Daisy groaned as she shifted the cardboard box in her arms and looked at the dozens more piled in front of the store. There seemed to be a mountain of them. Like seriously, she'd be surprised if there wasn't a tiny flag waving at the top, claiming the peak for America.

"Mack, why didn't we get, like, professional people to do this?"

"Because they cost money, Daisy," he called from the back of the shop. Daisy paused against the doorway, leaning against the door with her hip to hold it open, and frowned.

"Hold up – does that mean you aren't paying me for this?" Daisy called back.

"I pay you for everything you do here already. It's called having a job."

"Yeah, but –" she began moving again, carrying the box past the front counter and into the back storeroom. "But you aren't paying me extra? Stocking isn't a part of my job."

Mack sighed and turned to look at her in the doorway, still holding a couple carnations he was trying to fit into a display bouquet.

"Everything I say is a part of your job is a part of your job, Daisy."
She narrowed her eyes at him.

"It shouldn't work like that."

"It does."

"It shouldn't."

"Tough," he told her, turning back to the arrangement. Daisy sighed in frustration, then turned and plopped the box of flowers on the counter, beginning to unpack them.

"Nope, sorry." Mack said offhandedly, not looking up from his task.

"What now?"

"You gotta bring the rest of 'em in before they get gross out in the sun."

Daisy made a noise of protest that was bigger than any single one she had made so far this morning, if that was even still possible. She turned on her heel and strode angrily towards the front again, barely registering which box she grabbed off the sidewalk.

It was very shortly after she picked up the box that she realized it had, in fact, been supporting many other boxes on top of it. She understood this a fraction of a second before they all came tumbling down on top of her.

"Shit," she said, lying on her back and buried under boxes and boxes of flowers. They'd be a big mess to clean up, not to mention the fact that all the flowers packed inside probably wouldn't have reacted well to being tossed about like that.

Daisy slid an arm behind her and propped herself up, poking a head out of the top of the boxes.

There was a man, a blond man with a ratty-looking backpack standing in front of the mess and looking apprehensive (although not unamused), as if he wanted to help but didn't quite know what to do.

She took a moment to register this, and then swung her other arm up and out of the box pile to hold it out to him.

"Can I have a hand?" she asked somewhat nervously, but while trying to sound cheerful and upbeat.

He had immediately turned to face her directly once she had began to speak, and now nodded and reached out to clasp her hand and pull her up. Boxes tumbled everywhere, and it was all she could do to stay on her feet, grabbing onto the man's arm with her other hand as well for extra support (she nearly pulled him down to the ground again with her in the process).

It was after everything settled, and everyone was standing straight up and steady again, that she realized she was still grasping tight to the man's arm. She dropped it quickly and stepped back, face slightly warmer than it had been a minute ago.

"So – um – are you okay?" he asked, in a voice much softer than Daisy was expecting.

"Oh, yeah.," she assured him. "You could say that hazards like these are – well – a part of the job."

"You work in a flower shop," he said, smiling slightly. "How many hazards do you come across in your day, exactly?" Daisy grinned.

"Okay, well I suppose you could say that hazards like these are a part of the job when it's me that's working."

"Fair enough," he said, making no attempt to hide his amusement. What was odd, however, was that the cheerful edge seemed to fade from his face the minute it got there. She creased her eyebrows slightly, but when she saw him looking confused, she simply nodded and then turned back to the mess below them.

"I guess I'd better – um – get started."

"Do you need a hand?" the man asked quietly, as if he was scared of the answer.

It was then that Daisy accepted the challenge to make this man as cheerful as she possibly could without pumping his lungs full of laughing gas.

She turned back to him, and then as slowly and obviously as she could, looked him up and down.

"I don't know, are you qualified to give me one?"

"Qualified how?" he asked, his voice again becoming slightly amused.

"Well, they're pretty heavy boxes."

"Aren't they filled with flowers?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Not the point, blondie. Do you think you're well equipped to help?"

"I'd say so, yes," he said, leaning over to pick up a box and then straightening up. Daisy made a "tsk-tsk" of disapproval.

"See, I didn't think so." Daisy made a gesture towards the box in his arms.

"What am I doing wrong?" he asked, genuinely confused.

Daisy leaned over and picked a box up off the ground before shifting it into her right arm and leaning down again to pick up another one. Before long, she had a pile of boxes on top of each other, towering in her arms in such a way that she doubted they'd even fit in the doorway, let alone her being able to even see past them to the doorway.

"In my shop," she began from behind the boxes, hoping that the blond guy was in the directions she was talking, "in my shop we don't just bring one box at a time."

"Oh, no?" he replied, taking the top three boxes off the top of her tower in order to see her.

"No. We take as many as can possibly fit in our arms, which is why I'm gonna need you to put those in your hands back. I gotta pull my own weight, and –" she looked at him and grinned, "– so do you, sir, if you intend to help at all."

"Are you basically just saying you bet you can carry more boxes at once than me?"

"Well, yeah."

"Challenge accepted."

He placed the three boxes back on her pile and she stepped back. She heard the boxes in front of her shift around.

"How many you got?" she asked.

"Umm..."

Daisy stepped forwards and realized that she had a lot more space around her feet. In fact, she couldn't find any boxes within her vicinity.

