2019-03-17 - Just all kinds of awkward.

Just in case those awesome texts slipped your mind...
Alex: Hello, Violet. This is Alex.
Alex: Reyes.
Alex: This is Alex Reyes.
Alex: How are you?

Violet: (several hour delay) Hi Alex. This is Violet.

Violet: (... several times) I'm okay. How are you?

Wow. Hours later. Sorry, but Alex was busy trying to hang himself from the ceiling - which he was too short to reach - so wound up drowning himself in the bathtub.

Alex: (he can ... too) I'm in something of a bind.
Alex: Not literally.

Violet: Oh.
Violet: ...
Violet: Are you okay?

Alex: Yes. Fine. Thank you. 🙂
Alex: You have my badge. For work.

Violet: Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't take your badge, do you think you left it at the diner? I will call.

Alex: No, you did.
Alex: I mean. You have it.

Violet: (... several times) I'm really sorry that it's lost, but I didn't take it. I don't steal things from people.
Violet: I do have your jacket. That was an accident, not intentional.
Violet: I was going to call you but I didn't have your phone number, I didn't realize I was still wearing it.

Alex: Yes. That's where my badge is.
Alex: In my jacket.
Alex: Which is fine. I just need it.
Alex: My badge.

Violet: Oh.

Alex: I'll come get it?

Violet: I was going to send it to the drycleaner
Violet: The jacket. not your badge. I didn't realize I had your badge.

Alex: No. Please don't. It's fine. I just really need the badge.
Alex: Please.

Violet: Okay. I really didn't mean to take it, I'm not in a habit of taking people's things.
Violet: You can come get it. Unless you'd rather I bring it to you?

Alex: It's fine. Really. If you think about it, I gave it to you. 🙂

Violet: Or I can send it by courier, if you'd rather that instead.

Alex: I think that's a bit extreme. I can just come get it. Or you can bring it here.
Alex: But don't bring it here.

Violet: Where is here?
Violet: Or not. Okay.

Alex: I will come and get it. Or we can meet somewhere neutral.

Violet: is this the sort of thing that requires neutral territory? I didn't steal your badge, Alex, I promise. The jacket was an accident.

Alex: I know.
Alex: I will come and get it. Where are you?

Violet: I'm at home.
Violet: The shop. I'll come downstairs.

Alex: You live in the shop?

Violet: I mean I have an apartment upstairs, yes.

Alex: Oh. Interesting. Is now okay?

Violet: (... several times) Yes. Why is that interesting?

Alex: I didn't know that was a common thing on the west coast.
Alex: I cannot text and ride my bike. So I'll just be there in a few minutes.

The sign in the door of the antique shop still reads CLOSED, but the door's been left slightly ajar. Violet's inside, puttering around the too-tall back counter but not having officially lost herself behind it. She was fussing; straightening the stacks of books, aligning the vase with the single (fake) rose, adjusting the Tiffany lamp so that it shines properly. It was the kind of thing that someone does when they are nervous, she was clearly just trying to keep her hands occupied so that they don't touch her phone again, which was not visible. She wears a long, baggy white sweater over a pair of black leggings, along with a pair of white wool socks. There are no shoes to complete the outfit, but her frizzy blonde hair was recently tossed into a messy bun. It was a look that clearly screams 'I wasn't expecting company but also didn't want to look like a complete mess.'

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there's Alex. He's not coming from work and he's not coming from church, so he's not wearing his tie-and-slacks uniform, but still. Sweater (not sweatshirt, that's for homeless people), collared shirt under it, and actual jeans that he's probably worn like four times ever, and no jacket. It's not pouring rain. 😃 Probably will later, though. For now, it means he can lean his bike against the exterior of the shop, giving it a hard look while he decides if he needs to lock it up. But he winds up rolling the dice on that one, trusts to the fact that he just had the most awkward text conversation ever to mean this'll probably be a brief stop. The door's ajar, so he opens it a little, holding on to the edge to rap his knuckle against it. Knock-knock, "Hello, Violet." By lamplight, aww, she's so cute.

Despite the fact that she knew he was coming, Violet still manages to jump an inch or two in the air and practically out of her adorable socks when he knock-knock-knocks upon her door. She flutters her hand against her heart and takes a few painfully awkward seconds while her back is still to the door to take in a deep breath, mustering up something of a smile when she turns on her heel to face him. "Hi," she replies, adding a beat later: "Alex." Now mash those two words together! "Hi Alex," she says again, quicker this time so that they damn near flow into a single word, her pale golden brows immediately slumping into a furrow. Be cool, Violet. He was only here for a second. "Sorry to uh, make you come out all this way."

