Archive of Our Own

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“Code carnation! I repeat, code carnation!”

Rumi jolts. The pruning shears slip from her once careful hold, bouncing off the toe of her shoe—ow—before clattering to the ground, accompanied by the jingle of the shop’s entrance bell to create a clangorous harmony. She whirls around to the frantic face of her wife and her even more frantically waving arms.

It takes a second for Zoey’s words to process. Once Rumi flips through her vast mental log of their many, many codes, her focus locks on Zoey as a delayed alarm starts blaring in her brain.

“Wait, really?” Rumi asks, eyes wide. “Like actually?”

Zoey does a remarkable impression of a giant, flightless bird desperately flapping its non-aerodynamic wings. “Yes! This is not a drill!”

Code carnation: competition within a ten block radius that poses potential financial duress on their business.

(Not to be confused with code chrysanthemum: an available plot in the local community garden. They’ve been on that waitlist for years. She’s long since lost hope.)

As a calm offset to Zoey’s teetering mania, Rumi takes slow, measured steps towards her then reaches out to gently guide Zoey’s arms back down to her sides.

“Okay,” Rumi starts, taking long, deep breaths to persuade Zoey into doing the same, “so it’s not a drill. It’s not the end of the world either.”

Zoey huffs. “Well it’s certainly not good!”

This time when Zoey inhales—so harshly that it almost sounds like a wheeze—Rumi knows what’s coming next. 

“A new shop means less customers and less customers means less money and I don’t know if you’ve noticed babe,” Zoey pauses long enough to let a hint of hysterical laughter out, “but we kinda live in a capitalist hellscape and as much as I try to trick myself into believing we don’t, it really doesn’t work all that well when the bills start piling up and our water bill alone is just—”

“Zoey.” Rumi rubs her hands up and down the soft skin of Zoey’s arms to encourage her into some calming breaths. She mostly ends up gulping air into her lungs but Rumi is still going to take it as a win. “Breathe. We’re going to be just fine. The bills are fine.”

“But—but—” The huffy little whine Zoey lets out is as hopelessly endearing to Rumi as it has been for years. “What if all our regulars leave us for this fancy new place?”

“You don’t need to worry about the money.”

“I’m not. I’m just… what if they like the people there better than us? What if we could’ve been better?”

Ah. She understands the problem now.

“Mr. Cho comes in every Wednesday for his wife’s weekly bouquet and if he stops telling me stories about their crazy dogs, I’ll cry. I’ll cry, Rumi!” She grips Rumi by the shoulders to shake her back and forth. “And that dentist down the street fills his waiting room with our stuff and the local theater always comes to us for arrangements for their plays and—”

“Baby,” Rumi calmly cuts in again. Zoey ceases her shaking, instead sliding her palms down and around Rumi’s back, pouting up at her with those big, brown eyes that have had Rumi like putty in her hands for years. She internally acknowledges the adorableness of this little freakout first before squashing her wife’s worries. “Let me start by saying that you are an absolute delight, okay? If we start losing customers, it won’t be because of you, it’ll be because the quality of our crop drops dramatically.”

Zoey gasps. “Never!”

“Then we have nothing to worry about.” Her arms come up to reciprocate Zoey’s hug, fingertips skating along her spine in a gentle, soothing glide. “Because we’ve got something that new shop will never have, and that’s your top tier hospitality.”

That does the trick. Zoey burrows into her shoulder, grumbling unintelligible noises into Rumi’s work shirt that she deciphers as weak protest. Good that she knows better than to put any of that protest into words, because Rumi will never let Zoey talk herself into believing she’s anything other than the most amazing person Rumi has ever been lucky enough to know.

Finally something more coherent comes out of her mouth, though nothing Rumi has to worry about. Zoey lets out a petulant breath against her and says, “I could do without those book club ladies who only come in to ogle you and buy seeds I know they’re not using.”

Rumi chuckles. “They buy the occasional bouquet.”

“Yeah, the cheapest one,” Zoey grumbles.

Rumi says nothing back, content to simply hold her wife in the quiet sanctuary of their shop. The years of hard work and dedication and love they’ve instilled into this place like another pair of arms around their embrace.

“Alright,” Rumi says, “what do we need to do to make you feel better about all this?”

Zoey pops back up like those were the magic words she’d been waiting to hear. There’s a smear of soil on her cheek from Rumi’s shirt, the light mark a delicate highlight to her sunny smile. Rumi wipes the dirt away with a fond stroke of her thumb.

“Recon!” Zoey says. She pulls away to make a rush for the doorway, calling over her shoulder, “Grab your coat and lets go!”

“Wait, right now? But we’re open!”

“And now we’re closed for lunch! Come on, chuck that apron and get a move on!”

And then she’s gone. Rumi is left alone in the shop, Zoey’s swift exit kicking up a breeze underneath the flowers nearest to the door and making them sway gently, leaves tittering in her wake like they’re just as amused as Rumi.

-

It’s not until they’re standing outside the doors of their new competitors that Rumi realizes Zoey wasn’t kidding. This place is fancy.

“It’s so over for us, babe,” Zoey bemoans, slouching dramatically into Rumi’s side. “We’re gonna go bankrupt and get bought out by Big Flower.”

Rumi snorts. “Why would they buy us out if we’re bankrupt? Why not just wait until we’re destitute and then lowball us?”

“I was trying very hard not to think about possible destitution, thank you very much.” Zoey huffs and glares up at the shiny new sign boasting in bold cursive: Jung Florals.

There is a certain level of opulence to the exterior of the shop that Rumi assumes will match the interior, but she’s never heard of this store’s name before today. She doubts they’re on the track to getting bought out by a chain anytime soon, something she calmly explains to her worrywart wife peeking through the display window. Who ignores her, of course.

“This place is huge! Oh my god, they have those expensive candies you won’t let us stock.”

“They’re not as good as the cheaper ones.”

“They’re not supposed to be good! They’re supposed to drain the wallets of loser boyfriends who don’t know how to use a calendar!”

Rumi rolls her eyes and digresses. “Alright, lets see what all the fuss is about.”

When they step inside she’s hit with the familiar scent of blooming petals and supple soil. They’re greeted by the bell above the door and then a voice from the backroom shouting that they’ll be with them in a moment.

Rumi leans into Zoey’s ear to whisper, “You would never greet a customer from the other room. We’re already winning.”

Zoey swats her arm and whispers back, “It’s not a game!” A beat, then she adds, “But yeah we’re totally winning so far.”

Rumi chuckles and takes a look around the store while they wait for this mystery person.

It’s bigger than theirs, that’s for sure. Shelves lining the walls and filling space in the middle of the room, stocked with potted plants of varying sizes and, yes, the expensive candy. Whatever.

There’s a whole section dedicated to single flowers sorted by type and color. More variety than the two buckets of loose tulips and roses they offer, but their focus isn’t on arrangements as much as singular potted options anyways—as much as she wishes otherwise, but that’s a goal of theirs for the future. She’s not jealous.

Zoey nudges her and points. “They have a greenhouse in the back. Lucky bastards.”

Okay, now she’s jealous. Of course these new owners are living Rumi’s dream of an in-shop greenhouse. Not that she isn’t grateful for the rooftop setup above their apartment that houses a small crop of vegetables and flowers, but it would be nice to not have to deal with thieving birds and uncooperative weather as often as they do.

They may have some actual competition now, but she meant what she told Zoey earlier. They don’t need to worry about the money.

The backroom door finally swings open—

“Holy shit,” Zoey breathes out.

—and all Rumi sees is pink.

(They don’t need to worry about the money. But they might need to worry about something else.)

Pink like summer hydrangeas; vibrant flowerets bunched and bountiful. Pink like a sea of muhly flooding a field; dreamy as the strands sway, as they flow like currents. Pink like hibiscus syriacus, like the heart of mugunghwa.

“Sorry about the wait,” the heart says, “I’m still getting settled around here.”

Very few times in her life has Rumi been left speechless, and for that reason she remembers each occurrence quite well—the most recent being two years and four months ago, when Zoey ripped the blindfold off of her face to reveal their new storefront in all its fixer upper glory—and how she tends to have to claw her way back out of being bereft of words.

Which is why the only sound that rings out in the room is that of a box being set on the counter by this person, and then silence. She can usually count on Zoey to pick up the slack in that department, but one glance at her wife and it’s obvious that she’s similarly afflicted. Great minds think alike, she supposes.

When neither of them say anything, their new arrival clears her throat and asks, “Can I help you?”

The sound of her voice again shakes a few more screws loose—and tightens some others—soothing like jasmine tea, thick with honey and steeping in Rumi’s ears. It makes it very difficult to climb out of her own barren throat where words have apparently gone to shrivel up and die.

Her amazing, lovely, lifesaving wife finally comes to the rescue. Thank god.

“Yes!” Zoey says, more frantic than is probably necessary. “We need help. We’re in desperate need of help. Please help us.”

The stranger’s brow furrows with concern. “Are you two okay?” She peeks out the front window to the street, then asks, “Is someone following you or something?“

“No!” Zoey corrects, waving her hands. “No one is following us—I mean, not that I know of.” She checks over her shoulder quickly, then turns back with a wide smile. “We just saw that there was a new floral shop in the area and wanted to check it out!”

Check it out, take notes, and possibly sabotage, Zoey had said on the walk over. Rumi would make fun of her for changing her tune so quickly if she didn’t also completely understand the reason why.

“Uh, okay,” says the gorgeous reason, blinking at them confusedly. “Well… thank you for stopping by. We look forward to your future patronage.” She gives them both a polite nod.

She has yet to smile at them. Which kind of kills Rumi on the inside a little bit while also needling at the part of her that insists upon a certain level of customer service for any business owner to live by.

“Totally. We have money. For patronage,” Zoey says. “And stuff.”

“… Right.”

A sharp elbow digs into Rumi’s side. The pain brings her back into her body. As does Zoey’s desperate whisper of, Help me.

“I’m Rumi,” blurts out of her mouth, definitely too loud for the amount of space between them, but she powers through. “This is Zoey. And you are…?”

“Oh, right.” She shakes her head like an admonishment. It makes those vibrant, pink strands sway back and forth in neat waves. “Sorry, I’m still adjusting to the people side of things, Abby says my customer service is atrocious.”

Then—

“I’m Mira.”

Mira. Mi-ra. Meeer-ruhh.

Rumi’s lips wrap around the name slowly, testing it out in silence long enough to probably make things awkward again.

“Um,” she replies dumbly, then adds even dumber, “I’m Rumi.”

Finally, finally—Mira smiles at them. A subtle quirk of her lips that puts a flush in Rumi’s cheeks, especially when combined with her teasing response.

“I know,” Mira says, low and amused. She nods to the left of Rumi. “And that’s Zoey.”

Zoey giggles, giddy and goofy, just like she does when Rumi pushes her up against the counter and reaches for her zipper after closing time.

Her wife’s smile tilts shyly. “Mira is a pretty name. It’s fitting.”

Rumi is nodding her agreement without much thought. Pretty name, pretty voice, pretty girl. Good god, why is she here instead of on the cover of a magazine or something—

“Are you sure you’re in the right field?” Zoey asks, unprompted and unashamed and reading Rumi’s mind like always. “Have you perhaps considered being a model—no, a supermodel? And walking literally every runway that has ever existed?”

Rumi’s neck almost snaps from how quickly she whips her wide eyes over to her wife. Not because she doesn’t agree. She agrees wholeheartedly. But because it’s one thing to switch up her opinion on their new competitor within seconds of seeing her, and another thing to dive immediately into flirty territory.

Undaunted, Mira smirks at the question. She must get it a lot, if Rumi had to guess.

“I have,” Mira says.

Rumi can’t help her curiosity. “Have considered it? Or…”

That smirk widens. “Did some time with an agency. Wasn’t my thing.” She pointedly looks around the room at the sprawl of flowers and plants surrounding them, then says, “Do you two have any questions about buying an arrangement? I can put something together for you—”

“Oh, no no no, we’re good,” Zoey says, then throws her hands up and hastily adds, “I mean! Not that we wouldn’t. You obviously have a great eye for color harmony.” Her voice breaks off with another fluttery laugh as she waves at some of the small, sample arrangements near them.

Mira cocks an eyebrow at them. “So…?”

Oh crap, they’re being rude. They’re being worse than rude. They’re loitering.

Rumi clears her throat and steps forward, putting a gentle hand on Zoey’s shoulder as she answers for them. “We own a floral shop a few blocks away. The only other one in the area, actually. And, um…”

The light bulb clicks on above Mira’s head. Rumi winces.

“Ahh,” Mira says lightly. “Just wanted to scope out the competition, huh?” At Zoey’s rapid nod, she shrugs and adds, “I totally get it. Would’ve done the same thing. I was actually about to make my way over to your place when you beat me to it.”

“Really?” Rumi asks, a bit doubtful.

Mira leans back against the front counter and throws a casual arm over the top of the register, smirk still firmly fixed in place. “Nope.”