"Holy shit, how many do you have?"

"Let's just say I'm winning."

Daisy cracked a grin and then turned towards the door.

"Okay, let's go. Be careful, cause I've already dropped those once."

"Okay." They very slowly made their way through the door (Daisy had to squat to prevent the boxes from hitting the door frame, and from what she could hear, Lincoln had to get down on his knees and shuffle), heading to the back of the shop.

When they entered the back of the shop, Daisy heard Mack turn around and go, "What in the name of Jesus Christ are you doing?"

"Efficiency, Mack." Daisy said. The blond guy laughed behind her.

"Put them down on the counter and you both better pray you don't drop any of those. On that note, I don't think you work for me." Mack eyed the blond guy.

"That's correct, um – sir. I guess I'm what you might call a helping hand."

"Well, thanks. What exactly is your name?" Daisy, having put some of her boxes down, turned with a frown.

"Yeah, I don't think I actually caught your name yet."

"I'm Lincoln." he said, pushing a pile of boxes to the back of the counter and then unloading another couple.

"Again, thanks for the hand. I think Daisy and I've got this under control now, so we'll see you around, hmm?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure." Lincoln shifted the last of his boxes onto the counter, gave an awkward wave and then turned and left the storeroom. Daisy heard the bell tinkle as he closed the shop door.

They finished up in silence for a few minutes, unpacking the rest of the boxes (it turned out Lincoln had piled seemingly all the remaining boxes into his arms, so there weren't any left by the front to bring in).

"Hey," Daisy began, breaking the silence, "have you ever seen that guy before?"

"Who, Lincoln?"

"Yeah."

"Definitely. He lives upstairs."

Daisy stopped.

"He lives in the apartment above the shop?"

"Yeah. I'd seen him around lots, but he never came in so I hadn't ever talked to him before. Nice to put a name to the face, I guess."

"How come I've never seen him?"

"Not sure, maybe it has to do with your hours. He's usually not around during the day."

"Oh."

Mack stopped what he was doing and turned towards her.

"Speaking of your hours, I'm gonna need you to take the morning shifts for a while."

"Wha – you don't mean early morning, do you?"

"Yeah, sorry."

Daisy groaned.

"Well, I tend to see Lincoln a lot more in the mornings, so maybe he can come and do your job for you again," Mack said lightly, turning around to open the last of the boxes.

"He wasn't doing my job, Mack, he was being friendly. And helpful." Daisy said somewhat scathingly. Mack shrugged.

After a minute, though, Daisy couldn't help feeling slightly more upbeat regarding the morning shifts, given that it looked like she might occasionally have some decent company.

Lincoln strode into his apartment, still smiling slightly from the earlier encounter. It wasn't often he met someone with that much energy, that much humor in them. It really did do something to brighten up a day.

It couldn't last forever, though. He already could feel the leftover cheerfulness fading, the ever-growing sense of dread creeping back into his consciousness.

He dropped his backpack on the table with a thud and flopped down upside down on the couch, his head dangling near the floor. He closed his eyes and tried desperately to retain the last shreds of the banter he'd shared, the bright colours of the shop paired with laughter and music.

The phone rang.

Lincoln swore aloud and grudgingly climbed back off the couch, grabbing his cell from the counter a few feet away.

"It's Lincoln."

"Hey, buddy. Listen, I'm in a bit of trouble and it'd help me out a real lot if you could –" Lincoln's eyes narrowed and he began to breathe more quickly in anger.

"I'm not bailing you out again."

"It's not even that much, Linc."

"I don't care," Lincoln said icily before hanging up and slamming the phone back onto the counter and leaving his hand there, on top of it. He hung his head there for a minute, eyes shut and trying to block out the lump in his throat.

Part of him wished that the phone would ring again, just so he could say "piss off" again, only louder and angrier this time.

He lifted his head and coughed loudly, clearing the stinging sensation from his throat. With a shaking hand, Lincoln went to his back pocket and pulled out the folded piece of paper. Capital black letters screamed the words "Rent Notice" from the top of the paper.

Lincoln stared at those words for a second before grabbing it with his other hand and crumpling the paper up into a ball. He stepped out onto his balcony and looked out at the city, cloaked in night, before throwing the paper ball as hard as he could. His body twisted and then the momentum of his swing threw him forwards against his balcony railing. Lincoln pushed off again and strode inside quickly before flopping back down on the couch, this time right side up.

He sat there for what seemed like a very long time, staring blankly at the wall above the TV. Nothing had changed, nothing had gone away and there was still no magical solution.

The phone rang again, and Lincoln pressed his shaking fists to his eyes.

When he answered it, however, it wasn't in the fashion he'd imagined. He didn't yell, he didn't curse, he didn't even ask what had happened.

"On my way."

"Knew I could count on you, man," said the voice on the other end. Lincoln could detect a hint of triumph. He hated that, but it wouldn't change anything. Lincoln grabbed his jacket off the table where it lay askew beside his backpack, and walked out the door, not even bothering to lock it on his way out.

An hour later, Lincoln came back in the unlocked door, sat down on the couch, turned on the TV and tried not to think about how he'd just spent money he didn't have.