Promptly, "No, don't be." Alex is not so much with the good at accepting apologies, but rather adept at smiling his way through denying their necessity, shaking his head and lingering in the doorway. Thankfully, no one passes by on the sidewalk and calls the cops on him for looking like he's breaking in to the closed antiques shop. "I'd prefer to be," here, eyeing the socks for a second amusedly, "somewhere other than the bed-and-breakfast." It's hard to tell if he's being candid or glib when he adds, "I don't think they care for me much." With a small shrug, such is life.

"Oh," Violet says in reply to his dismissal of her apology, catching the glance he gives to her socks and following it down that-a-way. If her cheeks weren't already full of ugly splotches, they sure would be now, and her toes curl up as though they could disappear. "You're staying at the bed and breakfast? Up on Oak?" There's a minor touch of wary in her tone as she asks, her lips curving into a faint frown when he continues on. Glib or not, her apology is genuine: "I'm sorry to hear that. But the owner, he's.." very sad. "He lost his wife, a year ago. I'm sure it's not personal." She twitches, sliding backwards towards the too-tall counter and touching the edge of it with her shoulder-blades. "I could have had it sent up, it wouldn't have really been an issue. There's a kid who does my deliveries sometimes, he just likes to make the extra money." There's a pause before she adds quickly: "I really didn't mean to take your jacket, Alex. Or your badge. I'm sorry."

Alex stopped holding on to the edge of the door a minute ago, but he's still got one hand on the handle of it. With the other one, he makes a staying gesture, palm held up, fingers out, the whole hand waving just a little in front of him. "Really, you don't need to apologize. It's not a big deal." Big enough to text and then ride all down here to get it but still, NBD Violet! He means it, look how he smiles easily at her and everything! "I foisted the coat on you, so you can make a case for it being an unsolicited gift." He likes that term, used it at the diner, too. Moving on quickly, he circles back around with a knit of his brows, and questions the local about her lore here: "Are you sure we're talking about the same bed-and-breakfast? The owner's name is Logan? And his wife..." This is where he'll make shapes with his mouth for a second, but not any noise with it before deciding to nod and say, "Hmm," all confusedly.

It wasn't a big deal, and yet big enough for him to ride all the way down there and not even really come inside. She notices he's still got one hand on the door, and it's that one - and not the one making elaborate gestures - that she focuses on. There's enough distance between them that he may not see the flash of disappointment in her blue eyes; and she turns on her heel afterward to scoot around the counter and behind it. "Oh, yes. There's only one bed and breakfast in town," she says while she gathers up his coat from the swivel chair she's thrown it over, straying behind the counter and keeping her back to him long enough to nuzzle her nose into the collar one last time. His scent was still there, even if it was now mixed with her own - lavender laced with rose water, in case he wants to smell later 😉 But it's just a quick sniff before she returns, the jacket folded over her arms. "It was very sad, when she died. Everyone in town liked Lucy, she was like this big ball of sunlight," there's a somber smile that accompanies her words. "She liked geese. She would come in here and buy anything if it had a goose on it. She always talked to me, like really talked, not just pleasant conversation. It was.. very sad, when she died." Yes, Violet, repeat yourself.

<FS3> Alex rolls Alertness: Good Success (7 6 6 4 3 2 2)

Alex sees the shit out of that disappointment, tyvm. He may not be able to place it, 'cause who gets disappointed by door-handles, you know? He looks askance at said handle, lifting his fingers off it and looking beneath them and everything, but nothing seems amiss there, so the best he can do is lift a curious look at her back while she's doing things with his jacket. Which he will totally be smelling all the way back to the B&B that he's now super-confused about. "I," am not a gossipy person by nature, so he tries to ease into something like, "was not aware that his wife had passed away."

Couple dead-wives to the impossibly lame way set up this encounter, and yeah, this hole is getting deep. His awareness of the depth of this hole is conveyed in then look he passes to Violet upon her turning back, his brows drawing together above a pained-looking squint, a chew on the corner of his mouth. Here, he'll just be frank: "This is not going as smoothly as it did in my head."

