The florist was usually up long before the sun made its first contact with the lush branches and bedecked leaves of the hillside trees. A quick glance from a sleepy eye determined that the day in particular wouldn't hold the case for him and he was up from the soft cloud of a bed in an instant.
How could I forget? It's today, isn't it? Crap.
Cam contained the urge to run out of the room upon dressing but moved with a reserved speed, appearing outside his bedroom door in minutes. A small smile threatened to break the steely mood upon his visage as he passed the kitchen area of the establishment, nodding a bleak greeting of the morning to the other two occupants before shuffling out of sight. The sweet aromas wafting and welling within the confines of the cafe were always a delight to wake up to, but the one thing that made the brunet happiest was idly sitting in another room.
The florist quietly shut the door to the adjacent room, first making his way over to the window. A small sky-blue planter sat primly upon the ledge, eagerly soaking in the rays of sunlight that flitted through the crystalline pane.
Olive-drab eyes softened, the smile that threatened to break him earlier bursting free across his lips. Little blades of sprouting stems were poking up through the dark, murky soil, jade contrasting and constricting, reaching vertical-happily to be bathed in the oncoming light. The sight delighted Cam, who reached over to pluck a small glass container of water off of his workbench to gently douse the floral statures in.
“Just a few more weeks, and you'll be ready,” he assured the plants in a quiet voice, fingertips sprinkling the little sprouts with droplets of water. “You'll be apart of the best bouquet I've ever had the pleasure of building.”
Cam set the glass down and turned to the one damning thing that had been hounding the depths of his mind since he had woken up:
“I hope you're ready, because I'm not,” he mumbled with a quiet sigh. Several bottles of different scented oils littered his opposite workbench, along with some odd-shaped glasses and flasks and an ivory marbled mortar and pestle. Frowning, he took grip of one bottle – rose-scented – and precariously dropped a few beads of the liquid inside the bowl of the mortar. He then reached above for a box containing some rose petals which he also placed inside the mortar. A few more miscellaneous items and oils and he was ready for the pestle.
As he ground up the pieces, Cam's mind wandered, tripping and traipsing over things. The perfume order was for a gentleman who had wanted to give a lovely gift to his betrothed. Such news rarely made his heart soar in excitement, save for the financial aspect of it. What was romance, anyway? He certainly wasn't sure about married life. The idea of being with someone until their dying day sounded like a far-off fairytale, enchanting words and whimsy made only for dreaming maidens and curious heroes. The florist felt as though he could not fully understand such thought and wondered if something along those lines were even possible.
He gently tapped the pestle against the inside of the mortar, allowing the remnants of the mixture to drip back into the bowl. When he thought about it, the brunet's emotions were about as varied as the lovely-scented mush he was grinding: mysterious and jumbled with nowhere to go except forward into a bottle.
Cam spent awhile staring into the ivory bowl before taking up the pestle again. He drowned himself so deep in his work that if anyone were to disturb him....