Warnings and disclaimers in first part.
Friday
In a hurry, Duo shot from his truck and raced toward the house, already running late from the jobs he had done during the day. Expecting Trowa to be gone again, he froze mid-step after seeing the tall man sitting on the couch, staring back at Duo with a blank expression.
When Trowa didn’t say anything, Duo crossed the room quickly, hopping to take his shoes and socks off without stopping, “I thought you’d already be gone by now.”
“Gone to where?”
“I don’t know. You’ve had plans for every other night this week; I assumed tonight wouldn’t be any different,” Duo commented, leaving his bedroom door open so he could hear Trowa’s reply as he searched for a change of clothes.
“There is a poker game at Wufei’s.”
“Cool, I hope you have fun. Don’t let anyone take all of your pretzels; they’re worth the most,” Duo advised absently, trying to recall if he had ever seen Trowa at one of Wufei’s games, unable to remember the tall man seated around the table.
“I was under the impression that you usually go to Wufei’s poker games.”
Looking up from the drawer he was rummaging in, Duo realized Trowa was standing at the bedroom door, watching him with a baffled expression. “I do if he’s having it on Saturday. Since I normally work on Saturday, I don’t drink on Friday, other than a glass of wine at dinner. At Wufei’s poker games, there is a surplus of alcohol to be consumed and taxis waiting on everyone when the game is finally over at two or three in the morning.”
“I didn’t know you worked on Saturday.”
Baffled by Trowa’s odd tone, Duo shrugged as he found a suitable shirt, tossing it to the bed to land beside the pants he had chosen, “The greenhouse isn’t open to the public, but a small staff will be there to conduct inventory and replenish the items we sold during the week. I also have a lot of stuff to catch up on since I was too busy to get it done this week, but I should be home by two or three.”
“You aren’t going to Wufei’s,” the emerald-eyed man mused softly as his gazed turned to the clothes on the bed, “but you are going out.”
“Dinner with Zechs,” Duo shrugged. “If neither one of us is involved with someone, we go to dinner on Friday. It’s a good way to wind down after a long week that can sometimes be stressful.”
Duo was moving toward the bathroom when Trowa spoke quietly, “I thought you weren’t involved with Zechs anymore.”
“I’m not. He’s a good friend, Trowa. I can talk to him about anything.”
“I was home last night when he left, Duo.”
Deciding he didn’t have time for a shower, Duo began to strip off his work clothes, “He didn’t bother you or anything, did he? He can be noisy as hell sometimes.”
“It was almost eleven when he left.”
The observation had Duo shaking his head in amusement, “I’m surprised he stayed so late. He might have been making sure I was really asleep instead of faking it so he would go away. I really am sorry if he bothered you, but I owe the guy for taking care of me; him being here last night kept me from falling on my face before I made it to the door.”
A hand on his arm prevented Duo from putting on his shirt. Trowa’s eyes were focused on him, “Why did he need to take care of you?”
Wiggling his arm free, the smaller man put his shirt on, “I don’t deal very well with stress or certain kinds of stress, I guess. It’s been a really busy week and I’ve been shorthanded and running like crazy all week. I kinda forgot to eat for a few days, too, so by the time I got home last night I was running on empty. Zechs put me in the bath, fixed me something to eat, and cleaned up a little. I hate to admit it, but it’s something he’s had to do before.”
“Duo?” Zechs voice called from the living room. “Are you ready to go?”
“I’ll be there in just a minute!” Duo called back before giving Trowa a wan smile, “Don’t give him a hard time, okay? He’s used to having to take care of me because I forget to do it myself.”
“I think I understand,” Trowa said slowly, looking down at the floor. “Finish getting ready and I’ll tell him you’re coming. Duo,” the tall man stopped before leaving the room, “would you mind if I went to the greenhouse with you tomorrow?”
“I don’t mind at all, but I have to be there by five, so I’ll be leaving here at four-thirty,” Duo said, wishing Trowa would look up at him. There was something in the tall man’s demeanor that revealed uncertainty, but without seeing the green eyes, Duo wasn’t sure what was going on in Trowa’s mind. “If you aren’t ready to go by then, I’ll assume you changed your mind.”
When Duo and Zechs left the house twenty minutes later, Trowa was nowhere to be seen.
