UPPER WEST SIDE — Marlon Moctezuma was already in the dog house — he was two hours late for a date and had no flowers.
So the IT specialist hailed a cab on the Upper East Side and began to hunt the city for something to make the peace.
It took him 70 blocks and a $30 taxi fare before he managed to find some half-dead flowers at a Houston Street bodega.
“The flowers looked like they’d been sitting there for days," Moctezuma, 34, said.
"I got in trouble for being late and I got in more trouble for bringing really bad quality flowers.”
The relationship may not have lasted but, 10 years later, Moctezuma’s own flower delivery business is blossoming.
After Hours Flowers is a service that lets lovers in a bind order blooms at any hour of the day. Requests can be submitted up to 10 p.m. on Valentine’s Day with guaranteed same-day delivery in Manhattan and select neighborhoods in the outer boroughs.
“It’s completely unprecedented,” Moctezuma’s business partner, Cedric Hubert, 25, said.
“We can customize delivery time during the day and guarantee a certain time range.”
Hubert said that for a movie date, for example, A.H.F. could meet someone in a theater with a pre-ordered flower assortment in hand.
The company, which has been around for four years, has already received hundreds of orders for Valentine’s Day and is tripling its staff to 15 people for the day, the owners said.
"It's the most important day of the year in the flower business," Hubert said. "Our hair is disheveled and our shirts are untucked, but this is what we live for."
After Hours Flowers has various gift packages like the “I Love You Trifecta,” consisting of a dozen red roses, a 10-inch teddy bear and a box of chocolates for $109.99, or “A Kiss in the Park,” red roses in a glass vase for $44.99.
John Rose, 26, said he used the service on Friday to buy his girlfriend 12 pink roses with a guaranteed delivery time.
"It was great," he said. "I needed to make sure it got delivered between x hour and x hour. And other services just can't guarantee it'll be there at that time. It's more intimate. It's better."
Customers order online at Theafterhoursflowers.com or by phone and choose from five delivery options. Rush ensures deliveries within two hours or less from when the order is placed and costs $29.99.
Express guarantees deliveries will be made within a four-hour window, from either noon-4 p.m., 4 p.m.-8 p.m., or 8 p.m.-midnight, and costs $19.99.
Priority delivery costs $24.99 and ensures deliveries will be made within a customer-specified 30-minute window during the day.
Flowers can also be picked up at the Hotel Alexander, on 94th Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive, where the company is based.
"You can't find flowers in the city that never sleeps after 8 p.m.," Moctezuma said. "But we guarantee we can get you any amount of flowers at any time.
"You won't be apologizing to your girlfriend."
