Chapter Text
“Just give it a chance yeah? I heard there’s piercings there too, you like them."
Jo grumbled as she walked home that afternoon, Clara’s reasoning’s repeating in her head. Yeah, she had her ear pierced, but that’s all. She wasn’t planning on getting anymore any time soon, she already had someone to go to for that.
Tattoos however....
The blonde shook her head. She wouldn’t get a tattoo, no matter how much Clara begged to get matching ones. Even if for whatever reason she did it wouldn’t be from a new, shady looking place that also did piercings. For one thing that meant they weren’t a full-time tattooist. Not that proving to herself the people there weren’t good at their job just because she hated the look of it. It ruined the look of the street. A big black and grey building amongst normal brick shops and houses. It stood out more than her own shop, that had a rather big sign boarded on the top to get attention of potential customers, as well as the colour scheme being golds and yellows on the outside, to show that it was a happy and friendly place.
Granted, the tattoo place had always looked run down, and there had been people working on it in spring - that were really loud and annoyed her when she had to be in the shop all day – but at least it was brick and went together with the street. Now they had painted it black, wanting to be a student flat at first, but then Clara told her a tattooist was renting it out. Jo didn’t want anyone there to be honest, it was nice being nothing, non-existent. It was a nice break from the houses, and she could walk through it to get to the beach quicker.
“You can’t judge a book by its cover, so why a parlour? Would you want someone to judge your flower quality by the look of your shop?”
She hated that Clara was right. Of course, she wouldn’t want that. She judged people who did that.
Jo unlocked the door and strolled into her shop, going straight to the desk to set her phone down and write up the three orders she needed to sort out. Clara had set up a website for her and she had to go over to hers for the orders. Luckily, they were local and said they could collect from the shop today, however, she didn’t know what time any of them were coming. Usually when she got a phone order, they would set up a time but Clara didn’t add in that feature on the website. It irked her.
Half way through looking at the orders she heard a purring noise from the underneath her. She looked down to see a cat rubbing his body against her leg. It must’ve gotten in through the window. When she knelt down slowly to pet it, she noticed it was a calico colour Norwegian Forest cat, and that it didn’t have a collar. Not many cats did to be fair, but she didn’t recognise this one. It looked friendly, and jumped on her desk when she stood straight. After a bit of thought the blonde waltzed over to her fridge in the back of the shop to see if she had milk for it. The cat merely meowed at her suddenly vanishing, but looked happy when she came back with a saucer of milk.
For the next hour she stood at the counter, petting, feeding, and even talking to the cat, her flower orders long forgotten. In fact, it wasn’t until someone walked into the shop that she remembered where she was.
“Oh sorry, I haven’t gotten the orders done yet,” Jo said suddenly when she heard the bell ding. She moved away from the cat perched on the counter to the notes and quickly went to move into the back. “Got distracted by the cat. Love animals me. I’m sorry, but it shouldn’t take long. I’m not used to internet commissions as Clara called it. I hate not knowing when someone’s coming through the door.”
She paused as she looked at the array of flowers set up, some tulips, some roses, and some forget-me-nots – just some she dug up this morning - and scrunched her face when she realised she didn’t ask which order was the customer’s. When she walked back out to the woman, who stood by the desk absentmindedly petting the cat, she realized she had never seen the woman before in her life, and that she clearly dressed for hotter weather than it was today. Maybe she was a tourist? The woman in question looked up at the blonde when she noticed her presence, and that she was staring.
“Sorry, waiting on three orders, which one’s yours?” Jo explained once it registered to her that she hadn’t said anything, a lump caught in her throat when she glanced between the cat and the woman, noticing the number of tattoos she had on her, and how beautiful she was.
“I’m not a customer,” she smiled up at her, her voice soft yet there was a hint of amusement in her tone. “I came in here looking for my cat.”
“Oh,” the blonde slowly walked out, realisation dawned on her a second later when she noticed the cat purring against her fingers. “ Oh . Sorry. He must’ve gotten in here by the window, I left it open.”
“It’s okay, he’s just exploring the new area.”
“You’re new here?” Jo approached her and went behind the counter, three printed out cards spread out next to the computer, again abandoned as she kept her focus on the stranger.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed the new tattoo and piercings-”
“Oh, yeah, yeah. Explains the tattoos,” she gestured to her, only now seeing that she had one along her collarbone of what looked like flower branches that stopped at her chest that was easy enough to see with her – in her personal opinion – somewhat revealing clothing. How was this woman not cold? She gulped again, her hand falling to her side when she noticed the woman smirk at her, clearly amused by the way her hand was not so subtly pointing at her chest. “Out of curiosity, how many do you have?”
“Lost count to be honest,” the woman chuckled with a small shrug.
“You do piercings too?”
“No, I don’t do them, my colleague Bill does those, she even did mine,” she gestured to her ears, showing three studs along one, and two on the other. “I just do tattoos and henna. We just moved in today and I still need to get some boxes back to the flat. And you’re busy with new orders?”
“Yeah,” Jo nodded, glancing down at the cat before flicking her eyes at her. “Yeah, yeah, I do. Sorry, your cat’s really cute. What’s his name?”
“Fitz,” the woman scratched at his ear. “Not my idea by the way, but it’s a good name.”
“This Bill person named him?”
“Yeah,” she nodded as she scooped the cat up. “Thanks for looking after him, and if you leave the window open, he might come back, he seems to like you. Which is great actually, he usually doesn’t like strangers, took him a while to get used to me. Sorry, I’m rambling. We’ll be out of your hair now. Thanks again uh... Sorry, what’s your name?”
“Oh, it’s Jo, Jo Smith,” she smiled as she extended a hand.
“Nice to meet you Jo,” the woman shifted so she could hold Fitz with one arm and shake the blonde’s hand. “My name’s Yaz Khan.”
“Yaz...”
“Yasmin really, but I like Yaz better,” she shrugged before letting go of the rather dazed looking blonde. “See you around then neighbour?”
Jo didn’t say anything, she merely nodded as Yaz and Fitz left. She realised she still had her hand outstretched, the phantom touch of Yaz’s hand in hers still there, and she looked down as she held her hand to her chest, feeling her heart hammering against it. She swore she was blushing as she sighed, the words slipped out of her mouth so gently that she barely knew she said them, her lips quirked up into a small smile. Luckily nobody was there.
“Yasmin Khan,” she breathed. “Beautiful name.”