The lack of awareness on his part earns Alex a slow raise of her brows, lashes fluttering against her glasses as she blinks a few times. "Oh," she says quietly, confused. "Well. She is." And then she hugs his jacket a little closer to her chest, stepping through the maze of bookshelves and antiques - but not directly to him. She makes a pitstop along the way, to pull a slim novel from one of the units, balancing it atop his jacket before she finishes walking through the shop to get to the door. It was while she was getting there that he decides to be frank, her eyes widening as she stalls in her socked-step to stare at him.

She has nothing to say. At least not immediately. Her lips move though, creating soundless shapes as though she were trying to figure out how words work. She gets there eventually at least, pinning a smile to the corners of her lips. "I think it's going as smoothly as it needs to be, considering you're just here for your jacket? I should've given it right away," which is why she hands it to him now, complete with the book. "Would you give the book to Logan? He was here last week, looking at it. It made him feel.." There's a short pause. "Happy. I think. Maybe he'll care for you a bit more, if you bring it to him?" That last part was kind of a joke. It just falls flat.

The book gets a brief study. In case it turns out to be something like The Governess, which Alex is absolutely not going to be able to walk up to a guy that's got six inches and ~40 pounds on him and be like 'here's some historical romance you might like.' Since it's not - it's Hemingway, right? he can cope with Hemingway - he takes it in what was previously his door-handle hand, tapping the spine of it in the curve of the fingers of was previously his no-stop-apologizing hand. He probably had more to say about what he's just here for, but that gets waylaid for a moment when he clarifies, "The book is for Logan?" He breathes out through his nose then, so confused, and collects his coat from the midst of his now utter bemusement. "Thank you. I'll give it to him." He hits the pronoun a little hard there, him, as in NOT THE REDHEAD THAT HE SLEEPS WITH, THE ONE THAT DOES ALL THE READING.

"Can I pay you for it?" You know, to prolong this awkward encounter instead of putting it out of its misery.

It was just Hemingway, the book, which makes it a completely innocent thing for one dude to give to another. Violet's focus falls briefly to his hands as he takes the book and taps his fingers along the spine of it, feeling her own spine straighten unconsciously as though his fingers were tapping there instead. Her face was a mess of splotches, and now that her hands are free of jacket and book? She occupies her fingers by brushing flyaway strands of hair out of her face, sweeping them behind her ears. His confusion makes her lean back somewhat, catching the corner of her bottom lip with her teeth to worry it. She tips her head in a little nod; yes, the book is for Logan, who else would it be for? But his offer to pay makes her eyes flare open.

"No!" she answers suddenly, firmly, and then startles herself with the force of her own words. She takes in a breath and slowly exhales it back out. "No, please. It's just a book. Use it like a peace offering. It's not .. good, to live somewhere where you don't feel comfortable. Or wanted." She shuffles backward a little, swaying on the heels of her feet.
%"It .. was nice to see you again, Alex," she says that sincerely, sweetly. And then, without warning, before she can change her mind - she shuffles forward, lays her hand on his shoulder, and sweeps up onto her tip-toes to peck him on the cheek. Though it could hardly be considered a kiss, really; she just sort of touches her cheek to his and brushes the very edge of her lips against his skin, before she promptly doubles back and gives him a stiff wave. "Have a good night!" aka please leave before she embarrasses herself any further.

She startles both of them with the force of that word, actually, has Alex pulling his head back for a second with a quick widening of his eyes and a repeat of her, "No?" That Violet goes on to explain eases that jerk-back into a slow nod of understanding - or something akin to understanding, comprehension if not necessarily agreement. So he just winds up repeating, "Thank you." And that slides nicely into what's probably the first truly comfortable smile he's worn since... oh... HOURS AGO when he sent the dumbest quatrain of text messages in the history of man. "It was nice to see you, too, Violet."

He's already starting to unfurl his coat, to reach toward the door-handle - which he intends to manage while still holding the book, uber-talented guy that he is - when lo and behold, a Violet is right there, with a hand on his shoulder and a cheek to his. Leaning down only a very little, he makes his cheek that much more available, and then pulls his smile more firmly into place on that side. "I will do my best," he promises pleasantly. Followed by, "Likewise." And he does - leaves before she embarrasses herself further. Which is a shame, because he had only just gotten over himself there at the end, and might even have been pleasant company from then on.

Alas. Having his coat back (he checks for the badge; it's totally there) suffices as reward for the outing. Also the little peck to his cheek. And perfume to smell. Guess it's his turn for the 45-minute-shower at Logan's house. That guy's water bill must be off the charts.