4

They both almost hadn't come that day.

She caught his gaze over the rows and piles of white tulips that spilled off of the tables and onto the floors. He smiled, big and real, no hesitation. She felt the edges of her lips flash upward for a brief moment, and then the heat of the blush rushing to her cheeks made her turn away.
Perhaps it was his eyes. The yes that was in them. She saw it in the fleeting moment they had connected. It was abrupt and raw and unmooring. She had even heard it in the blueness of them. Yes, they said. Yes, and yes, and yes. Again, and again, and again.
Those eyes. Gracious, those eyes were now etched into her bones. Those bluest blue eyes.
Her cheeks grew even rosier, deeper.

She wanted to crawl underneath the olive wood tables and die.

You brave fool, he thought when she caught him and turned away. He hadn't meant for her to have seen him. But she had. And his smile, he needed to remember to keep his smile in check. He knew it could very well take up half of his face if he let it.
The way her hair was knotted all loose and spilling around her chin though. It made it almost painful not to watch her. And the slightest gold that shone in it when she turned her back to the huge window, that was something else. Now he really couldn't tear himself away. She was whispering a thousand things to him. Be gold. Stay gold. Live gold. You are gold. I am gold. Kindness is gold. Life is gold. This day is absolutely gold. Gold, and gold, and golden. 
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his white apron and pressed against his thighs. How could a woman do this so easily to him?

He was the furthest thing from golden.

In an echoing studio full of natural sunlight and buckets of flowers and dozens of students waiting with impatient expectation to learn the art of floristry, those two acknowledged the presence of their kindred souls with red cheeks and nervous hands.
They fell in love underneath the dark-stained high beam ceilings in four point eight seconds precisely.

And in a certain act of desperation, he reached his hand across the olive wood table and offered it to her.

I'm Philip, he said.

She took his hand in her own.

Emma, she said.

And so, it was perfect.