so what am i so afraid of

A sultry sort of smile settles on Ellie’s lips. Oh, that’s much better. She wants to be smug – honestly, she deserves it, look what she’s brought out in the other woman, it’s magnificent! – but the little touch, he words, the cadence in Evie’s voice it all work together to send her heart aflutter and suddenly she’s much too distracted to be smug. (Don’t worry, she’ll get back to it later.) 

“That’s better,” she hums, sitting a bit taller now as she takes a sip of her coffee – her mouth isn’t dry, but she appreciates the dramatic effect. “Atta girl!” she nudges Evie’s hand with her own. “Said you weren’t hopeless, didn’t I?”

“I thought the same thing,” Siofra said with a shrug. Then again when she had first moved to LA she hadn’t been looking for anything but to disappear. “Life can surprise you though.”

“Don’t even worry about it,” CJ soothes, taking a sip of her own tequila. “Already forgotten. One time I called a girl Jamie in bed, and it turned out her name was Amy.”

Serving up the drink, CJ makes sure it’s got an extra punch of alcohol. “People don’t ask for cranberry vodkas unless something’s really bugging them. What’s up? You’ve got full bartender confidentiality right now.” 

Taking a sip of her own, she remarks, “Life’s funny, Eves. Never a dull moment in Los Angeles.”

“I have an Aunt named Jamie. She’s a rather small woman. Not even.. Uh... Americans have--Hold on.” Evie did the maths quickly in her head before answering. “5 feet tall, yes. Sorry.” Evie quickly takes the drink and takes a big swig, eyes nearly bulging at the alcohol content. “Oh that’s--that’s quite good. Very... Strong.” Clearing her throat, she puts the glass down onto a napkin and sighs. 

I would like to thank my huge bottle of wine for keeping me sane. And maybe my dogs…

Siofra’s eyes dipped to the table when the young woman spoke about her parents like that. She knew how hard it could be and gave a small nod. “I know I can’t presume to know every part of the situation, but one day you’ll make your own family. Whether that’s friends or a partner, and it eases the hurt a little.”

If everyone reacted that way to her remembering their name, maybe Alfie would actually make a point to try more. “I’ll be honest, usually I’m awful with names but apparently the secret is to make a connection to something nerdy,” she beamed, glad she hadn’t accidentally offended the Brit in some way. 

Most of Alfie’s family tended to make fun of what they called her “white knight complex’.  Whether it was free repairs for her friends or going out of her way to help a stranger in need, Alfie could sometimes be overly helpful. They claimed it would one day bankrupt them, but they were forgetting that the OG white knight was their dad. He’d raised her that way and she wasn’t about to change anytime soon.

She honestly wasn’t expecting anything in return, so the offer of dinner caught Alfie off guard. “I uhhh…you really don’t have to. I mean I wasn’t about to let a pretty lady get stuck on the side of the road.” Yes she’d called Evie pretty, but Evie had called her cute first. “But out of curiosity, how often do cute girls fix your loose connections?”

She waited patiently for the girl to respond, watching her with slight anticipation. Maybe the girl was contemplating on how to let her down easy. Evie started to steel herself for the rejection when Alfie spoke, raising an eyebrow at her. Wait, was that her saying no or was that her saying yes? Double wait, had she just been called pretty? Evie’s smile was soft as she looked down for a moment before shaking her head. “No, I really do.”

                           GOD. this …was the definition of a depressing song. how self induced this feeling was suddenly becoming. lifting the pen from the notebook, her other hand busied with her phone. she’d quickly need to change the song. turn the tables to something a little more… uplifting. as rory opted for tame impala, a voice sounded near. direct. the familiarity clicked as her eyes met with the friendly face in front of her. the table becoming a party of two. 

                       a compliment. it warmed her just about as much as her latte had.  “  thanks. ”  it was a short, but spoken sweetly. rory wasn’t often a girl with many spoken words. most of them floated about inside of her head instead. it seemed appropriate to pause her song.  “  rory. ”  should she ask the other to sit ? it would only be polite, right ?  “  y-yeah.. thought i’d save you from a dull lecture. ”  philosophy. mr. haynes managed to strip everything to a dull state. maybe it was the monotone voice… how could someone just be so… BLANK ?  “  its a painful two hours. ”  a grin managed to crack.  “ would you like to sit ? ” 

“Oh god no, I go back now and then to see my girlfriend’s family but nothing long term.” Even going to see them was enough to make Siofra panicked and she spent a lot of time paranoid about who was around them.

The last person Alfie had been expecting was the cute english girl she’d run into a couple of days ago. Suddenly she found herself wishing she’d attempted to clean up a little more before coming out to greet her. “Yup that’s me. And you’re..Eva…Evie! I remember cause I was dumb and said it was like the Pokemon…and I shouldn’t have reminded you of that…” Alfie rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly and finally looked at the chequebook in Evie’s hand.