Saturday
At four the next morning, Duo was stunned to see his roommate shuffle his way into the kitchen, obviously still mostly asleep. Unsure how to take Trowa’s sudden interest in his job, the braided man wisely didn’t comment on the tall man’s appearance, wondering if Trowa had slept at all. “I made coffee, if you want some.”
Dragging footsteps halted in the center of the kitchen, “You don’t drink coffee.”
“I made it in case you decided to go with me. We can take what you don’t drink here with us in a thermos; there isn’t a coffee maker at the greenhouse.”
“Your employees don’t mind not having coffee?”
Smearing jelly onto a piece of toast, Duo shook his head, “The ones that drink coffee bring their own, but being in the greenhouse is hot work. Even the avid coffee drinkers are guzzling water by eight or nine in the morning, even in the dead of winter. Speaking of that,” Duo turned to gesture at the other man’s sweatshirt, “you can’t wear that, Trowa.”
“It’s cool outside this early in the morning,” Trowa stated, tugging at the clothing in question. “I don’t like being cold.”
“Neither do I, but you shouldn’t wear that. If you do, wear a t-shirt or something under it so you can take it off later.”
“You’re wearing that?” Trowa gestured with his chin at the tank top Duo wore, coffee gripped with both hands. “Won’t you get cold?”
“The inside of the greenhouse never gets colder than seventy-two degrees. It won’t take long to get warmer as the sun comes up.”
“You normally wear a t-shirt,” the tall man pointed out, surprising Duo with the knowledge.
“During the week I have to go out a lot, so I get cool. There won’t be any customers today, either; almost everyone will be dressed like this.”
“I’ll put on another shirt under this,” nodded Trowa, shuffling away with his coffee clenched in one hand.
Trowa didn’t emerge from his room until it was time to leave, meeting Duo at the door and silently following him to the truck, gratefully taking the thermos when they climbed inside. Duo was on the road when the silence was broken, “Did you have a good time with Zechs last night?”
“Sure. We went to a small pizza place he found a few weeks ago. The food was surprisingly good.”
“All you did was eat dinner?”
“We ate, a lot. We also talked a lot. That’s what we do when we go to dinner, Trowa. I was home and in bed, alone, by ten. Did you have a good time at Wufei’s?”
“I didn’t go. I’ve never really liked poker.”
Baffled, Duo glanced at his passenger, “If you don’t like poker, why did you bring it up yesterday?”
“I thought you liked to go,” Trowa shrugged, visibly uncomfortable. “I’ve heard you, Wufei, and Heero talk about the games before and assumed it was something you would want to do.”
“If I had known you weren’t going to go, I would have asked you to come with us last night,” Duo stated, smiling when he saw Trowa’s head swivel toward him from the corner of his eye. “I thought you wanted to go to Wufei’s, although I couldn’t remember you ever being there before.”
“You
would have asked me to go with you?
Wouldn’t Zechs have been unhappy?”
“He wouldn’t have cared, Trowa. He’s brought friends along before. Our dinners on Friday night are a way to unwind and let go of the week. I would have been happy to have you there.” Duo smiled when Trowa didn’t respond, asking a question of his own, “Why did you want to come with me today?”
“I realized I don’t know what you do; I assumed you sold flowers, like a florist.”
“I do sell flowers, but that’s not all. We grow bushes and flowers at the greenhouse, along with vegetables, trees, and sell gardening supplies. The main difference between my place and a florist is that we grow what they sell. Flowers at a florist are shipped there daily. I’ve also been trying to cross pollenate several new kinds of flowers, but it’s a long and tedious process I haven’t had any time for lately.”
“You love what you do,” Trowa commented, sounding surprised.
“I really do. It’s nice to grow instead of destroy and I’m my boss. The only person I have to answer to is me.”
“I’ve heard that working for yourself is often more stressful than working for someone else.”
Laughing as he pulled the truck into the greenhouse parking lot, Duo had to agree, “It can be; I have some pretty high expectations and a lot more big plans that will help the business expand, but I’ve had to learn how to be patient.”
“I’ve never realized there was so…much,” Trowa admitted as he got out of the truck, eyes wide as he surveyed the area. “I thought there was only one small building.”
Taking a moment to feel pride for the work he had done, Duo studied the four buildings that made up his business. “When I first opened, there was only one building, but I expanded as soon as I had the profits to do so.” Moving to the main building, he unlocked the door and turned on the dim lighting that would be used until the sun came up.
