking about the soup anymore.
William laughed, quiet and low and tightened his arm around Est's shoulders.
William got up once, briefly. He came back with a single stem of lily of the valley that he set in Est's lap without explanation before settling back down and pulling him close again.
Est looked at it. Of course he knows what it means. He's the flower guy afterall. Love and Devotion. He didn't move for a moment.
"William," he said.
"Mm," said William, already resettling his arm around Est's shoulders, chin returning to the top of his head.
"You looked this up?"
"I've known what it meant for a while," William said simply, in the voice he used when he was admitting something. He had been holding quietly for a long time.
Return of happiness. You've made my life complete.
Est closed his fingers around the stem. He was the person who knew every flower, who had spent fifteen years putting the right thing into other people's hands so they could say what they couldn't say themselves. He had never once expected to be on this end of it.
He didn't say anything. He just held it and stayed exactly where he was. Tucked under William's arm in the warm quiet of the flat.
It was, he thought, the first flower anyone had ever given him that he didn't need to explain.
────୨ৎ────
Nut came by the flat the next morning and found them at the kitchen table with coffee. Sitting close together in the particular way of people who have recently sorted out something that took too long to sort out.
He stood in the doorway. He looked at William then looked at Est. He looked back at William.
"Finally," he said.
"P’Nut," said William.
"I have been watching you two be ridiculous for two years. I am finally allowed to say it." Nut sat down and poured himself coffee from the pot without being invited.
"Also P’Est, Finn texted Hong. He said the flowers were beautiful but William very politely told him he was seeing someone, so."
Est looked at William.
William looked back at Est with those black brownish eyes and the small private half-smile he only seemed to use when he wasn't performing anything for anyone.
"Good," said Est.
"Good." agreed William.
Nut pointed between them. "I need you both to understand that I arranged this."
"You sent me to watch him because you had a date," said Est.
"A date I planned specifically to create the opportunity, P’Est. Please appreciate the architecture of it." Nut drank his coffee looking extraordinarily pleased. "Do I get free flowers?"
Est thought for a moment.
"Sweet pea," he said. "Gerbera, symbol of gratitude and Chrysanthemums"
Nut squinted. "What's Chrysanthemums?"
"Come to the shop and find out."
Nut looked at William. William was looking at Est with an expression so openly and helplessly fond that Nut immediately looked away, because it felt private and he had some decency.
He finished his coffee and left soon after, saying he needed to call Hong.
The flat was quiet again. Est was aware of William watching him.
"What would you give yourself," said William. "Right now."
Est turned. William was leaning back in his chair, arms loose, black eyes warm and attentive.
"Ambrosia," said Est. "Arbutus. Mallow."
"What's mallow?"
Est held his gaze. "Consumed, by love."
William was quiet for a moment.
Then he reached across the table and took Est's hand, smooth like he had been doing it for years. Fingers folding around Est's with the kind of certainty that didn't ask permission because he didn't need to.
"P'Est," he said.
"Hmm?"
"You should bring those flowers to the shop. Put them on the counter."
"Why?”
"Because," William said very simply, "they're yours now. You can stop saving them for other people."
Est looked at their hands on the table. Something in his chest had been rearranging itself since the night before. Settling into a new configuration, quieter and warmer than the old one.
He thought about snowdrop. Hope, after it arrives.
"Alright," said Est.
Outside on the roadside or in a small shop a small bunch of flowers was waiting to mean something entirely new.