“Like I told you the other day, you really don’t have to pay me back. You were having car trouble and I helped you out. Anyone would have done the same. Besides it’s not like I did much. You just had a loose connection between your battery terminals.” As Alfie rambled, her eyes caught the grease on Evie’s elbow and pants and she winced. Grease stains in clothes were not fun. 

Cheeks immediately flushed, right eyebrow arching in surprise at the fact that Alfie remembered her name. “Thank you for remembering my name! And that’s completely fine. I wish I knew the Pokemon creatures better. I’m being taught, don’t worry.” Evie looked down at her boots for shaking her head. “No no.. I can’t just take the help for free. I’d feel awful about that.”

Siofra laughed at that point, her parents had practically controlled every aspect of her life for quite some time. “Quite a while now actually, at least a decade.”

There was always supposed to be two of them working at the auto shop, but somewhere between them opening the garage up and her replacing the wheels on the Cadillac that had been parked outside the shop since first thing that morning, her older brother Alvin had disappeared. Alfie knew this because she’d attempted to do a repair on a ‘08 Civic but had had to be the one to answer the phone every time it had run because there was no sign of her brother anywhere.

Sliding back under the Civic, Alfie made it maybe 10 minutes before she heard the sound of footsteps in the shop. Sighing, she dropped her arms to her sides and placed her impact wrench back on the ground . “I’ll be over in a second!” she called out, bracing her arms on the undercarriage of the car and swiftly pushed herself and the creeper out from under the car.

Grabbing a towel from the cart next to her, Alfie quickly wiped down her hands in an effort to at least look halfway presentable, even though there was definitely at least a little grease on her face, and rushed to the entrance of the shop. 

“Hey, sorry about the wait. What can I do for ya today?” 

Evie waited for the other girl to arrive, nose scrunching up adorably as she accidentally got her elbow in some grease that resided on the counter-top. Immediately moving off of it, she wiped it on her pants. Which was stupid because now there was grease on her pants. “Christ on a cracker.” She muttered under her breath just in time for the girl to walk up, to which she promptly pulled out a checkbook. 

Ellie does her best to hold back a snort, and honestly? She thinks she deserves a humanitarian award for her effort, but that would be an issue for another time. If she wants to be the Mother Teresa of hopeless saphic ladies, she’d had too prove she’s had successes. 

“Stop,” she says sternly, moving a hand to catch Evie’s forehead before it collides with the table, only slightly regretting her decision when her knuckles crunch against the wood under it’s weight. “You’re there, just try again.” A beat, “with less words.”

The catching of her head brought back soft flashes of the night she’d spent with Ellie. Soft skin, bare skin. Shaking her head she pulled away from the touch and sat upright, sparing a glance at her. Bollocks. Okay, she could do this. Less words... Less words? Brown eyes focused on the other woman’s gaze now, shoulders relaxing slightly as she took a deep breath to steel her nerves. 

“Ah now the parents shadow I can understand,” Siofra had her own ideas for moving from the UK but her parents certainly had their hand in it. Even without her past having both her parents as doctors had been enough pressure. “That would be lovely,”

Lana considers the offer, while simultaneously enjoying the sound of Evie’s voice (Lana has a known weakness for European women, after all).  

“You could teach me something about forensic science.”  The professor replies, genuinely interested in whatever Evie is about to tell her.  To Lana, learning something new is the best kind of distraction.  Especially a distraction from disappointment.

                              BREWPHORIA had been a common place for rory to spend her time at. living with an older sibling wasn’t always the greatest. especially when the young student had been trying to focus… and her sister had several … LOUD friends over… or worse… a BOY. it was entirely uncomfortable. … making the blond want to retract into a shell, much like a hermit. however busy the cafe had grown, rory never minded - the atmosphere was filled with a lot of people such as her. all finding comfort in this space.

                         thirty minutes into her time at the cafe, and rory had wiped the froth from her messed latte art off of her upper lip, and had already ignored an essay she was supposed to be writing, because she was too busy doodling peonies. with one ear bud hanging down to her lap, the other was in her ear playing the WALLOWS. ‘ uncomfortable. ’  repeat. it often helped her focus. … but she wasn’t doing much of that, considering not a single word of her essay had been written. 

Grabbing what was her third cup of coffee that day, Evie turned around and scanned her favorite coffee shop. Her eyes land on a blonde in the corner, eyes narrowing and then widening in recognition. She’d accidentally gone to a class that she’d been in. It wasn’t until about halfway through that she’d gotten up the confidence to ask someone what the class actually was. 

Siofra smiled at Evie’s reaction to where she was from. It was nice to meet people from the UK especially when she felt far away from home. “Well you seem to come across as quite sweet if you were looking for feedback,” Siofra said with a nod to the waitress she’d seen Evie talking to. “Oh I’m here for my lunch that’s all.”