Rumi has to shake off her instinctive offense even though it might’ve been better for business in the long run if Mira didn’t know about their shop. Still, she thinks they’re worth at least a little bit of snooping. A smidge of spy work. An amuse-bouche of reconnaissance.

“Didn’t even know there was another shop around here to be honest,” Mira continues, “but I’m sure we would’ve ran into each other eventually.”

And then Rumi is on high alert, hair standing on end and fingertips tingling when Mira’s eyes slide over her from head to toe, lingering on the long, winding patterns of her opalescent tattoos that start at her neck and go all the way down. She’s sure to take her sweet time doing the same to Zoey, slow and steady until her gaze is back in safe territory, flitting between their faces like she’s still searching for something.

She could be measuring them up to some bar in her mind, maybe competitive, maybe interested or simply curious—who knows. It makes Rumi’s head spin from the unknown of whatever verdict Mira landed on.

“Definitely would’ve met eventually,” Mira says, whatever that means. Then she sighs. “But probably not for a while. Like I said, I’m still getting settled. It’s been… tiring.” 

“You’re running this place by yourself?” Zoey asks, a bit incredulous.

Rightfully so. Rumi can’t imagine how miserable it would’ve been to open their storefront all by herself. Not just because of the amount of work that needed to be done, but because building something special with the person she loves had been, and continues to be, one of most rewarding experiences of her life.

“My buddy Abby has been helping me with shipments and deliveries while I hold down the fort here but there’s only so much the two of us can get done now that Jung Florals is open to the public.”

She says it like it’s no big deal, like the exhausted droop in her shoulders is a small price to pay in exchange for getting this shop off the ground. Rumi would bet every cent in her pocket that Mira runs numbers in her head at night when she’s trying to sleep. Or has nightmares of being eaten by comically large venus flytraps. She can relate.

One more look around and she can tell how much care has gone into this place. There’s meticulous planning and tangible love blossoming between the shelves and bursting from every corner. Anyone who cares this much deserves to see their vision come true. Or at the very least deserves a helping hand along the way.

“We can help!” Zoey offers, half a second faster than Rumi was about to.

Mira blinks, bewildered. “You… want to help me?”

“Yes,” they say together. Emphatic and without hesitation. Hopefully not reeking of desperation.

Rumi clears her throat and adds, “We remember how stressful it was those first few months after opening. We can help with processing orders—”

“—making arrangements—”

“—watering plants—”

“—sweeping the floor!” Zoey motions to the scatter of trimmed thorns and wilted petals littering the ground.

Mira’s face burns. “I was gonna get to that.”

“Well, now you don’t have to! If you accept our offer.”

Mira hesitates, then shakes her head. “I can’t ask that much of you. You have your own shop to run.”

“We can come by after closing!”

There’s a quiet beat while Mira eyes them skeptically, then, “What’s in it for you two?”

Oh, Rumi can think of a few things. Things she’ll have to discuss with her wife first, of course, but she doesn’t foresee Zoey objecting. Not with the way she’s practically been drooling over Mira just as much as her.

Suddenly straight-faced and serious, Zoey says, “You have to promise not to run us out of business. I refuse to yield to Big Flower.”

There’s moment of quiet where both of them just blink at Zoey, then Mira is saying tentatively, “Uh… yeah, I can do that. Easy.”

Zoey brightens. “Yay! So, do we have a deal?”

Mira hums, considering. The calculating look she levels them with makes Rumi stand a bit straighter, make herself look more presentable. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Zoey do the same. The decision to trust two strangers off the street with her shop is a big one, so Rumi mentally prepares herself for rejection as Mira opens her mouth to deliver the verdict.

“You know,” she starts slowly, “I don’t think it’d be in my best interest to get friendly with my competition, but…” 

A shiver rolls through Rumi at the way Mira’s eyes rove over them again when she says ‘friendly’, like she already has ideas in her head that are anything but. Rumi definitely does. As much as she’s been enjoying Mira’s presence, she needs to talk to her wife about those ideas now.

“Deal.”

Mira sticks out a hand between them. Long, soft looking fingers decorated with rings, meticulous nail polish without a chip in sight; she takes care of her hands in the greenhouse, that’s for sure. Good.

Rumi returns the gesture first. The smooth skin of Mira’s hand slides over the lifelines thrumming in Rumi’s palm and sends a shock up her arm, fingertips to elbow. Whatever perfume she’s wearing wafts off of her, a heady mix of citrus and azaleas reminiscent of the first few days of a Jeju spring, and Rumi’s senses take the hit of it greedily. She tries to commit that heavenly scent to memory.

Then Mira frowns. She looks down at where their hands lock to stare at the wedding band on Rumi’s finger. She does the same to Zoey when they shake next, eyeing her ring with a question in her eyes.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” she says with a nod. Her grin thins out into something more polite than playful.

The entrance chimes with the arrival of more people, and Mira takes a step back.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have paying customers to attend to,” she teases lightly. She pauses before leaving, then gifts them with a small, grateful smile that crinkles at the corners of her eyes as she says softly, “Thank you. I’m looking forward to seeing more of you two.”

They return the sentiment as Mira walks away to greet her new customers, then Rumi is ushering Zoey towards the exit, both of them waving goodbye before stepping out onto the sidewalk again. As soon as the door swings shut behind them—and they no longer have to worry about Mira being in earshot—Rumi doesn’t waste any time.

“Orchid,” she says immediately, the moment her and Zoey lock eyes. “Code orchid.”

(Code orchid: threesome potential.)

Zoey is already nodding along with her words, so fast her face momentarily blurs.

“You beat me to it by one second, babe.”

Of course they’ll need to talk about it more in depth later, just like they’ve always done in the past when the possibility of a threesome comes up, but just knowing they’re on the same page of mutual attraction to Mira is a good start. They share a grin that ignites something hot and excited within Rumi, something familiar and promising.

Zoey leans in close to ask in a conspiring whisper, “Sooo… plan of action?”

“Be normal,” she replies, ticking each item from her fingers as she names them. “Be respectful and kind and—”

“And cool.”

“And cool, yeah, obviously we have to be cool,” Rumi rushes out. She ticks that one off her finger too. It’s important.

“We’ll feel out the vibes, see what she’s into, and if the odds are in our favor then hopefully our natural charm and good looks does the rest of the work!” Zoey says with a decisive nod.

Rumi tips forward into her wife’s space to skim a kiss across her temple and say in a low voice, “You’ll be carrying us in that department, I’m sure.”

Zoey giggles. “I see you’ve got the sweet-talking taken care of.”

Rumi just hums in response, eyes on Zoey and mind on what she hopes they get up to when they’re home. She darts in and nips a quick, teasing bite under Zoey’s ear that pulls a tiny gasp out of her, then presses her smile into Zoey’s neck while her wife collects herself.

“Rumi, oh my god,” she says, a little laugh bursting out of her. “Buy me dinner first.”

Hand in hand, they giggle together like schoolgirls as they stroll a leisure pace back home, tilting into each other’s orbits with all the comfort of years spent on the same axis.

-

As promised, they try to help Mira get her footing around the shop.

Rumi expects questions, so she prepares thorough answers. She expects a small amount of manual labor, so she brings her gloves and apron and is sure to do some stretches before they walk over. She expects to be useful, to anticipate Mira’s needs and act accordingly; maybe even garner an impressed smile or two as a result.

She does not expect to be shunted to the side like she’s a liability. Like she’s a bull on the verge of rampage and reducing everything around her to rubble.

“Just—hold that. Stand still.”

She does as she’s told, suffering in silence as her fingers itch with forced indolence against the cardboard. A look across the room finds Zoey not even attempting to right this egregious wrong. Rumi’s been demoted to act as a glorified shelf and her wife doesn’t even care.

She peeks into the box that she doesn’t even have to flex to keep aloft, then risks a glance at Mira. She seems very occupied with sorting stacks of mini terracotta pots—not as cute as the novelty mugs with silly designs Zoey picks out, but whatever—so she probably wouldn’t notice if Rumi quickly unloads the rest, right?

She gets as far as shifting the weight of the box to one hand and hovering the other over the top before—

“No,” Mira says, eyes apparently in the back of her head.

Rumi drops her hand back to the outside of the box. She tries very hard not to stomp her foot like a tantrumming toddler.

“You know,” Zoey drawls, looking mighty comfy sprawled out on her side atop Mira’s greenhouse couch. She props her head up with a hand and merely grins at Rumi’s pleading stare. “I kinda thought when you accepted our offer of help that you’d actually, like, let us help.”

Without looking up from her careful sorting, Mira replies, “I am letting you help. You’re being very helpful.”

Rumi huffs and glowers at the box in her arms. She didn’t even get the chance to lift the heavy boxes—Mira insisted on doing it while Rumi got to hold the lightest pair of scissors in the world and just watch her. Like a chump.

“Doesn’t feel like it,” she says under her breath.

“What was that?” Mira asks. She turns her sharp, inquisitive stare on Rumi.

“Nothing.”

Mira’s lips purse as she eyes her. When Rumi doesn’t say anything more, she turns to Zoey still spread out on the couch looking very amused, then keeps turning and does a full spin as she surveys the mountain of tasks surrounding them that they’ve barely even scratched the surface of. Her shoulders drop with a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Mira says. She lifts her glasses so she can dig her knuckles into the tense scrunch of her brow. “I’ve spent so long trying to get this place off the ground without relying on anyone but me. My money, my skills, my hard work.”

“I could really half-ass the sweeping if that makes you feel better,” Zoey chirps. It makes Mira pause, clearly unsure on what to do with the easy, unbothered smile thrown her way.

Zoey’s next words tilt softer. “I’m not gonna take any of that stuff from you. We have our own bills to worry about, I don’t wanna pay yours. And there’s plenty of work waiting for us at our own shop, I’m certainly not gunning for employee of the month here.” Her smile sharpens as she juts her chin in Rumi’s direction. “Rumi might be, though.”

The singular pot Rumi snuck into her hand while her wife was talking slips from her grasp and back into the box, clinking gently against the others but thankfully unbroken.

Mira’s gaze falls on Rumi again, brow raised in a silent question.

“I mean…” Rumi’s eyes shift away and back, tentatively hopeful.  “…is that something you do here?”

Mira turns back to Zoey with a look that instantly flattens her budding excitement into deep offense.

“Is she serious?”

“Dead serious.”

Rumi pouts.

Zoey sinks deeper into the cushions and lets out a relaxed sigh. “And I’m seriously considering a nap right now. Mira, you’ve really outdone yourself with this greenhouse, the cozy vibes are off the charts. Just bonkers lovely in here.”

It’s true. From the first step over the threshold the air changes, transforming from a storefront into something made for comfort, not just for customers but for the flora on display. Instead of the ordinary spread of inventory in neat rows, plants dot smaller shelves and end tables. More independent flora adorn some wooden trellises that frame the back wall, divided by soft, brush-stroked paintings. Something melodic and mellow bleeds from hidden speakers in the corners, filling the outskirts of the room with the soft sounds of smooth piano and yearning brass. It’s perfectly curated for kicking back and taking in the atmosphere rather than just taking out your wallet.

It’s cute how Mira squirms like she doesn’t know what to with the compliment or the way that Zoey reaffirms the praise by making herself at home in her hard-earned space; Zoey aims a secret wink at Rumi as she rattles off her favorite decorations around them, graceful with her words in that hidden way people often mistake for graceless.

Rumi happily listens to them talk shop, taking the opportunity to sneakily unload the box in her arms and then another when Mira doesn’t stop her.

“—knew this was the place for me after seeing the backroom—now greenhouse. Realtor thought I was crazy for throwing cash at the first offer.”

“Subtle brag,” Zoey teases.

Mira rolls her eyes with an amused little huff. When she looks back at Rumi and doesn’t immediately bite her head off for working without permission, Rumi takes it as a win. Hopefully she’s realized that the only way to move forward from here is to take the hand they’ve offered her.

“Tell you what,” Mira says to her. “You can help me prune the roses.”

Perfect, Rumi loves pruning. Trim away the dead weight hindering a full flourish? Take her off the waiting list and sign her up.

“And if you do a good job,” she continues, “I’ll make you employee of the month. First one Jung Florals has ever had. How does that sound?”

She punctuations that (slightly enticing) offer with a patronizing little pinch to Rumi’s cheek. If the touch is meant to embarrass her for being a hard worker—as if—it fails. Instead, what’s embarrassing is how it sparks something under her skin that sends warmth flowing all the way down. So… joke’s on Mira.

“I’m not a child.” Rumi grumbles. She tries to ignore the heat in her cheeks. “You don’t need to bribe me with a consolation prize.”

“Oh, so you don’t want me to take your picture, frame it, and hang it on the wall?”

Well, she was going to do the work for nothing, but…

Zoey sits up when her silent deliberation stretches too long. “Babe, really?”

“Wha—she offered!”