“You put that much back into this when you opened? That was a huge risk, wasn’t it? The first few years for businesses are supposed to be the hardest.”
Walking through rows and rows of plants, Duo nodded, “That’s what I was told, but there weren’t any real problems. I had plenty of money for start-up fees, permits, and supplies, so I didn’t have to borrow any. That meant when I opened I could freely reinvest in the business without having to cover any other financial obligations. I also managed to pick a service that was needed in the area, so there wasn’t a lot of competition. In less than a year I was able to get contracts with a number of florists who were ordering their stock from greenhouses that charged more because they had to drive farther and we were able to get multiple landscaping contracts.”
At the door of his small office, Duo realized Trowa wasn’t behind him. He searched the large space, finally locating the tall man in front of shelves of flowers, hundreds of closed blooms in an array of colors spread out on either side of him. Backtracking his steps, he gave his roommate a questioning look. “There are so many,” Trowa stated with wide eyes.
“There are a lot of different kinds and most kinds have a variety of colors, so we keep a selection in stock.”
“I didn’t just mean the flowers, Duo,” corrected Trowa, letting his gaze roam over the greenhouse. “There are so many plants in here. These must be the flowers you grow for florists.”
Duo laughed at the assumption, gesturing for the other man to follow him. “These flowers are strictly for greenhouse customers. Florist orders and other plants for landscaping are housed in a different building so there isn’t a shortage. When a landscaping order is made, we take the requested plants off the sell floor. Come on, I have to get ready for the employees to get here.”
“What do you have to do?”
In his office, hardly big enough for both of them, Duo sat at the desk and turned on his computer, trying to battle the awareness of the other man that had been chasing him all morning. It was the first time since Trowa had moved in that they had spent any time together, other than the brief confrontations at the house, and Duo was doing the best he could not to stare. “I have to print off a list of inventory we’re supposed to have and split it up so the employees can check to make sure that’s what we have. It’s important to know exactly what we have on hand so we don’t run out. The time of year factors into what we carry, too.”
He was sure he was boring Trowa to death so fell silent as the list printed out, lifting an eyebrow in surprise when the other man inquired, “Why does time of year matter?”
Leaning back in his chair, Duo studied Trowa for any sign of mockery. Seeing that Trowa seemed to be sincere in his curiosity, he waved at a calendar on the wall, “Unlike on the colonies, where the seasons are controlled by computers, the weather here is more erratic. You can’t guarantee what the weather will be the next week, but you do know that during the summer it’s hot and during the winter it’s cold. Certain plants can survive the cold, but most people aren’t going to be planting outside during the winter, so we have to phase out the outdoor plants. The focus for the greenhouse over the next five months will go to cultivating, landscaping, and preparing for next spring, when the planting season begins again.”
“How many employees do you have?”
“Four full-time, year round. There are also eight seasonal employees that work during the spring and summer; there were eleven, but three of them quit recently.”
“Did losing three seasonal employees even hurt?”
Hearing the dismissive tone, Duo nodded, “Actually, it hurt a great deal. One of them was well on his way to being fired, but the other two were college students studying botany and horticulture. One of them was a talented landscaper that I’ve come to depend on and his girlfriend was a damn good worker. She was learning a lot, too. When they graduated I had planned to give them full-time landscaping positions instead of having to have part-time workers. Until I can find someone to replace them, I have to do most of the landscaping work because only one of my full-time guys can do the job with any level of competency.”
“I have to apologize for assuming anything, Duo,” Trowa said quietly, his eyes focused on the braided man. “It’s clear that you know more about this than I ever could. It takes a lot of knowledge to run a business like this, much more than I originally believed.”
Hearing voices in the greenhouse, Duo gathered the list and stood to offer a smile, “Until I actually started the greenhouse, I didn’t really know how much work it would be. Lucky for me, I can grow almost anything and I love the work. You ready to go meet my gang of happy bandits?”
Trowa’s smile was full of amusement, “Lead on, Robin Hood.”
“Those are merry men, Tro,” Duo retorted, glad that he and Trowa were getting along the way they had before the other man had moved in with him. “I said happy bandits. There’s no way in hell I’m dressing up in tights.”