The Rose

“Zaron!”

Zaron blinked out of his thoughts, looking away from the rain-streaked window to the man sitting opposite of him in the dimly lit limousine.

“Finally. Answer me the first time.”

“Sorry, boss.” He wasn’t sorry. Zaron rotated the stem of the single rose he held and skimmed his thumb along the edge of a thorn.

“This ceremony is important. I need you at your best.”

He glared across, meeting his employer’s gaze. “It’s my day off.”

“Meaning you have free time to spend with me.”

Zaron scoffed. “I wouldn’t consider a stranger’s funeral a leisurely brotherly outing.”

“Now, I’m touched!” Guile bled through the other man’s tone. “I thought you no longer considered me as family.”

Zaron’s jaw ticked, soliciting a cold, breathy chuckle. “Shut up, Evero.”

The man called ‘Evero’ extended his arm and retracted it to get a look at the watch resting under his finely tailored suit cuff. “It’ll be over before you know it. Hold my umbrella, keep your mouth shut, then give the rose to the matron as we pay our respects.”

A frown darkened Zaron’s features as he observed the blood red blossom in his lap. “You shouldn’t give a grieving widow a rose covered with so many thorns.”

Evero sniffed, indifferent, and smoothed the lapels of his suit as their ride turned slowly through the gloom into an old cemetery.

Gaze shifting back out the window, Zaron continued to fiddle with the stem. The limousine passed under a towering oak older than the graveyard. He rotated the flower again, then began peeling off one of the sharper thorns.

“Leave them.”

His hand froze, stopped by the threat in Evero’s voice. Still, he spoke up. “She could prick her finger.”

“Consider them a small token to remind her.”

“Of what? Her loss?”

“That her husband’s passing changes nothing.”