falling.

Wren was walking along the sidewalk, looking down at his phone in his right hand, a caramel latte in his left. He had just finished a long shift at Bean There, Done That, and he was extremely tired. He just lived right down the street, and was in quite a rush to get there. Wren was looking forward to smoking, and heading to bed for a nap. He would awake sometime in the afternoon and begin to work on a small collection of his poems that he had been recently working on. 

As a small body came colliding with Wren, he gasped, stumbling back. “Oh my god…” He looked to the girl, her shirt covered in small spots of his latte. “I am. Are you okay?” He reached into his bag, pulling out a napkin from the cafe and holding it out to her. “Here. I’m so sorry.”

After taking a moment to steady herself, Ruby looked up at the person she’d bumped into and took in his appearance - she recognized him, knew him from the coffee shop, which made her feel a little better about running into him. At least it wasn’t a total stranger. “Oh, no, don’t worry about it!” She said as she took the napkin, dabbing at her shirt with it to help dry the coffee droplets. It was no big deal, really; she was thankful that she’d picked out a dark shirt this morning, as well as her denim shorts and combat boots, so she knew it’d come clean easily. “I’m totally okay, I promise,” She said with a smile, shrugging her shoulders. “No biggie. I’ll live. Should’ve been paying more attention.”

While the circumstances related to why she was working remotely in Wellcliff in the first place wasn’t a good one, Anya didn’t mind so much working so far away from her office. Her team was pretty good with communication and knew they could get a hold of her on the phone whenever they had a question. However, today in particular seemed to be a crazy one for them. The company’s servers were down and everyone was freaking out about meeting deadlines in time. Just about everyone of her associates were either complaining about the matter or just simply trying to keep her up to date with the progress I.T. was having (which was not much). Anya was usually pretty good at walking and texting having lived in New York the past year, but she had been in the middle of a text when she felt something blocking her way. Her phone slipped out of her hand and to the ground. “It’s alright,” she replied as she picked up the phone. Holding it to face the girl so that she saw no damage had been done, she added with a smile, “That’s what cases are for.”

Ruby took a moment to pause her music before shoving her own phone into her pocket, a sheepish smile on her lips as she looked at the woman’s phone. God, if the phone had been broken she’d have been wracked with guilt. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d broken someone else’s phone, though the last time she’d done it, it had been intentional. She had been in a bad mood, and someone just pushed her too far - so she’d grabbed their phone and threw it against the nearest wall as hard as she could. Afterward, an apology was made and she bought them a new one, a simple fix for someone with disposable income left from her childhood. “Oh, good, I’m glad it’s okay! Broken phones are the worst - my last one went out a car window and got ran over, it was awful. Sucks when you don’t have your stuff backed up.”

It was Taco Tuesday at Pete’s Pizza and Gwen was excited to have gotten the last batch of tacos for the day. She still thought it was weird an Italian food place was dipping into the Mexican food market, but who was she to turn down a deal? Plus, they actually made pretty good tacos for a pizza place. It was so good in fact, that she always managed to get there just as they sold out, but not today! Today was her lucky day, and she was going to savor every bite of her inauthentic Latino food. She was about half way through her first one when she noticed the petite blonde a little two late. The bag of tacos flew from her hand, spinning out all of its contents.

“Nah, it’s cool. I guess I was done with that anyways,” she commented, looking down at her food now scattered along the sidewalk.

Ruby really needed to start paying more attention to her surroundings. When she saw the woman’s food go flying, she was immediately filled with guilt, a feeling that she didn’t experience very often. “I’m so sorry, I - shit, I’m sorry.” She stumbled over her words a bit, staring down at the food that was now scattered across the sidewalk. After a moment, she lifted her gaze to meet the woman’s and gave her an embarrassed smile. “I could by you something else to eat if you want. I was going for coffee, I could, uh - I could buy you a muffin or something? And a coffee? I know that doesn’t compare to tacos but... Better than nothing, right?”

       “no, i’m injured beyond compare and ready to suit up the law.” chuck laughs, brushing some bleached blonde hair behind her shoulders. if it were anyone else, chuck is sure she’d be up in arms but it’s ruby, she has a face you just can’t be mad at. “i’m kidding, i ate jelly beans for lunch today and i gotta say- i’m hyped up on sugar.” not the best food option but a tasty one nonetheless. “i was thinking of going on that whale watching boat if you’re down. i’ve never seen one in real life and wanna test out my whale talking abilities. think i’ll put dory to shame.”

