The Man Who Fixed Things That Weren't Broken

Odalys noticed it the third time he visited her flower shop: her wobbly display table, which she'd learned to work around, had stopped wobbling. She hadn't asked anyone to fix it.

"Did you do something to my table?" she asked the next time he came in, ostensibly to buy flowers for his sister's birthday, though he'd been buying suspiciously frequent bouquets for someone whose birthday seemed to occur weekly.

"Might have shimmed the back leg while you were in the storeroom," he admitted. "It was bothering me. Sorry, that's probably overstepping."

"It's been wobbling for two years. I'd given up on it."

"That's precisely the problem," he said. "Things shouldn't stay broken just because you've gotten used to working around them."

Odalys studied him Theo, according to his card, a general contractor by trade with growing suspicion. "Is this a bit? Are you secretly fixing things around my shop to have an excuse to keep visiting?"

"...Partially," Theo admitted, looking caught. "Though the table genuinely needed fixing regardless of my ulterior motives."

"What else have you fixed without asking?"

He hesitated. "The sticky door hinge on your storeroom. And I noticed your cash register drawer sticks, so I brought lubricant last time, though I haven't actually applied it yet, out of respect for boundaries."

"You've been casually repairing my entire shop for weeks."

"When you say it like that, it sounds considerably more invasive than it felt in the moment," Theo said. "I promise the intent was romantic, not... handyman stalking."

Odalys found herself laughing despite her best efforts at maintaining proper indignation. "It's oddly charming, actually. Deeply strange, but charming."

"I'll take strange-but-charming," Theo said, visibly relieved. "For what it's worth, I'd like to stop secretly fixing things and instead just... ask you to dinner properly. Though I reserve the right to still fix the register drawer, purely on principle."

"Dinner, then," Odalys said, smiling. "Though I'm keeping a running list of everything you've repaired. I expect a full accounting eventually."

"Fair," Theo said. "Though full disclosure, the list is longer than you probably realize."

to be continued... 🔧💛