𝜗𝜚 — in which, you move in across the street and he can’t keep his eyes off you.
LUCA x FLORIST!FEM!READER this is actually angst (at the very beginning) if u do a billion jumping jacks, 10 push ups and spin 58 times . reader hinted at running from past . reader pining over luca + vice versa . 2.8k . — this was so freaking cute — requested ྀིྀིྀིྀིྀི
your first time meeting ( seeing ) him
It's like he wants to be gawked at.
All broad shoulders and muscle that make everyone working within a block radius pause and stare. A perfect face, a collage of sorts that look like God himself took extra time with.
You frown to admit that you find yourself staring as well, from across the street in your quaint shop, in your own corner of the world. You find yourself queasy with a jumble of butterflies flittering in your stomach.
You sigh and fix your hair, walking back inside after completing your original task: watering the plants outside. Not making doe eyes at the man across the street.
post ( a few days after ) move in
florist!reader who, when first moved in, was running away from a previous relationship that left her heart locked and the key burnt away. scars on your heart fresh and red, the monster that did this to you marring your life forever.
Whether you liked it or not, you were—you are taking a break from the life you once lead.
Not lead, but rather something you were forced into; because monsters are real. Some take the form of humans and that itself is deadly. One can never tell them apart.
You pass by the counter to the back room, where you keep all the flowers that need to be delivered, sharp cutting tools; this place is your solace.
You feel like you can breathe here, the backroom of your quaint shop, cutting away all the unwanted imperfections from the flowers you breathe life into, much like the world does to its people though not as directly; they cut into you and rip out all that seems impure, molding you to their standards so you’re perfect.
Perfect in the eyes of the world but you yourself can see the ugliness it tries to hide behind: soft red petals, a wilted core, a caged heart.
getting settled
you shop wasn’t big, though it wasn’t small either. You were extremely proud of your work though, the days you put into molding these flowers into beautiful art made your chest swell. your neighbors and what little friends you had showed up with gifts and words of advice that you’ll never forget.
“How’d you know I like to read this author?”
Your closest friend of six years turns to you after setting down a cardboard box gently on the ground. “Are you kidding?” she asks with a smile. “you rave about that author like, every day.” she bumps hips with you as she exits through the door to the u-haul parked outside, gathering smaller boxes.
You lips curve and hold the book to your chest.
first ( official ) meeting
You’d just finished setting up the shop for its opening, decorative flowers feeding the already sweet aroma of your cozy shop from pots hanging on the ceiling, which took forever to do.
the bell at the door rings and answers you of a customer.
“Hi, welcome!” You say, head still under the counter fixing the decor there. “give me just a second!”
You straighten with a small grunt, brushing flecks of dried leaves from your apron and picking them from your sleeves before finally looking up.
The man standing before you looks as though he belongs in the early morning rather than the middle of the afternoon.
Flour dusts the sleeves of a navy sweater rolled carelessly to his elbows. His hands are broad, rough around the knuckles, carrying the kind of tiny burns and cuts that you think only come from forgetting something in the oven one too many times. He shifts his weight when you catch his eye, almost embarrassed to be taking up space.
“Oh.”
He smiles, crooked and fleeting.
“Sorry,” he says, voice carrying an accent softened by years spent elsewhere. “Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You didn’t.” you say, moving closer to the counter, resting your hands on the cool marble.
A beat passes.
“I, uh…” His hand disappears behind his back before returning with a folded paper bag. Warm. You notice wisps of steam still curl from the top. “Opened a bakery across the street last week.”
You blink. You remember seeing the opening of said bakery; Didn’t know it belonged to this man of a man.
“I’ve seen your shop every morning.” he continues, fiddling with the paper bag still in his hands.
Then your heart skips a beat and you feel your cheeks getting warm. Not because he’d been watching you but because someone had noticed you.
“I thought…” He clears his throat. “Thought I’d introduce myself. I’m Luca.”
Your gaze drops to the bag. “What’s this?”
“A peace offering.” he says shrugging his shoulders with such a boyish charm your smile grows
You laugh before you can stop yourself.
“We’re at war?”
His shoulders lift in the smallest shrug. “Never hurts to start on the right side.”
He places the bag gently on the counter between you.
You pick it up and the paper is still warm beneath your fingertips.
Inside rests a croissant so perfectly golden it almost doesn’t seem real, buttery layers catching the afternoon sunlight filtering through the front windows.
“I can’t—I can’t accept this.” you say, such a perfect pastry going to not so perfect you? Yeah right.
“You can.” he says, that smile showing up on his face shush
“I haven’t paid you.” you say incredulously
“You don’t have to.” he replies. and his smile deepens, showing dimples that you try not to fawn over.
“Why?” you ask, closing the paper bag, finger tracing the sticker that held it closed.
“My mum always said flowers make a place feel lived in.” His eyes wander to the bouquets surrounding the shop.
“I figured whoever made these deserved breakfast.”
He’s so. . . sweet. “I’m afraid,” you say carefully, “that now I’m obligated to buy bread from you.”
A quiet laugh escapes him and those dimples return.
“I was hoping you would.”
getting closer
and, a random tradition starting between the two of you. one that left your heart floating.
At first, you assume it’s coincidence.
Perhaps he’d simply baked too much. Perhaps he didn’t like croissants as much as you’d thought.
Perhaps bakers were just. . . kind.
The second morning, another paper bag waits on one of the tankers outside your shop. At first you thought it had been someone who put it there accidentally, until you saw the familiar sticker holding the bag closed. ‘Thank You for Your Purchase!’