“Jesus, jelly beans for lunch? Do you always make bad dietary choices?” She asked with a laugh, though she shot her friend a serious look - sometimes she was genuinely worried about Chuck and her choices. “Of course I’m down to go see whales! Can we go get coffee first, though? I’m running low on caffeine and I think it’s killing me, I haven’t had any coffee since I got up this morning.” Not only that, but Ruby felt like she was starving. She hadn’t eaten anything for breakfast due to waking up later than intended, and had only had time to grab a cup of coffee on her way to the studio. “And maybe get some real food in you. Screw those jelly beans, you need, like, a muffin or something.”

CJ feels it before she hears it — the soft thud to her back as she herself pays no mind to the oncoming traffic on the sidewalk. She’d paused riding, one foot off her cruiser board to hold herself in place, to look for Wellcliff monuments that aligned with the path to the “hidden cove” some local blog had posted. 

Grin on her face, she turns around to acknowledge the culprit. “No apology necessary — I probably shouldn’t clog up the flow of traffic by just standing here,” she puts her phone away. “I’m totally chillin’.” 

“What were you jamming out to?” she points to the headphones for reference.

Ruby had really let her attention span go after she stopped acting. She’d been made to focus on learning lines, hitting her marks on set, never a free moment to just relax and not have to stay so hyper-focused on any one thing. Now, though, she just did as she pleased - zoned out more often than she liked to admit, especially when she had music blaring from her Beats. When asked about her music, a grin spread across her lips and she unlocked her phone to pause the music before shoving it back into her pocket. “The Weeknd. Mostly After Hours, it’s bomb as hell. Have you heard it?” She’d been queuing up quite a bit of Abel’s music during her radio show, having recently gotten into his sound and absolutely falling in love with it. “If not, you should totally give it a listen. Ten out of ten, one hundred percent recommend.”

As she walked down the sidewalk with her bag slung over her shoulder, Ruby hummed along to the music playing from her headphones, going in the direction of Bean There, Done That to get herself a coffee. Her attention wasn’t fully on her surroundings, though, because she was focused on her music - until she ran directly into someone. “Shit,” She said softly, stumbling back a couple of steps before pulling her headphones off her ears and putting them around her neck. “Sorry about that. Are you alright?”

@wellcliffstarters​

“All I’m saying is, it literally took me 23 years to realize that salt and pepper didn’t make paprika.” Cade fired back to seemingly no one in particular as he leaned against the fence blocking off the boardwalk from the rest of the beach. “Blue’s Clue’s is either out here lying to children about how it’s made or the Mr. and Mrs. have some additional explaining to do.” He added before he recognized the strange look he was receiving from the other person who was sitting a few feet away on one of the benches. He made a motion to try and explain that he had an air pod in and that he wasn’t a complete lunatic sitting on the boardwalk talking to himself about, but that didn’t do him much good when all of a sudden it was falling out of his ear and into the sand below. “Shit!” He exclaimed the frustration thick in his voice as he glanced over and contemplated the drop, down to the sand. “Quick initial thoughts, too high up to jump over or should I make the long trek along the beach?”

@wellcliffstarters​

As Ruby sat on the bench on the boardwalk scrolling through her phone, she couldn’t help but turn her attention toward the man that was talking. What the fuck was he on about? Being on the radio for the last two years had taught her how to listen to people, those who called in always getting her full attention, so she couldn’t help but listen in to whatever this guy was talking about. Blue’s Clues? Paprika? She hummed. When she saw the air pod start to fall, her mouth formed an ‘O’ as she watched it hit the sand. “I’d say go for the beach. If you jump you’ll get hurt, and I’m not calling anyone to come help your ass. Take the safer route. And you better make it quick before someone sees it and steals it.”

“Really?” Isaac asked, intrigued. “That’s your thing of choice. Huh. I’m surprised. I’m genuinely surprised.”

Ruby had gone out for milkshakes with Isaac. This wasn’t the first time they’d been out, the two of them able to spark up a friendship pretty easily after they’d first met, but this was the first time that she hadn’t gone for something wild. Instead, she ordered herself a simple vanilla milkshake and a small order of fries to dip in said milkshake. “Yeah, that’s it today,” She said with a shrug of the shoulders, not really feeling up doing much of anything. “I just feel like having something tame today, y’know?”