It wasn’t the first time Henry Loomis had tried to flirt with you. Actually, it was probably the fifth or sixth, depending on whether you counted the time he tried to impress you with a twenty-minute rant about fossilized coprolites.

But this time… this time, he came prepared.

You were hunched over a stack of reports, minding your own business in the cramped research tent, when you heard his uneven footsteps outside. A pause. The crinkle of plastic. A muffled curse.

You didn’t even look up. “If that’s another fossil, Henry, it’s going straight in the river.”

Silence.

Then, a tentative clearing of his throat. “Not… a fossil.”

You finally glanced up—and blinked.

There he stood, awkward and earnest, holding out a wildly mismatched bouquet. Half of it looked like it came from a gas station flower stand, the other half from some poor, trampled patch of island wildflowers. A bit crushed. A bit crooked. But… weirdly sweet.

“For you,” he said, voice cracking slightly halfway through the sentence.

You stared.

Henry shifted from foot to foot, adjusting his glasses with the hand not holding the flowers. “I, uh… figured you deserved something nice after putting up with me. And… well, the last time I tried to impress you with dinosaur facts, you fell asleep. So I thought maybe I’d try something… a little less Jurassic.”

Your lips twitched, despite your best efforts. “So you robbed a roadside florist and a jungle?”

“Technically, yes.” He smiled, nervous but hopeful. “But, in my defense, I didn’t steal from any protected species. I checked.”