Sure, it was cheesy. Make your mother your valentine’s. Har, har.
He had never cared for the overly commercialized event when he endured elementary school. Forced to find cheap dollar store valentines to pass out to classmates so that he could feel “included” was pointless and a waste of money. Granted, little Reid hadn’t seen it that way - he’d been excited to find the dinosaurs and the spaceship themed ones that his mother helped him pick out from the shelves. His never had the sparkles or silver foil coloring that the other childrens’ cards had (Molly Pruitt, for example, always gave out at least a sucker, if not an entire box of conversation hearts with her valentines) but it didn’t really phase him, not until Junior High.
Sending cards went away with nap time and recess. Boys were responsible for giving flowers and gifts to the girls of their choosing -- which left Reid to ignoring the rest of his classmates come time for exchanges. Girls would squeal and whisper with each other when one found a card or flower attached to their locker, others would sigh with exasperation at receiving something from a boy they didn’t want attention from.
He’d considered it, once. But the effort it took and the money it cost to take a girl out to the movies, even, was far more than he had in his pocket to spend so he kept to himself and simply watched the others enjoy the holiday.
High school was more or less a repeat of Junior High, only without a father-figure in his life to remind him of how much of a failure he was for not having at least a girl in his life.
He had his mother and that was fine for now, as far as Reid was concerned.
Which was why, at twenty-two, he was bringing a bouquet of yellow roses to his mother instead of any of the female companions he shared… well, whatever sort of time with. And Umma, from the look of things, was more than delighted at receiving the beautiful flowers. He’d chosen yellow since it was closest to green, her favorite color, but she didn’t seem to mind that there weren’t any green roses to be had.
He watched on, pleased, until Umma began to meticulously pluck flowers from the large bouquet. One by one, she slid the long stem from the group and set them aside, gently and delicately. One, two, three, four… she continued until there were a half dozen -- no, seven --- roses on the table.
“Umma?”
“For your coworkers.”
He blinked.
“They’ll get the wrong impression.”
His deadpan look didn’t seem to phase the older woman as she smiled and pushed the flowers towards him, nudging them insistently in his direction. “They’re the perfect color, eolin-i. The only impression they’ll get is that you’re friendly. You need friends.”
He made a face at that. Friends were not why he’d gotten hired at AI. He went to work to do a job, to get a check and to come home and save said money. Just because he got along with some of the people he worked with more than others didn’t mean he was suddenly going to be interested in hanging out with them after work or any sort of nonsense like that.
Well. At least, not when it wasn’t Negaverse duties.
“Friends are a good thing to have,” she said again, her smile starting to waver. It was the fall of her warm, friendly expression that had Reid picking up the flowers. He was defenseless against the older woman’s emotions --- he would do anything to ensure his Umma remained happy, even if it meant distributing flowers to a bunch of nerdy folks at his office.
“Only for you, Umma.”
The smile was quick to return, the older woman rising from her chair. Collecting the remainder of her beautiful bouquet, she made her way towards the small kitchen to look for a vase, looking quite pleased with herself.
To Ari:
purplerosesbeauty
To Cerise:
demon_pachabel
To Delilah:
Seiana_ZI
To Ella:
AMItotic
To Emilia:
Stari_Maga
To Jade:
Nuxaz
To Yuri:
AstoriaFallen
