In which Honeymaren meets a regular customer.
Garden
Honeymaren never works on Saturdays, so when Ryder crashes into her room at the crack of dawn begging just this once, Maren, please please please, I forgot to tell Yelana I have this thing today, she launches a pillow at his head and growls, "Laundry duty. Three months."
"Three—fine! Deal!" He clambers over her to shove open the curtains above her bed.
Honeymaren rubs her eyes and squints. "Please tell me you're not going to your first date dressed like Deadpool."
"Who said anything about a date? It's Comic-Con, baby! I am Deadpool."
Dragging herself out of bed, Honeymaren mutters, "If you dye my shirts orange one more time, you'll just be Dead."
Ryder doesn't hear her; he's going a hundred miles an hour gathering her work clothes and tossing them in her direction. "Okay, the only thing you have to remember is not to sell that sunburst I left on the second shelf in the backroom. It's a customer order."
"For a succulent? Did you tell them we always have a whole aisle of them?"
"Yeah, but this one is different. She comes in to buy the same plant every Saturday morning and they have to look identical. I'm serious: the first time, she came in with a freaking video of the plant from every angle and said she'd pay double if I could get her another one that looked just like it. So I keep an eye out every week and put aside the one that looks the closest."
"What—does she go around breaking the same person's plant every weekend?"
"Better. Get this: apparently, she gave her little sister a sunburst for her graduation or something and her sister, like, worships it. Except she keeps overwatering it and our sweet regular replaces it every week so her sister doesn't realise she's killed it at least twenty times over."
"How in Eden's green name do you kill a succulent every week? And why doesn't she just tell her sister the truth instead of throwing money down the drain?"
"Who knows? Maybe she enjoys spoiling her sister. Maybe they're both dorks. Maybe she's a millionaire and likes supporting small businesses—she's definitely nice enough to fit that bill. You know those fundraiser chocolates we have at the counter that no one ever touches? Just watch: she'll pick up two without you having to say a thing. Anyway, just don't sell that sunburst to anyone but her!"
"Alright, alright, I get it. What does she look like?"
"Oh, trust me—you'll know when she walks through the door."
Seven hours later, Honeymaren ambushes her whistling brother as soon as he ambles into the flower shop.
"Whoa, chill! I'll go upstairs and start the washing machine now. Wait, how are you still counting the till? It's way past—"
"That dorkily nice might-be-a-millionaire sunburst customer," she cuts in.
"Uh, you mean Elsa?"
"That's her name? Elsa? And she comes in every Saturday?"
"Yeah…?"
"Forget the laundry. Swap shifts with me."
A/N: I discovered a love for these dorky siblings while writing The Next Unknown. Don't ask where I got this dynamic from when we've seen literally 30secs of them together in the movie; they simply refused to stop squabbling from the very first scene I wrote with them. They are doubly fun in the modern setting haha.
Thank you for reading!