-

“So how long have you two been married?”

The question jostles Rumi from her productive flow state. It’s another day and another evening spent between the stacks of Mira’s shop, or in the back tending the flowers, or doing literally anything and everything now that she’s finally warmed up to the idea of them helping her after hours.

Mira busies herself with closing out the register when she asks the question, waiting for an answer that Zoey enthusiastically provides.

“Three—count ‘em—three amazing, lovely, dreamlike years.”

Rumi grins at the way Zoey bats her eyelashes at her and blows a kiss from across the room. Amazing, lovely, and dreamlike indeed.

“How’d you meet?” Mira asks before Rumi can think of anything to ask her in return.

For all that Mira has warmed up to them, they still barely know anything about her. She always seems to be the one asking them questions, rarely revealing much about herself. Rumi doesn’t want to pressure her to share—or let Zoey fire off a hundred questions in one go and overwhelm her—but she’s also not sure how much longer she can hold back her burning need to learn as much as possible about the stunning former model florist with kind eyes and legs for days who welcomed them into her space with little fanfare and a lot of trust.

“We were both in the gardening club at the same college, which was seriously underfunding its singular planter box they dared call a campus garden, by the way. Yes, I’m still bitter. Anyways my beloved tyrant of a wife—”

“Hey!”

“—who is so beautiful and sexy—”

“Thank you.”

“—ran that club like it was the fucking navy.”

Rumi crosses her arms with a petulant huff. As much as she wants to declare that an affront to her character, she unfortunately has no leg to stand on. 

Going from her and Celine’s expansive home garden on Jeju to the truly pitiful display she had to work with in college was an experience for sure. It may have… brought out the worst in her. A little.

“Everything had to go through her first. Which seeds were planted, watering times, soil amendments. God forbid you tried pruning a single petal without her looking over your shoulder to make sure it’s the right one.”

“I wasn’t that bad.”

Zoey hits her with a deadpan look. “The club had fifteen people before you joined. How many were left by the end of one semester? Do you remember, Rumi?”

Ugh. She does.

Her eyes shift to her shoes as she reluctantly answers, “Two.”

The laugh that bursts out of Mira pulls her from that slightly shameful walk down memory lane. It’s the first time she’s heard that unbridled sound come from her, and it rings out in rich waves, rushing in and over Rumi’s ears. She wants to hear that laugh again and again, even if it continues to be at her expense.

“So it was just the two of you?” Mira asks. She turns her bewildered amusement on Zoey. “Why didn’t you quit too?”

Zoey shrugs. “Spite, mostly.”

“Ah.”

“Plus, I thought she was hot.”

“You mean you liked being bossed around by her.”

“Still do,” Zoey says, sharp and salacious just like her grin. 

Mira matches it. “Noted.”

The succinct response carries enough weight to put a jolt in Rumi’s spine. She watches Zoey light up with delight.

The vision unfurls in her head unbidden; the familiar sight of Zoey writhing beneath her, pliant under her commanding hands; then suddenly there’s Mira, her hands on Zoey’s skin, sustaining Rumi’s strong hold, touching with all the reverence Zoey deserves, taking what she wants and giving back tenfold, taking and giving and taking and giving.

“So yeah, long story short, we met in college, we fell in love, and I’m the luckiest woman in the world.” Zoey heaves a whimsical sigh, like she’s some lovestruck princess yearning for her knight, then says, “And she’s been digging in my soil ever since.”

Rumi’s face bunches up with all the revulsion that deserves. Her temporary daydream pops abruptly, the heat it’d kicked up under her skin thinning out and returning her to baseline.

“I want a divorce,” she says.

“Babe, I tore that receipt up ages ago. You’re stuck with me.”

Rumi slumps against the nearest shelf and heaves a dramatic sigh that makes Zoey giggle.

She supposes it could be worse. She can deal with Zoey divulging details of their sex life in the most unappealing way possible if it means enjoying all the other perks of having her in her life. And there are many. She finds new ones everyday.

“You two are cute.”

The observation from Mira comes out soft, edged with something Rumi can’t quite decipher. She looks up to the gentle curve of Mira’s pretty pink lips.

She’s reminded suddenly of her desire to learn more about her, to find out what stories Mira is embarrassed to reminisce, what she was like in school, what she was like as a kid or as a sister or as a teammate. A girlfriend; a lover. 

“What about you?” she asks, overcome with that want to know, but not overcome enough to ask the millions of other questions burning on her tongue.

“What about me?”

“Are you, uh,” Rumi clears her throat, “spoken for?”

The wide eyed look Zoey hits her with from behind Mira’s back makes her cringe, bug-eyed and mouthing, What?!, at her so emphatically that Rumi feels it reverberate in her ears anyways.

So much for the ‘we have to be cool’ footnote in their seduction plan.

But Mira just lets out a little chuckle, and it sounds almost rueful. “No, I’m not seeing anyone, if that’s what you mean.” She sighs. “I don’t have time for that kind of thing. I’m married to the shop right now.”

It’s weird, Rumi’s been hankering for any tidbits of Mira’s life she’s willing to give them but now that she gets her first substantial piece she feels… guilty. For pulling that wilted note from her throat. She looks to her wife for help.

Zoey jolts into action, elbow knocking against a shelf. The pot nearest to her teeters on the edge before she rights it with a yelp. She grins her apology at Mira then straightens up to ask, “Well, what about,” she stalls, eyes shifty with indecision, “uh, ya’ know…”

She makes a gesture with her hands and the small pair of shears she holds, moving the pointed tip crudely through the circle of her connected finger and thumb. Rumi cringes again.

This time, Mira’s amusement is more pronounced.

“Sex?” she asks, the word lingering on her tongue in a way that hits Rumi right in the gut. Zoey nods rapidly, a little flushed. Whether that’s from embarrassment or something else, they’ll find out at home tonight.

Mira leaves them hanging in silence, seemingly at peace with totaling the last of her sales for the day while they wait with bated breath for an answer.

“Oh, I make time for that.”

The ding of the register drawer latching shut punctuates her response. Mira takes her earnings and heads for the backroom, leaving the two of them alone with that morsel of info that’ll surely sustain them as if it were a feast.

Rumi catches Zoey’s eye. Feels intrinsically the way they both tuck that knowledge away to be assessed later. Zoey stares her down and mouths, Noted.

-

Eventually, they start going over to Mira’s place just to hang out.

Rumi still finds things to do of course, lest their presence in her shop becomes an imposition. She wants to stay on Mira’s good side after all.

Which is why she’s sweeping the floorboards of nonexistent dirt while Zoey and Mira toss candy into each other’s mouths, enjoying the view with a familiar fondness for her wife’s silliness and a new, growing fondness for their new—friend? Business partner?

“I feel like a circus seal—damnit.” Another piece bounces off Zoey’s chin and falls to the floor, joining the other misses from their impromptu game of catch that Rumi hasn’t tried to discourage because it will inevitably give her something to sweep up when they’re done.

“You know you’re paying for all this wasted candy, right?” Mira says before opening her mouth wide for her turn.

“You get free labor but I don’t get free candy?!” 

Zoey’s toss goes high, flying over Mira’s head and landing in the soil of one of the large planters behind her. Mira stares at her unimpressed.

“Whoops.”

Eyes rolling but grin wide, Mira turns and bends over to grab it—good, hard candy is probably terrible for a balanced soil pH—which makes her snug shirt ride up on her back, revealing smooth skin and—oh.

“Oh my god, your tattoo is so cute!”

At Zoey’s excitement, Mira shoots up straight and spins back around, pulling her shirt down over the indeed very cute, two inch tall image of Kuromi tattooed at the center of the two dimples framing her lower back.

She’s clearly embarrassed, her whole face scrunching with it. The light dusting of red on her cheeks clashes cutely with her pink hair.

Zoey’s hands wave in front of her like she’s trying to erase her observation from existence. “Oh god I’m sorry I didn’t mean to embarrass you, but it really is a cute tattoo I promise! I can totally see why you would choose Kuromi because you both have a similar vibe of like, ‘cuddly teddy bear with a dark side’ or something and—”

“Babe,” Rumi tries. And fails.

“—I feel like no one appreciates the hotness of a lower back anymore I mean tramp stamps used to be all the rage but now all anyone ever talks about is being an ass-man, which is all well and good but like where’s the versatility, ya’ know? Me personally, I—”

“Zoey.”

The sound of Zoey’s teeth clicking together is the only noise between them before the awkward silence descends. Zoey tightens up into her shell while Mira continues to say nothing, so Rumi really has no other choice but to save the day because good god did Zoey just call her a tramp?

“I have a tattoo of Choonsik.”

They both whip to look at her as her turn to be embarrassed comes around. She fiddles with the broom in her hands while they process the icebreaker—which Zoey already knows about and is intimately familiar with, so there’s really no need for her to gape at Rumi like that.

Mira blinks. Her searching eyes rove over Rumi, taking in the very visible, flowery vines inked into her body. “The… cat?”

Rumi nods. Then, without really thinking it through, she tugs down the front of her waistband to show Mira the tattoo that sits on the front of her pelvis, on the right side near the protruding bone where it’d hurt like hell when the needle had first touched her skin. She’d gotten used to the pain quickly though, and actually ended up developing quite a taste for the sting and release of it. Going so far as to encase herself neck to ankles in loping, iridescent patterns over the course of several sessions in the last few years.

But before she’d done that, she’d been eighteen and living on her own for the first time and hungry for her own decisions. So she’d done what she thought everyone did and got a tattoo of her favorite cartoon character.

The patterns weave around it nicely despite how it stands out, but it must still look a little weird because Mira is still staring at it.

Or maybe—her mind supplies when she feels cool air hit her skin a bit lower than she expects—Mira’s staring at the sliver of hair just under the ink, because Rumi is stupid and pulled her pants down without warning and now she’s a certified flasher, probably.

She lets the waistband snap back against her skin. It echoes louder than it should in the quiet.

“Sorry,” Rumi says, feeling heat overtake her face. “I didn’t mean to—” she gestures around her front then immediately stops, “—um, yeah.”

Mira’s gaze shoots up to hers. The embarrassment is gone from her face, replaced by something potent and piercing that douses Rumi over the head with warmth, flowing down her body and over her tattoos in rivulets.

She stares like she’s trying to figure something out. Hopefully not coming to the conclusion that Rumi is a creep who flashes her pubic hair at unsuspecting people for fun.

“I’m more of a Muzi girl myself.” Zoey chimes in—thank god, where has she been. “No tattoo, though. Should I get one so we’re all matching?”

The look on Mira’s face dissipates, but the warmth it’d left behind doesn’t go as fast. The spot on Rumi’s front where Mira’s eyes had lingered tingles beneath her thumb and two layers of clothes.

“Might be a bit soon in our business partnership for matching tattoos,” Mira says.

Zoey’s smile is all relief. “So circle back next week?”

Mira returns it, eyes crinkling at the corners.

They work in silence to clean up the candy scattered around the floor, and the quiet stretches comfortably this time. Rumi settles into it enough that she’s surprised when Mira speaks up again.

“I got the tattoo to piss off my parents,” she says, like she’s had the words rotating in her mind over and over before finally deciding to free them, “but I still wanted it to be something that I liked since it was going to be on my body forever.”

Her and Zoey don’t say anything, waiting to see if Mira will give them more.

“They were used to me acting out to spite them, and for a long time that was the only thing I knew how to do.” She takes her time disposing the candy, walking over to the trash can behind the counter, dusting her hands off, opening the register to count an empty drawer she already took care of earlier. “It wasn’t until I was staring in the mirror at the fucking cartoon above my ass that I realized I should stop trying to make them feel as miserable as they always made me feel.”

She’s not sure what to say back. This is the most Mira has given them about herself so far, and Rumi’s kind of worried that if she says the wrong thing it could put her off from sharing more in the future.

But she understands on some level—maybe not to the extent that Mira does—the push and pull of wanting attention from parents who would rather impart their own wants on you. She still remembers the look on Celine’s face when she’d showed her the ink etched into her skin for good, and as much as she felt like she was disappointing her she also couldn’t deny that it’d felt very different from every other time Rumi felt like a disappointment, like it was something that Celine was going to have to deal with for once instead of her.

“So,” Zoey starts tentatively, “do you regret it? The tattoo?”

“A little,” Mira hums. “It’s fucking gaudy, for one thing.”

Rumi’s hands fly up to cover her nose at the snort she lets slip. Mira just grins.

“I do like Kuromi though, that wasn’t a lie.”

“Kuromi is metal as fuck,” Zoey says, beaming when Mira throws her head back and laughs.

Rumi turns a playful pout on her wife. “What about Choonsik?”

“Choonsik is a cutie pie!”

“A metal cutie pie?”

“Mm. No.”

Mira cackles again, the blossom of her joy plain on her face and alight in her eyes.

The vision of it follows them home later, filling the space between her and Zoey as they walk along the sunset tinted sidewalk.