Your heart did a leap despite yourself.
The bag was still warm. Inside, a cinnamon knot this time, sugar glittering over its folds like the first frost of winter.
There was no note or receipt, just your name written in tidy handwriting.
The third morning, you catch sight of him through the front window of a small supermarket. Both his and your shops visible.
His bakery lights glow amber against the sleepy blue dawn, and for only a heartbeat you see him crossing the street, paper bag in hand, before disappearing behind your door.
By the time you’ve reached it after posting for your groceries, he’s gone. With only the pastry remaining.
At night, before you close up for the day, a flower in the bucket underneath your workable catches your eye.
A chamomile. Small white petals circling a golden center.
Something gentle. Like him. Like the way he makes his pastries. Like the way you hope he’d hold you.
You find an empty glass bottle no taller than your palm, fill it halfway with water, and carry it across the street after locking your shop.
Even outside the bakery, you smell butter, honey, vanilla, and him. You stop yourself from getting lost in his scent.
Through the window, you see Luca standing behind the counter kneading dough, sleeves rolled to his elbows, flour streaking one cheek where he’d absentmindedly scratched at an itch.
The little bell announces you.
He looks up and his eyebrow lifts. His lips pull at the corners and you find yourself following the movement.
“Hi.” you say, fiddling with the petals on the chamomile. Trying not to think on how soft his hair would be compared to it.
“Hi.” he replies, his original smile widening.
“I. . .” You glance at the bottle in your hands. “Thought your counter looked lonely.” you say, suddenly feeling ridiculous.
“It’s supposed to mean patience.”
You aren’t sure why you tell him that. Perhaps because flowers always seem to say what people cannot.
His mouth softens into something almost shy.
“I’ll take good care of it.”
The exchange becomes habit before either of you notices.
Every morning — a different pastry.
Every evening — a different flower.
On Mondays, you receive buttery kouign-amann with crisp caramel edges.
On Tuesdays, sourdough still warm enough that steam escapes when you tear it apart.
On Fridays, when the week has clearly been cruel to you, an extra pain au chocolat appears without explanation.
In return, your flowers begin telling stories.
Lavender after especially busy weekends.
Sunflowers on mornings bright enough to spill gold through every window.
White lisianthus after Luca mentions, only once, that his sister used to love them.
You never tell him you remember everything he says.
people beginning to notice the mutual yearning
“You got yourself a secret admirer?”
Mrs. Alvarez teases one Tuesday, nodding toward the pastry bag tucked beside your register.
You laugh too quickly. “It’s from the bakery.” you say, wiping water from your cheek. You need to get your spray bottle fixed.
“Mhm.” she says, her eyes squinting in suspicion with a smile bordering on cheeky.
“And the flower sitting in his window?”
You pause. “. . .Decoration.”
“Oh?”
“You know bakers.”
“I don’t,” she says, “but apparently you do.”
asking you out
The question lingered between the two of you for nearly a week before either of you found the courage to ask it.
But the answer had settled quietly into your lives months ago, tucked somewhere between paper pastry bags and little glass bottles that now felt empty whenever they weren’t sitting on opposite counters.
It was simply—
“What do people do now?”
You glanced up from trimming the ends of a bundle of sweet peas, amusement flickering across your face. “Now?”
Luca stood in your doorway, one hand still wrapped around the coffee he’d forgotten to drink. There was flour caught in the cuff of his sleeve, a streak of it dusting the bridge of his wrist. You wondered if he’d noticed.
“When they. . .” He hesitated, searching for a word that didn’t feel too heavy. “. . .like each other.”
A smile tugged at your mouth before you could stop it.
“I think they go on dates.”
“Oh.” He nodded once. “Right.”
Silence settled again, the kind the two of you had grown accustomed to in your late night gifting of flowers and his pastry giving before the sun reaches the clouds.
“So. . .” you prompted.
“So.” he says.
Another pause.
“I’ve never actually. . .” He scratched absentmindedly at the back of his neck. “Done much of that.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“You leave pastries on my counter before sunrise.”
“. . . right.”
“I leave flowers in your bakery.”
“. . .yeah.”
“I think we’ve accidentally skipped a few steps.”
That earns a laugh from him; and you catch yourself smiling at him too—like a lovesick fool.
“So have we?”
You met his eyes. “I think we’ve been dating for months.”
“I was—” he clears his throat. “was gonna ask if you’d like to go somewhere.”
“You are somewhere.” you say.
“. . .I know.”
“No, I mean—”
“I-uh, I know what you mean.” He looked almost embarrassed, gaze dropping to the bouquet still sitting in your hands.
“I just don’t know where people go.”
You thought about it. Restaurants felt too loud, parks too public, movie theaters would mean sitting beside him for two hours without hearing him speak, and after spending months looking for excuses to cross the street, that suddenly sounded like a waste.
“What if we just didn’t go anywhere?”
He frowned at that so you continued.
“You spend all day making food,” you said. “I spend all day surrounded by flowers.”
Your eyes drifted toward the bakery windows across the street.
“Why don’t we stay after closing?”
His gaze followed yours.
“I’ll bring dinner.”
“You make dinner.”
“I’ll bring dessert?” he says, unsure.
“You also make dessert.”
His shoulders shook with quiet laughter, shaking his head while pushing his hair out of his eyes. “I keep forgetting that.”
You laugh and untie tie apron from your waist, looking at him with a smile from sideways, “I’ll bring the flowers.”
