Bette was lingering in the back section of the flower shop, dipping her head to smell a few flowers now and again, still undecided about what to add to the ones she’d picked out earlier. 

“C’mon, Bette, can you please choose the last ones you want already?  You’ve been there for over 15 minutes now!,” she heard a man’s voice boom out to her from the front of the shop. 

“Almost there, Zak!,” she responded, shaking her head. 

She had to admit she wasn’t good at this. Choosing flowers was Tina’s thing, not hers.  And the problem with that was, getting flowers for someone who had a real knack for putting beautiful floral and plant arrangements together meant you had a a smaller chance of getting it right yourself; at least to the level or standard of that someone.  And Tina’s level was pretty high.  In fact, more than once people had told her Tina could make a pretty good living out of doing that, if she’d wanted to. 

Lately, it seemed to Bette she’d been getting the wrong ones for Tina, at least based on Tina’s lackluster responses to them. 

Zak stood on his toes from the front counter to look towards the back of the shop at Bette, and saw her continuing to move from one flower to the next, still undecided about what to get. He sighed, looked at the growing crowd of clients in his shop, and decided he’d better take control of things with Bette, before things got out of hand in his shop with the other customers. 

He walked quickly to her side, and asked, with a friendly smile, “What do you want to tell her, anyway, Bette?” 

She turned to him, pursed her lips, and responded slowly, “Well, that I love her, of course.  And that I value her.  That she’s the most important thing in the world to me,” her voice trailed off. 

Zak raised his eyebrows, “And all the other flowers you’ve sent her this week alone haven’t said all that?” 

She gave him a half-frown half-smile.  “They haven’t exactly wowed her, Zak.  She said thanks, and not much else.” 

He gave her a half-smile also, sympathetically. Uh oh – he’d been there himself with his own partner. 
“Hmmm… sounds like you’re in the dog house, Bette,” he responded, half-jokingly.