“Good move with the pulling your pants down thing. I think you broke her brain a little.”

Rumi blinks and looks up from where she’d been spacing out into the cracked concrete. “What?” It takes a second for her to recall. When she does, the memory comes to her still awash with the same warmth it had earlier. “I—that wasn’t a move. I just wanted her to feel less embarrassed about her tattoo.”

“Babe, she was totally checking you out.”

She rolls the tape in her head, denial on the tip of her tongue as it plays back, but when she remembers the heated look Mira had leveled at her, all that comes out is, “Huh.”

-

“So have your modeling skills ever helped you around the greenhouse?”

“What? No.”

“You mean you don’t smize at your plants to make them grow faster? Like how smiling at babies is good for their development?”

“What the hell is smize?”

“Oh I have so much to teach you about modeling. We’re gonna make you the next big thing.”

Mira shakes her head with a little smile. “I’ve been done with all that modeling crap for years. It’s boring and the people are annoying.”

Zoey gasps. “Are you saying that the model life isn’t all glitz and glam like TV led me to believe?”

“I’m afraid so. For me at least it was just a boring job my buddy hooked me up with until I had a good nest egg for the storefront.”

“That’s a helluva nest egg,” Zoey says. She waves around at the—well, everything that makes up Mira’s shop. Who knew modeling was so lucrative? Rumi certainly didn’t. “How’d you get into the floral business anyway, Miss ‘I used to model but it’s no big deal’? Super humble by the way.”

Rumi would be lying if she said she wasn’t curious about the answer to Zoey’s question, seeing as it’s kind of been haunting her since the first day they met Mira.

Mira pauses in her task of tending to her small, personal section in the corner of her backroom greenhouse that usually hides behind a tarp. They’ve gotten the occasional peek under there but not the full picture. Just another curiosity that she’ll have to sit on with patience.

“Well, gardening’s been a hobby of mine since I was little. My grandmother got me into it, thought it would chill me out a bit. I, uh, was a pretty hotheaded kid.”

It’s so nice how easily she gives now, so trusting with these pieces of herself that shed light on the petals of her personality.

“Really?” Zoey’s head tilts as she squints at Mira. “Kinda hard to imagine you losing your cool in any way, even as a kid.”

Mira chuckles like Zoey couldn’t be more wrong. “Remind me to show you the video of my first dance recital. It’ll enlighten you.”

“What, did you start a fight on the stage or something?” Zoey laughs.

Mira says nothing, just continues her gentle ministrations in her tiny plot of plants.

“Oh my god, did you really?” At Mira’s nod, Zoey lets out a low, impressed whistle. “Damn, I’d hate to be the kid that pissed you off.”

“Actually, it was the instructor.”

“What? How old were you?!”

“Six.”

Her voice drops to an annoyed mumble that Rumi only catches bits of, something that sounds like dumbass and didn’t know the difference between and serves him right.

She stares at the tender way Mira sifts and soothes soil like she’s holding fragile life in her palms and tries to imagine a significantly smaller version of her fighting a grown adult in front of an audience. In a tutu, probably.

“Well, I’m glad you found zen in the garden at least,” Zoey says. “Kinda wanna see you fight someone now though.”

“If you keep eating all my shop candy, you just might.”

Rumi tries to redirect them back on topic. “So you’ve had a green thumb since you were young, what made you decide to turn it into a business venture?”

At that, Mira pauses. She makes a face when Rumi says ‘business venture’ like disgust has filled her so wholly that she can’t stop it from showing. She sits back on her knees and stares into her gloved hands while she thinks.

Her mouth opens and closes around nothing until finally she says, “It’s not about money for me.” She looks around the room while she searches for her next words, careful to avoid their attentive eyes. “Since before I was even born, my parents had my whole future mapped out for me. Not for my benefit, but for theirs. Like I was just a piece to their success rather than my own person. The things I wanted didn’t matter. The pressure they put on me didn’t matter. Only results mattered.”

That puts a twinge in Rumi’s chest. For all her problems with learning how to unload the pressure she carried in her youth, there was never a time where she felt like Celine was being malicious. Unaware of the lasting effects, definitely, but never using Rumi for her own personal gain. There was still plenty of good mixed in with all the bad. There was still love.

“The only good memories I have of growing up were in that garden. And my parents are in none of them.”

Oh. That’s—oh.

“The garden taught me patience. It helped me clear my head from all the noise. I learned how good it felt to use my hands to bring something to life instead of,” she chuckles, “well, instead of starting fights. That’s why they let me stick with it for so long, because it made me easier to deal with. I was more calm, more moldable, as long as I got to keep my time with the flowers.”

Her heart aches for Mira. At the way she talks about this like she’s recalling a simple fact. Like it couldn’t be helped, the one thing she loved most in this world being lorded over her head like it could be ripped away from her at any moment.

Mira sits up straight and clears her throat of any emotion. “Got sick of the bargaining game by the time I was old enough to be on my own, though. So I got the hell out of that house and haven’t talked to them since.”

Finally, she looks up at them. The piercing conviction in her eyes a balm to Rumi’s bruising heart.

“Now I do what I love on my own terms.”

Good, Rumi almost says, feeling how resolute it rumbles in her throat. She hopes every day is filled to the brim with Mira’s heart working close to her own hands. To her own decisions.

“Um, okay.” Mira says when the quiet drags. Her eyes shift away again. “Can someone else talk now?”

A laugh crackles out of Rumi. It helps bleed some of the sorrow from the room.

“I’ve never wanted to fight people I’ve never met before,” Zoey says, then corrects, “Well—okay, that’s not true. But this is definitely the most rage I’ve felt towards people I’ve never met.”

Mira shrugs. “They’re not worth thinking about, trust me.”

“Still, I just—“ Zoey huffs. The sad curl of her lips tugs at Rumi, pulling her closer so she can reach out for her wife’s hand and support her through her next words.

“It sucks being a pawn for the people who are supposed to love you and take care of you. My parents used to argue with each other through me. ‘Oh, what do you want for your birthday? Don’t tell your Mom, I’ll get it for you.’ ‘What’s your Dad been feeding you? Don’t eat his food, he’s a terrible cook.’ ‘Don’t listen to her, listen to me. Don’t choose him, choose me.’ It was fucking exhausting trying to play both sides, but like, why wouldn’t I try to make them both happy? They’re my parents. I love them.”

Zoey’s fingers squeeze tight around hers. Rumi rubs her thumb over the skin of her knuckles and hopes the solace is enough for now.

“Things with them got better after I started transitioning. After I started being more honest with them in general.” Zoey says. Rumi’s eyes cut to Mira for her reaction, and what she finds is the same steady attentiveness Mira always seems to have for Zoey when she speaks. “They tried harder to actually see me and not just—just something to use as a weapon against each other.”

“There’s a lot to see,” Mira says, soft and serious. Her and Zoey share a smile when she adds, “All wonderful, by the way. I’m glad they finally saw the light.”

It’s so exactly the right thing to say that Rumi wonders if Mira somehow read her mind and pulled inspiration from there, but then she’s reminded of literally every interaction they’ve had over the past few weeks and realizes she should’ve never doubted her in the first place.

Zoey smothers her face in her hands and groans. “You’re so—you’re just—my heart’s turning to goop. You goopified my insides. You have to stop.”

Mira laughs. “Stop what?”

“Stop smiling at me like that, first of all.”

The wattage on Mira’s smile turns up a few notches, slants sharp and a little silly. “Like this?”

Zoey shields her eyes. “Ah, it burns! Deactivate the charm bomb, woman!”

-

They keep up the routine. Work their shop during the day then walk over to Mira’s after close. Sometimes to help even though she’s long since gotten a handle on things, but mostly just to spend time with her. It’s to the point where both her and Zoey watch the clock during the workday and will the seconds to pass faster.

The closeness they’ve cultivated over the past few weeks sprouts into delicate bloom. Every moment together soaking into the days like water to tender roots.

She knows even more about Mira now. Knows her preference for tea over coffee and how she takes it, her penchant for losing her glasses and walking around blind rather than asking for help finding them. Knows her short fuse for bumbling husbands who come in and don’t even know their wives’ favorite flower, her endless patience for children with curious yet unsteady hands.

She’s firm yet forgiving, frugal with her words but not with her actions, and kind all the way down to sinew like it’s what winds her bones together.

Longing takes up space in Rumi’s chest more and more each day she bears witness to Mira from a new angle. Longing that she sees reflected back at her each time she looks into Zoey’s eyes.

The way Mira treats Zoey only compounds on this. She doesn’t drift off when Zoey forgets to end her sentences, her eyes stay bright and focused and sometimes just as enamored as Rumi’s. She steps in when Zoey tries to make herself small, asking questions when her rants taper off into whispers. She tries her hand at a soothing touch when Zoey’s shoulders hunch inwards on days when her thoughts get the best of her. She always leads with calm when a stray elbow clashes with something in the shop. She never once makes Zoey feel like a nuisance or a burden, something Rumi knows hung over her head like a specter for much of her youth.

And the way Zoey surprises her back is just as lovely to see. Her wife doles out affection like it flows from an endless well. With gifts and words and touches that rattle Mira at first, until she warms up to it with tentative welcome like she’s been waiting years for someone to treat her like she’s worth the effort. She’d looked completely struck when Zoey brought her a new work apron with a silly pun on it—‘in my hoeing phase’ emblazoned on the front with clipart of the tool to match—clutching it in her hands and staring at it for so long that Zoey had started to worry, until the generosity processed and she’d sprung a hug on her out of nowhere. The smile Zoey had after that stayed with her well into the following days.

The more time they spend with Mira, the more Rumi thinks that instant attraction from when they first met could turn into something more. Her and Zoey talk about the mutual want, the potential for something different from their usual venture into threesomes. Which—they haven’t even asked Mira about that yet, and still Rumi can’t help but operate like it’s only a matter of time. That’s how strong the pull is.

In the past they’ve gone as far as repeated dalliances with the same person but it never got to the point of developing feelings. Never went past more than a few nights together. But the status quo is changing quickly and Mira stands at the helm of it. Rumi thinks she should be scared of how easily Mira fits into their little world, but as time passes she just… doesn’t. Mira is too steady to incite fear, the roots of her poise too strong and confident.

Confidence that exudes from her in waves, so much so that the incidents of Rumi falling prey to it grows in frequency every day. There’s not much she can do when faced with Mira’s sharp, angular features that accentuate her self-assured gait, her subtle smirks and watchful eyes, like she knows exactly what she’s about and she’s not about to let anyone tell her any different.

It’s hot. She doesn’t yield to rude customers, but she’s secure enough to keep her cool while she tells them off. Rumi could never quite shake the impulse to give in to demands if it means a happy customer, something her and Zoey both still struggle with.

Her soft spot for the nice ones is just as prominent. Just the other day she’d gifted a bouquet free of charge to an elderly widow on the way to visit her husband’s grave, asking questions about their time together before he passed, offering tissues when needed, and then cradling the truly beautiful bouquet in one arm so she could extend the other and walk the woman back out to her car herself. Nothing they wouldn’t have done at their own shop but seeing Mira offer up the kindness had been stupidly swoon-worthy.

There’s so much to be infatuated with that Rumi thinks her senses might short circuit from it. Especially now that Mira is getting braver. With them and with the mounting tension that fills a room when they’re all together.

Their most recent visit is a prime example of how she’s been slowly unraveling them.

Mira likes to slink around the room from task to task, from Zoey to Rumi to Zoey to Rumi with innocuous offers of help—in her own shop, where they’re supposed to be doing that for her—only she’s not helpful in the slightest. Not with her sneaky, well placed touches suggestive enough to give them pause but innocent enough to dismiss should they prefer.

But it’s difficult to dismiss the way she grips Zoey’s hip with one hand to reach around her from behind with the other, grabbing something from the shelf Zoey dusts that she definitely didn’t need. And it’s immensely difficult to ignore how Zoey goes perfectly still and red at Mira pressed firmly against her back, at the long length of her fingers nearly engulfing her waist. Long after Mira saunters away, Zoey is left staring at the wall like she’s buffering. Blinking like she can’t quite get the error message behind her eyes to dissipate.

Rumi tries to give as good as she gets. She’s not sure she succeeds. But when Mira is high up on her toes trying to fix the hanging tarp that shields her illusive plot of plants, she can’t resist the opportunity. She revels in the little gasp that escapes Mira when she’s suddenly at eye level with the part she’d been fiddling with. Held aloft in Rumi’s strong, solid hold.

Mira is deceptively light, she learns, her height helping play up the ruse. But even with how easy it is to hold her up, Rumi’s arms still give the slightest shake when Mira’s perfume hits her. Filling her nose with warmth and citrus and azaleas. Like that first day they’d met and her senses had surrendered within minutes.

Her fingers are tight around Mira’s waist from the moment she picks her up to the moment she carefully lowers her back down. The look Mira throws her over her shoulder when Rumi doesn’t immediately let go flicks the flame on. A steady simmer starts low in her gut.

