Non Verbal

84

"You are a cold ass person Rowan."

My eyebrows lift, shock and slight panic settling in when she turns around to leave and I scramble up and dart around, my body slow still but my good arm catching her.

She pulls away from me harshly. "No."

I lift my arms in surrender, my head ducking to see her. "I didn't reply because I didn't want to make this worse."

"Not replying made it worse."

"I mean the messiness between us right now."

"I know what you meant." She snaps.

I can't help but let a small smile through. She watches it. Angrily. She looked nice. Her hair was down, straightish, like she just washed and dried it... Her freckles deeper in colour than ever.

"I would have replied to you eventually." I say, my arms lowering. "I was just trying to see how long I could resist."

"I want my plants." She mutters.

"I know you do."

Lottie searches my face, and she huffs, moving past me and through the shop, heading straight into the back.

I follow her with my eyes, the way her little t-shirt doesn't quite reach the top of her shorts and I turn my face away from the little slither of skin that is showing on her back.

Damn it.

I turn the open sigh around on the shop, locking the door so no one can come in and I follow her through to the other room. I cannot deal with any other customers for the moment whilst she's here. Plus, my mum said I can close early if business is slow.

It's been slow.

I promise.

I find her in the far corner of the workshop, the sun flooding through the windowpanes and highlighting the different shades of green, casting shadows of light across her. "Lottie, your plants are over here." I say.

She ignores me and continues to look at the other plants, the big ones, the ones I am trying to get around to repotting for mum because they too heavy for her.

But well I can't really lift much at the moment anyway.

I walk slowly down the aisle towards her. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing." She mumbles and turns around. Her arms again crossed defensively. "I am still upset with you."

"Why?"

"Because you ignored me."

"I was trying to respect the fact we agreed to-"

"We agreed to start tomorrow."

I smile at her, I know. I know that was one of our excuses.

"Alright, I am sorry. But I am at work."

She rolls her eyes. "You read it straight away."

"I said I was at work, not that I had self-control."

Her lips tug up and I smile more, happy that I managed to lessen the frown on her face.

She moves away from me, heading towards her plants and I just helplessly follow.

"Were you ok last night?" She says softly, her back still to me.

"Yeah." I offer. Admittedly I was miserable. But I was fine.

"No more tears?"

"Not many." I say, my lips tugging up again when her head turns to mine.

She reads me easily and returns my lazy smile, she reaches for her plants, which has a sticky label on in mum's handwriting saying Lottie. Her small, tired smile grows until she grins down at them. They were ok again, green. The rose bush had small buds developing. She touched the other one gently and she laughs.