Connecticut, Ross had accepted, wasn’t that much different to England. Sure, the accents were different and this side of the pond didn’t quite understand how tea worked, but between the weird penchant to get in amongst strangers business and the not-quite-predictable weather, he would have said he wasn’t far from home. It had taken him two weeks to finally see the similarities and embrace the fact that his new home, and he supposed his new life, weren’t all that foreign to him. Still, that didnt mean he felt entirely comfortable in his father’s house and he did everything he could to stay out of it. Hours spent laying in his new bedroom, staring at the ceiling and replaying a thousand thoughts he didn’t need had grown monotonous after the second day and, to fill his hours between volunteering shifts, he had taken to learning his town. And if that meant wandering the streets of Hickory Creek until he knew them by heart, then that was what it took.
Which was, of course, how he found himself wandering through Cohen Point, clutching onto a selection of foods from Pearl’s Deli, chewing away on his sandwich in the early afternoon. He had been trying to get more familiar with the people as well as with the place and had gone out of his way to acknowledge the strangers on the street. That was, of course, until he witnessed what seemed to be the woman having the world’s worst day.
Unravelling some of the napkins he’d taken from the deli, he crossed the walkway a little, offering her some of them. It wouldn’t, after all, have been a great idea to start dabbing at her himself. “Here, you look like you need them more than I do,” he said, smiling apologetically.
It took a great deal of effort to pull her heel from the crack in the sidewalk - this in and of itself was a small victory, until it tipped her cup of coffee further over the edge. A sigh, a notable redness in her cheeks, and she stooped to set her crushed Styrofoam cup on the sidewalk, where it could do no more damage, and held her coffee-dripping hands safe distance from her blouse. Though, of course, it was no use; the tiny white roses which littered the cotton fabric had been thoroughly coffee-stained and ruined. It was an opportune moment for an unfamiliar face to appear, as her luck would have it - but as he was not pointing and laughing at her, she could only hope for the best.
“Thank you,” she sighed, laughter in her voice, no matter how exasperated, “You’re a life-saver. I know coffee’s great and all, but -” a snort, “- wearing it was never the intention.” Rose took the napkins gratefully, giving him a chagrined smile as she began to dab ungracefully at her blouse. With one foot, she reached and shuffled her bag and dropped papers into a pile between her feet, not quite trusting her coffee-stained hands to handle such important documents just yet.
“I would shake your hand, but,” she looked down at her unseemly state and gave another halfhearted laugh, “I think I’d be doing you a disservice.” Rose wondered for a moment if she could rightly show up to work looking like this. She could excuse daughter-related stains, as they made for good stories, but this was just pathetic.
“I’m Rose - I don’t normally look like this.”