She unsticks her fingers one by one, like trying to break her hands free from solid stone, then takes a singular, measured step back. Mira’s eyes on hers all the while.

Each subsequent step backwards is more like a trudge. Her legs are unwilling to stretch the distance between them but yield to her resolve anyways, as do her yearning hands that want nothing more than another chance on Mira’s body. She wonders, as she wishes her a hoarse goodbye and a promise of visiting tomorrow, if she’ll get that chance again soon.

-

When they get home that night, it’s like Mira is still with them.

In step with them as they go up the stairs to their home, following them into the bedroom, and finding her place under the covers like she’s always been welcome.

When Rumi pushes Zoey down on the bed and clambers on top of her, her fingers are still thrumming with restless energy, with everything she denied them in Mira’s shop. She gifts herself the task of ripping Zoey’s clothes off until she’s down to nothing but her cute panties in the hopes that that’ll bleed some of the energy from her body, but it only reminds her that it’s not enough, that she needs more.

She finds another outlet in her wife. Who is happy to receive Rumi’s bruising grip around her wrists, sighing her content into the warm air around them as Rumi raises her captured arms above her head to press them into the sheets on either side of her.

When she stops there just to take in the view for a few moments, Zoey starts to squirm.

“Rumi,” she whines. “Kiss me.”

But Rumi’s eyes are stuck on the sight of her heaving chest and flushed skin. Already short of breath before they’ve even begun. She knows why. Knows that this began long before entering the bedroom.

“What’s the rush?” she asks, the words slinking up from somewhere low in her throat. Her hands squeeze around the soft skin of Zoey’s wrists.

Her hot, roving gaze zeroes in on the way Zoey swallows. Tight and repeating like her throat is dry. Like she needs Rumi to water it for her.

“Something on your mind, baby?” She leans in close until her lips are a hairsbreadth away from her ear. “Someone?”

There’s a hitch in Zoey’s breath. Then a beat that echoes in Rumi’s chest where her heart pounds against her ribcage.

All at once, Zoey snaps. She lurches up into her space to claim her lips in a fierce kiss that Rumi only allows because she’d been on the brink of giving in by mere seconds. There’s no patience, no slow build of push and pull, just the two of them crashing together with all the frenetic energy of wild waves.

“She’s driving me fucking crazy, Rumi,” Zoey mumbles between their frantic kisses. Hot and wet and sometimes more teeth than lips. The sharp bite Zoey delivers to her bottom one gets a rough hiss out of her, and Rumi feels the clear outline of her wife’s self satisfied smirk against her mouth. She will be wiping that smirk off her face very soon. Much to her own satisfaction, she’s certain.

The tight press of their hips puts her at an advantage, because she can very much feel just how much Zoey is enjoying herself already, hot and half hard in her panties against Rumi’s front. All it takes is the beginning of a subtle grind against the warmth there to have her mewling into Rumi’s mouth.

The ease at which Zoey switches up is almost laughable, and any other time Rumi would have actually laughed in her face in that mean, sadistic way that makes her shiver in delight. Instead she pulls back, drawing out the distance between them as Zoey strains upwards to steal more kisses, failing miserably when the grip around her wrists just tightens to remind her how fruitless her fight is. A taunting tut leaves Rumi’s tongue.

“How crazy?” she asks. The firm question is pretty clear to her, but Zoey’s dazed blink says otherwise.

“Huh?”

“Tell me,” Rumi demands. She rolls her hips again, pulling a moan out of her wife, then ducks to whisper in Zoey’s ear, “Tell me what she’s doing to you. What you’re thinking about.”

Zoey stutters around her own breath. Rumi suckling soft bites into her neck definitely doesn’t help her with answering any demands, but the unblemished skin was too tempting, just sitting there ready for the taking. So she takes some and then some more and then more, reveling in each bruise that she’ll be sure to press her thumbs into later when Zoey needs a reminder of whose in charge.

“Tell me, Zoey.”

“She—she’s so—oh.”

She sucks a harsher mark high on Zoey’s neck, just under her ear where she’s especially sensitive. Zoey whines again, high and tapering off into rapid pants.

Rumi chuckles into her neck. “Use your words.”

“I’m trying you butthead.”

That punches a laugh out of Rumi. She loosens her grip around Zoey’s delicate wrists by a fraction and pushes herself up to look her in the eye. She tries to clear her head, wave away some of the smoke billowing up in her chest and heating her from the inside out.

“Try harder,” she teases.

Zoey breathes out a grumpy little huff that makes her bangs flutter. “Do you know how hard it is—”

“Yes.” Rumi interrupts, cheeky. She grinds down again, grin wide. Grinning wider when Zoey’s words trip over themselves again at the friction.

“Shut your—ugh.” Zoey rolls her eyes, then says, “Do you know how hard it is to focus when you’re like this?” She tries to use her restrained hands to motion up and down at Rumi, flopping them uselessly back and forth before they fall still again.

Rumi decides to free her; one, because she misses her wife’s insatiable touch digging into her skin, and two, so she can lull Zoey into a false sense of freedom before she goes back to unraveling her, tendon by tendon, until Zoey is nothing put a pile of unspooled muscle in their bed, thoroughly and expertly fucked out.

Immediately and as expected, Zoey’s hands are on her, going straight for the back of Rumi’s head so she can pull her in for a kiss so filthy that Rumi kind of hopes she’ll never be clean again. Which—objectively she knows that’s gross but it is her truth.

Zoey pulls away to pant out, “Too many clothes,” before she’s back on Rumi’s mouth, hands tugging and clawing at her shirt until that’s gone, then pawing at the button of her pants, then her bra, until Rumi is just as bare as she is. It’s not until she’s trying to shove a hand down into Rumi’s damp briefs that Rumi stops her.

“Wha—Rumiii.” The whining whiner whines. As is her specialty.  “I wanna feel you.”

And Rumi wants that too, so bad she can feel her briefs sticking to her, but she hasn’t forgotten what she asked of Zoey.

“I’m not asking for much, baby,” Rumi says, the words a low rumble in her throat. She sits back on her heels so her hands can start a lithe glide up Zoey’s stomach, tracing the planes of her curves and scratching her nails against the faint freckles that Rumi could map with her eyes closed. “I just wanna know what you think about Mira.”

And—that changes something in the air. Saying her name out loud. It sparks a reaction no counter exists for, an unmatched heat that bubbles up between them like it’s been waiting for the right latch to release it.

She watches Zoey’s eyes darken until her pupils are blown out completely, the beautiful brown of her irises ebbing into an inky black that bleeds true with her desire. Rumi’s sure her own match.

“I think she wouldn’t make me wait this long,” Zoey husks, baiting. “I think she’d already have her mouth on me. Or her hands all over me, her fingers inside me. Her fingers are so long, Rumi. I know you’ve noticed.”

She has noticed. She’s more than noticed. She’s thought about those fingers and what they can do, what they’re willing to do; to Zoey, to her, to both of them at the same time. She’s thought about them following along with Rumi’s whims and commands, thought long and hard about them long and hard inside of her. Oh, she’s thought about it. Without question and with extensive care.

“Is that what you want?” Rumi asks. She hooks two fingers into the band of Zoey’s underwear, tugging them down just enough so her thumb can stroke the warm bulge straining against the fabric. There’s a wet spot on the front that grows when Rumi gives it attention. “You want her to fuck you before you’ve earned it?”

Zoey starts writhing beneath her as if she’s still being held down, like her body has learned to react with Rumi’s restraining hold in mind, still etched into the memory of her muscles no matter what proof of otherwise is right in front of her.

“‘Cause I can give you that, Zo’. I’ll spoil you like the brat you are.” Rumi digs the nails of her other hand into the fleshy give of Zoey’s thigh. “But then you’ll have to be punished like one.”

A shiver, then Zoey’s licking her lips like they’re a patch of dry soil begging for a drink, a dribble, a sip. Like she’s willing to drown if it means she’ll never go thirsty again.

Rumi gives her just enough to keep going. She slips beneath her waistband to skim through the hair Zoey keeps carefully trimmed and cups her lightly in her palm, just the press of skin on skin with none of the friction; seeking some, Zoey’s hips jump.

“I’ll have to teach her how to touch you. Show her what you like and where you like it.” Her free hand slinks up, dragging warmth as it goes until she reaches Zoey’s chest. “And where you like it to hurt.” She tugs a neglected nipple between her thumb and finger, then pinches hard enough to make Zoey cry out.

“Rumi—ah—please.”

She pinches again. Harder. Knowing how sensitive Zoey’s breasts are. “Please what?”

Arching into her hand, Zoey gasps out, “Ple—please show her how to touch me.”

“You’ll have to be patient. I know that’s hard for you, baby. Can you handle that?”

“I’ll be patient, I’ll be good. I’m being good.”

“Good for who? Me?” Her other hand gives the slightest squeeze around the base of Zoey’s weeping dick. “Or Mira?”

“Fuck, I—both. I want to be good for the both of you.”

Wide and wicked, Rumi bares her teeth then promises, “You will.”

Again Zoey cries out when Rumi tugs and twists at her nipples. It echoes in surround sound, flooding Rumi’s mind with wants and needs and wishes. She wishes more than anything that Mira could have heard. She deserves that, to hear what she’s earned, what Zoey has given her without her even being here.

The tangible lack of Mira lingers. It feeds Rumi’s greed and summons restlessness back to her hands. She needs to put them to work. She needs to make sure Mira’s influence on this moment doesn’t go to waste.

“Take these off.”

She frees her fingers from Zoey’s underwear to pluck at the waistband, and Zoey whimpers at the loss of contact for all of a second before she seems to realize that it means she’s about to get more. She works fast to shed that last layer, flinging the fabric to the side.

Rumi reaches past her to get to the nightstand, pulling out everything she needs to make certain that Mira hears Zoey from several blocks away. And if she can’t, well—Rumi will just have to try harder.

There’s the harness and subsequent dildo to match, the one that sits solidly in the middle ground of what Zoey can take, not so small that she’ll inevitably beg for bigger, and not too big that she’ll be wincing while she walks for the next couple days. Rumi fiddles with the cap on the lube for longer than necessary thanks to the barrage of wet kisses that Zoey leans up to leave all over her, from ear to chin to shoulder to anywhere her mouth can reach.

“Zoey—mm—lie back.”

Eager, she unlatches her lips from Rumi’s skin and listens. Rumi almost hoped she wouldn’t, just to see how far she could have gone with the punishment she threatened her with.

Her wife spreads her legs without needing to be asked so Rumi can find her place between them again. She coats her fingers with lube, noting Zoey’s dark, expectant eyes as she watches, then sets the bottle aside.

She rests her dry hand on Zoey’s thigh again, this time in a soothing caress as she asks, “Can I get you ready for me, baby?”

“Yes, yes.”

The tremble in Zoey’s legs doubles when Rumi teases two slick fingers down the length of her erection. Starting at the head so she can mix lube with the slow, steady seep of Zoey’s cum and make her fingers even easier to take, then dipping lower to rub gentle circles into the sensitive skin above her asshole.

Zoey moans, loud and lofty. Her hips jolt with each stroke until Rumi has no choice but to hold her in place again, this time clutching firmly at Zoey’s waist to push her back into the bed. She digs her thumb into the dip of her hip and drags another moan out of her.

“Rumi,” Zoey pants, “Your fingers. I’m—I need them.”

“I know, my love,” Rumi murmurs, “I got you.”

She shifts her fingers down then gives her just the tip of one, just the swirling loops of a fingerprint that she hopes to mark inside her wife forever, then pushes in a little further when Zoey’s face doesn’t show any discomfort. When Rumi sinks down to the first knuckle, Zoey goes taut—then crumples.

“Yes,” she hisses, sinking into the mattress. Her hands curl into the sheets as Rumi slowly thrusts in and out.

A throaty groan rips from her lips at the way Zoey stretches around her, tight and hot and so, so good. She’s so good for her, good for Mira, just like she said she’d be.

God, what Rumi would give to see the look on Mira’s face as she slides into Zoey for the first time. Would her eyes darken when she realizes that Zoey can handle more than she’s giving her? Would she take it upon herself to see just how much is too much? Rumi wants to see for herself, wants to press against Mira’s back and goad her into taking whatever she desires.

“Another one, please,” Zoey groans, “I promise I can take it.”

Oh, Rumi doesn’t doubt that. Zoey’s taken more than that before and will again soon. She takes like it never crosses her mind not to, like she wouldn’t dare imagine a world in which she’s not a vessel for all that Rumi has to give.

Rumi gifts her that second finger, only giving her a few moments to adjust before she’s moving again, reaching for that spot deep inside that puts an arch in her spine. She’s struck again by the thought of Mira’s longer fingers taking her place and wonders how easy it would be for her to make Zoey see stars. Maybe she wouldn’t need Rumi to teach her at all.

