For the first time in a long time, Ava Blake felt as if she had purpose.
Alright, maybe purpose wasn’t the right word, but it was akin to the feeling that had come to possess her whenever she left for work. A sense of something to look forward to. A point of interest, a silver-lining in the otherwise meek, pointless existence she had bred for herself. That break in the clouds had a name. Miles. The perfect epithet for him in a way she couldn’t explain. Something in chartreuse eyes, something resembling a rough tide of a shallow sea he had fought to travel through, something that suggested he knew distance in its entirety. She had learned his name upon their second meeting ( well, technically third ), as he did hers, the exchange of crucial information a reward for keeping up their promise to see one another again. Now, his visits had become semi-regular, and though their walks home were spent in either charged silence, or tentative questions and answers exchanged in a gentle way of trying to know, to understand one another, Ava felt as if her spiritless life had been shocked with a defibrillator, and was starting to finally animate again. The fact that it was thanks to someone she knew for mere weeks was both extraordinary and terrifying all at once.
Tonight was a night he had shown up, same time, same place. The rest of the kitchen and wait staff having left, the last of the customers with them, she didn’t even have to look up from her closing duties to know it was him, the gentle jingle of the door’s bells, the lithe like steps of silence taken toward her, and the tall, dark shadow casted across her when he settled before her. A ghost of a smile would sweep her lips. She knew he saw it.
“--- Can I ask you something?” It was the first words spoken in minutes, their walk home inching halfway to over, yet the snail pace they took was her ideal speed when it came to him. Her eyes had casted in front of her, her arms taking their usual position around her chest, the encroach of cooling weather always making her a little cold, even if she had several layers on. “The other night. You said... You said you could help me. Defend myself.” With the soft knit her brows took, it was clear she had been sitting on the question for a while now, weeks even. Caramel eyes lifted to meet his, the effect they had on her not letting up since the day they met, but at least she had found a way to navigate them, thankfully. “What did you mean by that?”