“I want you to think about her fingers fucking you like this,” she says. Zoey whimpers at her words. “She would reach so deep. Make you feel so good.”

Zoey moans. She struggles against Rumi’s tight grip, trying desperately to fuck herself back down on her hand.

“Rumi, Rumi—”

“I’d make her fuck you until you’re begging her to stop.” She curls her fingers cruelly, hooking them on a gasp that Zoey chokes on. “Until you’re stretched out enough to take every inch of my dick. Every inch of hers.”

“Please, please, let me take it. I promise I’m ready, I promise, I promise—”

Zoey downright sobs when Rumi removes her fingers. She blinks open her eyes to aim the most pitiful look at her, then promptly drops it when Rumi reaches for the harness.

She orders Zoey to touch herself while Rumi rises from the bed to put it on. The urge to be back inside her fights with the one that wants to watch. To take in the way Zoey pulls at her nipples just as hard as Rumi had, then slides a hand down to stroke herself while she stares her down with that burning gaze, the embers of it crackling between them.

Once everything is in place, Rumi bullies her way back between Zoey’s thighs, slicks the dildo with lube, then grinds it along the underside of Zoey’s dick, base to tip until she’s swollen and begging.

“Rumi don’t tease,” she pleads, voice thick and desperate. “I need you inside.”

No matter how often Rumi gets her to this point, makes her beg for it wet and weepy—she always gives in. Always wants the peak of Zoey’s pleasure wrung out of her more than Zoey does.

“Okay, baby.” Rumi drips more lube on Zoey and guides the tip to tease circles around her rim until she’s keening again. She slips inside with little resistance thanks to her fingers working her up to it and feels her ears burn at the shout Zoey lets out. The force of it thunders from somewhere deep in her chest to shake the walls of their bedroom. 

Rumi pictures Mira sitting up in her own bed from a few streets away, ear cocked towards her window.

“Louder Zo’,” Rumi says, pushing in deeper. “So she can hear you.”

“Fuck, fuck, Rumi—Mir—”

She cuts herself off, breath catching on the name and her own harsh pants.

Rumi’s blood sings with how badly she needs to hear Zoey scream for her with Mira’s name on her lips.

“Say it,” she rasps, “Say her name.”

Zoey bites her lip to choke off her moan, then lets the skin slip from her teeth with another shout when Rumi punishes her for her defiance by thrusting the rest of the way inside. She starts a slow, steady pace, at odds with the craving that claws at her skin to ravage Zoey senseless.

“Say it, Zoey.”

“Mi—Mira.”

“Again.”

“Mira.”

“Again. Louder.” She wraps her fingers around Zoey’s dick and squeezes.

“Ah—Mira!”

Rumi groans at the sound of it. At the way Mira, Mira, Mira burns in her ears and melts down her spine to fuel her moving hips. She needs to hear this for the rest of her life, for as long as Zoey’s voice can go before it gives out.

A sudden, sharp thrust is all the warning Zoey gets before Rumi is pushing her thighs further apart, fucking into her faster, rougher, hungrier; so hungry for that name ripped from her throat again, hungry for the meld of their names together when Zoey comes.

“Rumi, oh god, Rumi, Mira, Mira you feel so good.”

Rumi drops to her forearms so she can nip at her chest, her hips unfaltering as she sucks glowing splotches of red into Zoey’s skin. She leaves a string of marks that climb up her neck and over her racing pulse to end at the bruise she’d left under her ear earlier.

She’s about to freshen it up with another bite when the sweet smell of azaleas hits her senses. Rumi presses closer and inhales that familiar scent mingling with Zoey’s. It’s intoxicating, blinding; it coaxes a fog in her mind that pushes her closer to mindlessness.

“You smell like her,” she says, her voice dissolving into a gravelly rumble.

She burrows deeper into Zoey’s neck. Drives deeper between her legs.

“Oh fuck, Rumi, Rumi. You—ah—”

Zoey’s fingers dig into her hair so hard that her nails must leave indents in the scalp. She barely registers the pain though, because— “Harder. Please.”

Rumi listens. Like she always does when it comes to her wife. Listens to the sweet song of her pleasure that rises in volume when Rumi pushes Zoey’s knees up to her chest. The smooth skin of her calves presses hard into the broadness of Rumi’s shoulders where muscle is taut and vines of sweat twine them together to aid the slick glide of their rocking embrace.

She’s covered in it. A sly drop slides from her temple down to the corner of her eye that she blows away so she doesn’t have to look away from Zoey for even a millisecond. Nothing could tear her away from this vision; Zoey rosy from her cheeks to her chest, breasts shuddering with each thrust as Rumi fucks the breath out of her.

Zoey’s moans fill the air around them, building a foundation for the sticky warmth that wraps tight around their bodies and turns up the temperature in the room. She starts babbling like any mix of words will do in place of coherency, shaking and shuddering against the sheets. Her dick twitches where it’s pressed flush between their stomachs. Leaking with the wrecked need of release.

“Rumi, I—ngh, close. So close.”

“For who?”

“For you, you, you—”

“And? Who else are you gonna come for?”

“Oh fuck, I—Mira. For you and for—for Mira.”

“Again. For who, baby?”

Zoey’s back snaps into a curve, and then she’s singing Mira’s name to the battering rhythm of Rumi’s thrusts. Mira, Mira, Mira until her throat is raw from screaming it, Mira, Mira, Mira with her arms and legs tight around Rumi, Mira, Mira, Mira in ruined whimpers as she rides out the rushing tide of her orgasm against Rumi’s snapping hips.

Those thrusts slow, shifting into a gentle rock. The both of them are breathing hard, drenched in sweat, sticky on their fronts where Zoey’s cum is smeared between them, but still they’re reluctant to untangle from each other just yet. She guides Zoey’s legs back down to the bed so she doesn’t cramp, then gingerly pulls out so they can lean in close to trade soft, slow kisses.

A thought shines through the receding fog in her head, one that passes over her calmly, a new sight on the horizon but leaving her without fear as it approaches.

This is the first time they’ve invited another into their bed without them actually being there. They’ve never wanted someone so badly that their presence haunts their sheets, she’s never made Zoey call out someone else’s name over and over until it made her ears ring.

When she pulls back from the kiss, she can see something similar spinning thoughtfully behind Zoey’s eyes, an awareness that this is different. Mira is different.

“Rumi,” Zoey starts, not hesitant but clear and confident despite the fresh rush of her orgasm. Or maybe because of it. “I wanna ask Mira out.”

Rumi lets the gentle slope of her smile shine down on her wife when she says, “That makes two of us.”

Zoey matches her, that warm joy lighting up her face and making Rumi fall just a little more in love with her. They meet in the middle for a kiss, then another and another until they’re giggling into each other’s mouths.

The heat kicks up again when Zoey reaches for the harness still strapped to her hips and Rumi is painfully reminded of just how turned on she is. 

“We can talk about it more later,” Zoey says. She helps Rumi out of it and sets it aside. “Right now it’s my turn to take care of you.”

Zoey rolls them over to climb on top and rid Rumi of her damp briefs, then leaves a wet trail of kisses all the way down her body, sure to nip and suck along every stroke of her tattoos until she’s where Rumi is aching most.

That first touch of her tongue pushes Rumi’s head back into the pillows. It doesn’t take long from there. Wound so tight in body and mind that just a few scant minutes of Zoey lapping at her cunt is more than enough to tip her over.

She comes with Zoey’s name on her lips and Mira on her mind, a mosaic of pinks and blues bursting behind her eyes.

-

The next day, they hatch a plan.

A very simple plan. More of a to-do list. With Mira at the top. Or on top. Whichever she prefers.

It’s a very simple plan in that the execution is pretty straightforward. However, the decisiveness before that needs some… fine tuning.

“But would she be more likely to say yes to you or me?”

“Does it matter? We’re asking if she’ll go out with the both of us.”

They can’t decide who should make the first move.

“What if she only wants to date one of us?” Zoey asks. “What then?”

“Then I think you should go for it, babe.”

“What? No, no, if she’s only picking one then it’ll totally be you. You should go for it.”

“No, it’s most definitely you. Zo’, the way she looks at you during every conversation is so—”

“Um, excuse you, do I need to buy you glasses, Rumi? So you can see how she stares at your biceps like she wants to chew on them? Because she does that, like, all the time. Can relate, bee-tee-dubs.”

Rumi snorts. “She stares at you way more. It’s not even up for discussion.”

“That’s so funny, because we literally need to discuss it. More importantly, we need to discuss how you’re wrong. She stares at you more.”

“No you.”

“No you.”

They get so caught up in their bickering that the last corner before Mira’s shop comes into view sneaks up on them. Zoey spots it first and immediately their conversation shifts sideways into spiraling territory.

“What if she says no? What if she hasn’t actually been flirting with us and I’ve never picked up on a social cue in my life?”

“Zoey.” Rumi stops walking so she can grab her by the shoulders. The evening breeze sweeps through her hair, making some flyaways catch in her delicate lashes, and Rumi reaches up to gently brush them away. “We don’t have to do this. I only want to do what will make you happy.”

Zoey pouts up at her. “What about what makes you happy?”

“That’s you.” Rumi says, her eyes imploring Zoey to believe her. “And—yeah, Mira being into us would make me happy too, but if she’s not then… you and I still go home together.”

Her conviction must have settled somewhere in her wife’s mind, because Zoey takes a deep breath without needing to be guided into it, shoulders rising up with the inhale and dropping slowly as she exhales, and Rumi watches the stress melt away in real time.

“You’re right,” Zoey says, the scrunch of her brow smoothing out. “It’s not the end of the world if she says no.”

Rumi nods, quick and assured. “Exactly.”

“We can ask her out. It’ll be a piece of cake.”

“…We still haven’t decided who’s asking her out.”

“Fuck.”

When they finally enter Jung Florals it’s with one goal in mind: make an attempt at asking Mira out. Just one measly attempt. If they get rejected then at least they can say that they tried.

Some of Rumi’s confidence flies out the door with the rush of wind when Mira gracefully twirls around to greet them, looking gorgeous as ever just from existing, and then even more so when she smiles at them warm enough to rival the sun setting through the windows.

“Hey,” is all Mira says, but it resonates like there’s thousands more words hiding in that singular one and the soft curl of her smile. “Gimme a sec’, I’m almost done counting the drawer.”

She turns back to the counter and Rumi takes the opportunity to quickly whisper in Zoey’s ear, “So are we doing this or not?”

“I don’t know!” Zoey panic whispers back. “You fucked my brains out last night and now I forgot how to think!”

Rumi can’t quite help the smug quirk of her lips at that, and Zoey pauses in her freak out to pinch her until she wipes it from her face.

“I don’t have any work for you two today,” Mira says over her shoulder. They stand up straight and give her their full attention. “But there is something I wanted to show you.”

She heads for the backroom without another word, beckoning them with the allure of her presence. They follow.

There’s a million and one things that Rumi wants Mira to show them, but she’s pretty sure what she has in mind isn’t going to match up with Mira’s intentions. Especially when she goes over to the tarp shielding her small planter box and pulls it aside.

Mira’s eyes find hers as she asks, “You said you grew up on Jeju, right?”

Rumi nods, confused. It was a passing mention from weeks ago, something she didn’t think Mira would remember or ever need to.

“I thought you might like this,” Mira says. Her casual tone belies the quiet excitement in her eyes. She crouches to present a bush of flowers. Familiar flowers. Rumi recognizes them on sight, brightly bunched in the little plot. “I replanted them here before the shop opened. A little welcoming gift to myself, you could say.”

“Jindallae,” Rumi murmurs as she kneels next to Mira. Her fingers twitch with the urge to reach out and brush those lush pink petals. They smell like spring afternoons from her childhood, walking the bloomed paths of Jeju’s picturesque mountain trails with Celine and listening intently while she told Rumi all about the different flowers around them. They smell like home. They smell like Mira.

“I know these aren’t exclusive to the island, but azaleas always remind me of spring there. I visited for the first time a few years ago and it was unlike any bloom I’ve ever seen. You probably don’t need me to tell you that though.”

Rumi hums, ghosting a feather-like touch across the anthers of the flower nearest. She’s very familiar with the vast variety of beauty that blossoms across every season back home. Some she’s gotten to experience in person and some she’s only heard about.

“Transplanting was a bitch. I was worried the roots wouldn’t take,” Mira says. She turns her gaze on Rumi, the warm amber of her eyes softening around the edges. “I’m glad they did.”

Rumi gets lost in it for a moment, how comforting her attention is. Especially when mixed with the attention of the flowers she hasn’t seen like this since she was a kid. 

“I haven’t been back home for spring in years,” she says.

Visiting Celine had long since turned into the occasional trip. Holidays and birthdays, not so much to enjoy the nature like she used to. It’s been too long since she’s seen the azaleas in their peak.

“Really?” Mira asks.

Rumi nods. “It’s my favorite season on Jeju.”

As much as the bright summer and winter blooms take her breath away, there’s something different about the rejuvenation of spring; the sun after a storm, the subtle warmth, the freshness of the colors. And here Mira has recreated it in a little corner of her greenhouse, handing Rumi a nostalgia for something she didn’t know she was missing.

“Well… I have plenty to go around,” Mira says. She waves a hand over the azaleas. “I can press some for you. So you can have spring with you whenever you want. For as long as you want.”

The offer puts a skip in Rumi’s next breath. So generous, so forthright, so unexpected—at first; then completely expected, once she remembers who she’s dealing with. Mira has been showing them for weeks that there’s no limit to her thoughtfulness. 

“Would you like that?” Mira asks softly.

Rumi would like that. She would like that so, so much. But there’s also something else she would really like and it’s kind of killing her that she isn’t getting it, so she musters up her courage and does a quick practice run in her head and then another before—

“Can Rumi kiss you?”

She whips her head over to Zoey, gaping at the audacity of her wife. 

“Babe,” she says, aghast like this is a betrayal. Because it is one—Zoey totally just stole her moment.

And she doesn’t seem to care. Zoey throws her arms up and says, “Well I’m sorry but you were taking too long!”

“I was literally about to ask her!”

“You snooze you lose.”

“I—that’s not how that works!”

“It is when the stakes are this high!”

Rumi groans. “This is what happens when we don’t decide on a plan.”

“Um,” Mira says.

They both turn to her. Mira’s face is carefully blank, eyes focused on a random spot between them. There’s a faint flush in her cheeks.

“So… the flowers?” she asks slowly.

Rumi melts into a smile. “Yes, I’d love that. Thank you.”

“Cool. Super cool.” Mira licks her lips. Her stare comes up to shift between the two of them. “And… the other thing?”

“We’re actually waiting on your answer to that,” Zoey says brightly. Like she’s reminding Mira of something simple, like to grab a coat before going out in the cold. To be fair to her, it’s probably not everyday someone asks her if she’d like to kiss their wife.

“Right,” Mira drawls, there’s a confused little scrunch between her eyes. “It’s just. You asked… for her…” She points limply from Zoey to Rumi. “I… don’t really know what to do with that.”

“Well, do you want to kiss her?” Zoey asks plainly.

Mira blinks. Her eyes fall to Rumi’s lips. “Like, right now?”

Oh my god, this is so cute, Rumi thinks. She shares a delighted look with Zoey and knows she’s thinking the same.

“Right now. Five minutes from now. Tomorrow. Whenever, really.”

“I’m open to rescheduling if now is a bad time,” Rumi adds, trying to be helpful.

“No, that’s not—the time isn’t the—” Mira huffs, then says firmly, “You two are married.”

“Correct.”

“But… she wants you to kiss me?”

“I mean, I also want that. Zoey doesn’t just randomly decide who I kiss.”

Mira blinks again. Then again. “So…”

Zoey jumps in. “Rumi and I are married, yes, and super into each other, double yes. We’re also both super into you. Like, really into you.”

And coming on quite strong, Rumi realizes. The last thing she wants to do is make Mira feel pressured or uncomfortable, and she can’t quite keep some of that fear from bleeding into her voice as she asks, “Is that… okay?”

It’s like Mira snaps back to life. Her eyes clear, her spine straightens, and she looks between the two of them again like the final cog has finally shifted into place in her mind.

“Oh hell yes,” she says. The confident timbre that usually coats her words is back. “C’mere.”

She reaches for the shoulder straps of Rumi’s apron and pulls. 

Rumi goes willingly, sinking into Mira’s firm hold and even firmer kiss. In contrast, her lips are unspeakably soft and supple and move against Rumi’s like she’s trying to claim them, like she’s been starving for this just as much as Rumi and Zoey have. The thought drags a groan from Rumi’s throat. Then another when Mira’s fingers slide from her apron to dig into her shoulders.

“Oh my god,” she hears Zoey whisper.

It makes Mira pull back suddenly, but her hands stay put as she catches her breath and says, “Wait—so Zoey—”

“Has been dying to kiss you like that too,” Rumi says. She looks to her wife. “Babe?”

Zoey doesn’t need any more than that. She practically lunges from her spot to grip Mira’s face and pull her in.

The rumbling sound that comes out of Mira at her force puts a shiver in Rumi’s spine. She needs to hear that again. Needs to be the next reason Mira makes her pleasure known.

That need makes her selfish. She leans in to steal Mira back from Zoey, pulling a whine out of them both; Zoey’s disappointed and Mira’s needy, even more when Rumi slips her tongue into her mouth.

Mira tries to speak between kisses but it’s made especially difficult for her because of how Rumi and Zoey keep passing her back and forth between each other.

“So—mm—” Rumi’s turn again. “—the both of you—?” Then Zoey steals her back. She falls into it for a few moments before pulling away to look at them and ask, breathing hard, “Both of you definitely want this?”

“Yes,” they say, vehement and certain.

“At the same time, preferably,” Zoey adds. “If you’re into that. Please say you’re into that. I mean—no pressure obviously.”

Mira lets out a hoarse chuckle. “I can’t even begin to tell you how into it I am.”

“Wanna try anyways?” Rumi asks. She doesn’t know what she wants more, for Mira to tell them everything about how she wants them, where she wants them, and what she wants them to do to her, or to be the reason that Mira can’t get a single intelligible sentence out at all.

“Is that an order?” Mira taunts. The look in her eyes is like a struck match to the kindling already scattered low in Rumi’s gut.

“Oh, trust me,” Rumi starts, her low voice dripping with promise, “you’ll know when I start bossing you around.”

She gets a taste of the triumph of leaving Mira speechless and decides that, yeah, she would rather have her tongue-tied and teetering on madness. And she’s going to get that even if it takes all night.

A persistent itch settles in her fingers. A familiar one that propels her into Mira’s space again. She needs to touch. Needs to work her fingers down to the bone with the full breadth of Mira’s pleasure.

This time when their lips meet, Rumi’s hands follow. More decisive, more selfish. She slips one up into her long, lusciously pink hair, gripping close to the skin and tugging hard. Mira moans into her mouth and presses closer.

She feels Zoey move behind her, hears the accompanying rustle of things being moved around and the grunts that follow.

Her and Mira separate to see what she’s doing. They find Zoey clearing the last potted plant from the counter nearest to them and gently setting it on the floor with the others she relocated. Then, she pats the top of the counter and beams at them.

“We’re doing this here, right? I don’t think I can wait ’til we get to a bed.”

Rumi turns back to Mira with a grin. “Your call.”

Mira is already standing up and unbuttoning her shirt. “Here is perfect.”

Rumi stands too and bats Mira’s hands out of the way to take over, seeing as it’s one of the many things she’s been dreaming about doing since they met. Zoey helps, eager as always and stealing kisses as she goes. They stumble in a mess of limbs and fervent touch; Rumi half steadying and half leading them more astray with her hungry hands, Zoey full throttle throwing herself at the both of them, and Mira in between it all, grasping at any part of them she can get a hold of while they grapple for direction together.

Rumi falls back for a moment to catch her breath. It stretches when she just has to give the sight before her the admiration it deserves.

Mira, half unraveled with her shirt hanging off her arms, sporting ruddy cheeks and a heaving chest; and Zoey, just as disheveled, already shirtless and working on the button of Mira’s pants as she drags her ravenous lips across every new inch of skin that’s been unveiled.

The sunset streaming through the windows puts a vibrant backlight on them both. Their skin glows from the sun’s fading warmth like they’re siphoning it straight from the source to fuel the swirling heat around them. Heat that doubles when Mira’s eyes open to gaze at Rumi half-lidded. She releases her grip on Zoey’s hair to hold a hand out, beckoning her closer. Rumi follows the call for the second time that evening, and most likely not for the last.

She takes Mira’s hand as she drapes herself across her wife’s back. The freckles dotting either side of her spine look good enough to bite, one by one until she’s covered in bruises. Or—more bruises. The ones from last night are still in full bloom across her chest and neck and surely sensitive to the touch. Rumi decides to find out.

She dances her fingertips up Zoey’s ribs, over her chest with a teasing tug at her nipples, until she finds what she’s looking for, the bright hickey high on Zoey’s neck just under her ear, hidden by her hair. Rumi brings Mira’s hand up and uses her thumb like a pencil, tracing the mark on Zoey’s skin before pressing that thumb into the tender spot.

It pulls heady sounds from the both of them. Zoey jerks away from the unexpected pain whereas Mira seems transfixed by it. She holds Zoey still and pushes down on that spot again. Zoey’s breath stutters around a whine. 

“God, Rumi.” Mira breathes. She takes her time looking over all the other bright marks scattered across Zoey’s chest while she squirms in Mira’s hold. “You chewed the fuck out of her.”

Rumi chuckles darkly. “Don’t worry, she enjoyed every second of it.”

“I bet,” Mira murmurs. “I might have to freshen some of these up.”

“Maybe later,” Rumi says. “I wanna see what Zoey’s mouth can do for you first.”

She watches Mira’s eyes get darker, pupils blown and that lovely shade of brown completely pushed out. Eyes on Mira, Rumi leans into the shell of Zoey’s ear and husks, “What do you say, baby? Can Mira put your pretty mouth to good use?”

She hears the hitch in Mira’s breath at the same time she feels the shudder that rolls through Zoey’s body. It’s as good of an assent as any.

“If she wants me too,” Zoey says.

Mira doesn’t hesitate. “Fuck. Yes.”

They jolt into action, Zoey goes back to fighting with the button on Mira’s pants while Rumi meets Mira halfway for a fierce kiss. The three of them trying to get her pants off proves to be more of a hindrance than a help, so they leave it to Zoey to tug them the rest of the way down then kneel to pull them off her ankles.

Instead of immediately coming back up to rejoin them, Zoey takes the scenic route, trailing kisses and teasing fingers up her calves, over her knees, then finally along the insides of her thighs. She stops before going any further, looking up at Rumi with a request in her eyes.

“Rumi?” she asks, “A little help?” She motions her head at Mira, then the counter she leans back against.

“Hm?” It takes Rumi a second, the novelty of Mira’s kiss still inducing brain mush in her. “Oh, right.”

She picks Mira up by the waist and hefts her onto the surface like she weighs nothing. Mira blinks and stares at her like she’s rebooting. “Oh.”

Rumi smiles, all teeth and rapacious want.

“You get used to it,” Zoey says with a giggle. She’s been thrown around like a rag doll by Rumi more times than they can count. It would be an honor to add Mira to that limitless tally.

Zoey goes back to her, kissing up her thighs until she can nose at her clit through that last layer. Mira’s already shuddering like she’s on the edge, and she hasn’t even experienced the magic of Zoey’s tongue yet.

“I swear to god if you tease me—” Mira cuts off with a gasp when Zoey licks at her through the fabric. 

Rumi drifts into her side so she can kiss along Mira’s neck and shoulders, moving up and up until she gets to her lips again and can reconnect them in a kiss. She licks into Mira’s mouth, hopefully matching Zoey’s tongue against her clothed cunt. Their combined attention pulls these little sounds from Mira’s throat that are so at odds with her usual stoicism. 

She’s needy. Grabbing and pulling at their wrists, their hair, anywhere she can wrap those lithe fingers around. Rumi’s gotten so used to the composed selflessness in Mira’s everyday actions, to the way she refuses help as much as she offers it—to see her writhing so freely for what she wants is a pleasant surprise.

She’s being so good, so honest and open with them. Rumi wants to reward her.

“Zoey,” she says, using all her strength to pull back from Mira’s lips, “Don’t keep her waiting any longer.”

Dutiful as always, Zoey listens. She practically rips Mira’s panties in her haste, hooking her fingers in the waistband and yanking down until the fabric is dangling from an ankle.

There’s another surprise waiting for them once she’s finally exposed. A meticulously trimmed, heart shaped one.

“Dude,” Zoey breathes out, “you dye and shave?”

“Yeah?”

“How is the heart so symmetrical?”

“Practice,” Mira says. A bright blush coats her cheeks at Zoey being so close to where she’s dripping and now neglected because she won’t stop staring.

Rumi cocks her head. “I thought you said you weren’t dating anyone?”

“I’m not.”

“So… the heart?”

Mira shrugs. “I like hearts.”

“Mira, that is so cute,” Zoey gushes. “You have to stop being so cute. I don’t know what to do with myself.”

That gets Rumi back on task. “I can help with that.” 

She slides a hand into Zoey’s hair, grips tightly, then pushes her face first into Mira’s cunt.

The cry that rips from Mira’s throat almost brings Rumi to her knees alongside her wife. So deafening in its vitality, so forthright, like Mira has never once denied herself the full embrace of her own pleasure. She sounds so much prettier than Rumi has ever imagined.

It’s life-giving that she doesn’t have to imagine anymore. Now she can focus all of her energy on coaxing these sounds out of Mira over and over again.

She hooks a hand under Mira’s knee to hold her open for Zoey. It wrenches another moan out of her, long and low as Zoey works her over with her tongue.

“Is she doing a good job, Mir’?” Rumi rasps in her ear. A rhetorical question, of course. She’s very familiar with how skilled Zoey’s tongue is. There’s no way Mira is playing it up just for their sake.

Mira whines out a yes that swells into another broken cry when Zoey moans against her. She’s clearly enjoying herself just as much, eyes fluttering shut as Mira grinds against her face.

“I bet you taste so sweet,” Rumi says, enraptured by the sight.

Zoey pulls back, chin shining with slick, and gasps out, “So fucking good,” before diving right back in. Another muffled moan comes out of her, and Mira slams a hand down on the counter, her head tilting back to gasp at the ceiling.

Rumi’s a little jealous. She wants to know just how good Mira tastes. Wants to lick the mess out of Zoey’s mouth and savor the sweetness of Mira’s pleasure for herself.

She lowers Mira’s leg to reach for the back of Zoey’s head again. Her fingers twine in those black strands and pause, the only preparation she gives her wife before pulling her away from Mira.

Zoey whines like Rumi’s depriving her—and she is, she knows she’s being unfair, so she doesn’t give Zoey time to argue.

“Stand up,” she says, sounding so far gone even to her own ears. Zoey obeys.

The hungry kiss Rumi drags her into smears Mira’s cum around her lips and chin, and the taste of her bursts on Rumi’s tongue like biting into sweet, summer fruit. She takes as much as she wants. Steals the addicting taste of Mira right from Zoey’s tongue.

“As hot as this is,” Mira says, sounding out of breath, “can we come back to me?”

They separate with a wet smack, and Rumi turns back to her with a smirk. “You know, I thought I was gonna have to try harder to get you to beg.”

Mira tries to glare, but it doesn’t land when combined with her deep blush and slick stained thighs that she still has wide open for them.

“I’m not begging,” she says. “I’m simply making a request. A very reasonable one.”

“So diplomatic,” Zoey jests. She puts herself back between Mira’s thighs and runs her hands up and down the soft, pale skin there. “And definitely not needy at all.”

Mira huffs, not dignifying that with a response. Her faux annoyance fades when Zoey leans in to ghost her breath across her lips.

“I won’t leave you hanging like that again,” she whispers. 

They fall back into each other, their slow, deep kisses spellbinding Rumi to her spot. She takes in the vision greedily, the way Zoey runs her hands all over Mira, the way Mira has already learned what touches make Zoey sing the most; pressure on her chest, a rough grip in her hair, nails digging into skin.

She’s reminded of last night. Of teasing Zoey with the promise of teaching Mira how to touch her. Turns out, she didn’t need to. Which means she can devote more time to learning what takes Mira apart.

Rumi falls in line behind her wife again, stealing one of Zoey’s hands from the dip of Mira’s hip to guide it lower.

“Keep going, Zo’,” she whispers in her ear. “I wanna hear her scream.”

Zoey moans into Mira’s mouth. Rumi frees her hand and lets Zoey do the rest.

She knows exactly when Zoey gives Mira her fingers. The flush high on her cheeks spreads down to her chest, and she goes slack jawed and panting against Zoey’s temple. There’s no patience in Zoey’s thrusts, she gives it to Mira hard and fast right from the beginning, pressing sloppy kisses to her neck and chest.

“Fuck,” Mira groans, “Zoey, your fingers feel so good.”

Zoey whines against her skin and doesn’t answer. Not with her words. Rumi can hear the pace of her thrusts pick up, hear the wet clutch of Mira’s cunt around her fingers.

The wooden counter creaks beneath them, so Rumi steadies it with a firm hand while the other comes around to pinch and tease at Zoey’s nipples. The sounds they both make swim and sing in Rumi’s ears. Fan the fire below her navel. She’s burning up from the inside out because of these two, more certain than anything that the fire will never truly be doused.

“She’s almost there, baby,” Rumi says when Mira’s moans start to break apart, loud and unrestrained. “Right, Mir’?”

“Yes, yes, so close. I—Zoey, don’t stop.”

“You’re so gorgeous like this,” Zoey pants. “Please come for us, Mira. Please, please—”

“Fuck, I—I’m—”

Eyes black and glazed over, Mira looks right at Rumi without seeing her. Her back arches hard, putting a spotlight to the sweat gleaming on her skin against the backdrop of sunset. The deep, guttural cry that rips from her throat when she comes ingrains itself in Rumi’s brain for good, etching into the stone of her memory. Mira jerks and shudders with the force of her orgasm, clinging to Zoey’s shoulder with one hand and Rumi’s steady arm with the other.

They bring Mira in close as she comes down, leaving soothing kisses anywhere they can reach and rubbing their hands along her spine.

“I just need a second,” Mira pants. Her head tilts back. “Just gimme one second.”

Rumi chuckles and presses one last kiss to her shoulder. Then she pushes herself up and says, “No rush. I’ve got plenty to entertain myself with in the meantime.”

And then she’s back behind Zoey, who slides her fingers out of Mira and stares at them like she’s in a trance.

Zoey startles a bit when Rumi murmurs in her ear, “Still with us, Zo’?”

“Yeah I’m—I’m good.” Zoey chuckles, still a bit dazed. “Like, so good.”

Rumi hums. Her sneaky fingers skim across the waist of Zoey’s shorts. Then lower, where the fabric strains outward along the zipper.

“Can I take care of you?” She nips at Zoey’s ear, then down her neck and shoulder. She feels Zoey shudder against her lips. “So Mira can see?”

Rumi palms the front of her shorts and delights in the little mewl Zoey lets slip. Oh, she won’t last long at all. Not after fucking Mira like she may never get the chance again.

“Open up for me, baby.”

Zoey slides her feet further apart, breath picking up again. The sound of her zipper slowly unfurling makes Mira pick up her head. She’s still breathless and bleary-eyed, still glowing head to toe from her orgasm, but when she locks her eyes on Rumi tugging Zoey from her shorts, a little gasp escapes her lips.

“Give me your hand,” Rumi whispers into Zoey’s ear. When Zoey does as she’s told and holds up her clean hand, Rumi pushes it back down to her side and says, “The other one.”

Zoey lets out a breathy moan and presents her other hand, the one still wet with Mira’s cum. Rumi guides it down to the base of her dick, wraps her fingers around Zoey’s, then makes her slick herself with what remains.

Zoey moans at the guided touch. At the way Rumi gathers what dribbles from the tip to mix with the remnants of Mira already streaked across her.

“Are you gonna come for me, baby?” Rumi asks. The words are directed at Zoey, but she keeps her eyes focused on Mira when she asks, “For us?”

Zoey moans out a high pitched string of yes yes yes, her eyes clenched shut. She tilts her head back onto Rumi’s shoulder.

She couldn’t have chosen a worse time to close her eyes. Because not a moment later Mira drops to her knees right in front of her.

It puts a stutter in Rumi’s slow strokes, caught off guard, especially when Mira leans in with parted lips an inch away from the dripping tip, stares Rumi down, and waits.

Still in awe, Rumi rasps out, “Fuck, Mira. You’re so perfect.”

She really is. On her knees and mouth open without hesitation, ready to take whatever they give her.

Zoey needs to see this. She deserves to see this. Rumi leans in close to her ear again and says softly, “Look at her, Zo’.”

With a bleary blink, Zoey opens her eyes. She looks down and gasps.

Her eager hips start to jerk erratically into Rumi’s hand, so Mira reaches up to stall them, digging her thumbs into the dips of her pelvis.

“Show her,” Rumi husks. Her other hand comes up to cup Zoey’s breast and roll a nipple between her fingers. “Show her how pretty you are when you come.”

Mira gets rid of that last inch of distance and encloses her lips around the tip. Her cheeks hollow out as she sucks. Zoey’s body tightens up like a coiled spring—mouth open around a silent scream—then releases.

Rumi slows her strokes to let her ride it out, and so she can admire the sight of Mira sucking her soft for just a little bit longer.

“That’s it,” Rumi coos, dropping a kiss to Zoey’s sweaty temple. “Good job, baby. You did so well for us.”

She waits for Mira to rise to her feet again before tucking Zoey back into her shorts. Then they all tilt into each other, sharing breaths and warmth and the comfort of each other’s company.

“That was awesome,” Zoey murmurs. “Mira, you—I mean—just, holy shit.”

Mira chuckles. “You weren’t so bad yourself.”

“I’m serious, that’s gonna be on replay in my head for, like, ever.”

“Same,” Rumi says with a happy sigh. The pressing ache between her legs throbs from the memory alone. Even when it’s no longer a searingly fresh memory, she’s sure her body will still react the same.

A different reaction takes up space within her when Zoey and Mira both lock their focus on her. Rumi feels the tide of control in the room shift.

“You’re awfully content for someone who hasn’t come yet,” Mira says.

Rumi blinks, then waves her off. “Oh, I’m fine, we don’t need to—”

“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m letting you leave before I get my hands on you.”

Rumi swallows the rest of her objection. She wouldn’t mind that. She wouldn’t mind that one bit.

“You mean in her, right?” Zoey says, smile toothy and teasing. “’Cause she’s told me all about how she wants that real bad. Something, something, Mira’s long fingers, something, something, reach so deep. Right Rumi?”

Rumi narrows her eyes at her wife. “You’re gonna pay for that.”

“Promise?” Zoey bats her eyelashes at her.

Before Rumi can get out another word, Mira pounces. She pulls Rumi in for a kiss that makes her head spin, then actually spins her to push her up against the counter they just had her on.

She goes willingly, letting the last of that control slip from her fingers as they both descend upon her. As they catch and cradle her like the embrace of flora that flourishes in the room.

A balance of pinks, blues, and purples thrive amongst the petals surrounding them. They settle their roots in her chest, their twining stems around her ribs. The bloom comes next.

-

Long after the sun finally sets, they’re still together. Still pressed close and leaning against that sullied countertop that they’ll definitely have to disinfect before Mira opens up the shop in the morning.

There’s a pleasant buzz that lingers under Rumi’s skin and a soreness between her thighs that she’s glad she didn’t say no too. She’ll never say no again, after the promise Mira just delivered on to make Rumi see stars drawn by her long, lovely fingers.

“I don’t think I can set foot in this room again without thinking about that,” Zoey says, then tilts her head to the side. “Actually, I can never go anywhere, or look at anything ever again, without thinking about that.”

Mira laughs as she gently cards her fingers through Zoey’s hair. “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“No, no, it’s more than welcome. Thank you, honestly.”

Rumi laughs with them and looks around the room that she’ll also never be the same in again. Something across the way catches her eye.

“Babe, why did you clear the counter?” Rumi asks. She points across the room at the perfectly good, very soft surface they could’ve used as a bed. “The couch is right there.”

They both follow her finger and stare.

“Oh my god,” Mira groans. “I forgot about the fucking couch.”

Zoey grins meekly. “Whoops.”

It’s so ridiculous that Rumi has to laugh. Or maybe she’s just still lightheaded from everything they got up to. She nuzzles closer into Mira’s neck and inhales the scent of spring and sweat on her skin.

“You know, this is the kind of story you tell to break the ice on a first date. ‘One time I had a threesome in a greenhouse and it wasn’t until we were done that we remembered there was a couch.’” Zoey says. “Kind of a mouthful though.”

Mira snorts. “I just had a mouthful of you. And vice versa. I think the ice is broken.”

A light blush dusts Zoey’s cheeks as she giggles at the reminder—then stops. She lifts her head so she can focus her big, imploring eyes on Mira and say, “I know you said you don’t have time for that kind of thing—the dating thing, I mean. And we’ll totally respect your boundaries no matter what, I promise, it’s just that you’re really cool and nice and so hot it’s crazy and—”

“We’d really like to take you out on a date,” Rumi finishes. “If you’re willing.”

“Rumi!” Zoey gapes at her. “You stole my thunder!”

Rumi shrugs. “Payback for earlier.”

Zoey huffs but relents. When she turns her attention back to Mira, her expression melts again.

“We don’t have to go anywhere,” she says when Mira has yet to answer them. “Rumi and I could make dinner and bring it over and we can eat while we clean up the shop or something. Whatever you want.”

“Or we could defile the greenhouse again,” Rumi says. “That was pretty fun.”

“Yeah, that was awesome. Ten out of ten, our tulips should meet again.” Zoey cracks up at her own joke.

“Zoey,” Rumi groans, “now she’s gonna say no.”

“Nuh-uh, I totally just sealed the deal for us. We’re so in now.” She beams at Mira. “Right?”

Rumi’s been keeping a careful eye on her as they wait for her answer, but she’s not too worried about what Mira will say because of the quietly fond way she’s been smiling at them this whole time. Rumi nudges Zoey in a soundless request to repeat their question.

“Can we take you out on a date sometime?”

Another tender petal unfurls at the edge of Mira’s smile.

“I would love that.”

-