“That’ll be $3.15, please.”
“Sure.” Anna matched the barista’s easy-looking grin with one of her own as she shoved one hand into the front pocket of her messenger bag– and blanched. “Uh, hang on.” A pat to her back pocket yielded no results, and the same went for the side pockets of the light jacket she was wearing. The admittedly cluttered inside of her bag also got a thorough - and increasingly hurried - search, but still without any proverbial needles turning up.
Of course, it wasn’t until after that thorough search - some two minutes later, which was a damn long time for a coffee shop order queue - that the image of her wallet hit her; resting peacefully on the counter. At home.
Shit. The blush was already crawling up her ears, and of course she had no change on her, either.
“I’m really sorry,” she told the barista, who - to her credit - looked sympathetic, rather than annoyed or harried. “I don’t have my wa– well, that’s obvious by now, right? Just– cancel my order, please. I’ll come back la–”
“I’ve got it.” The brief touch to her shoulder came at the same time as the unfamiliar voice, and maybe a split-second before the fair hand that extended towards to the barista in front of her with a few, folded bills between held long fingers.
“Thanks,” Anna murmured as she stepped away from the counter before the rapidly-speaking man behind her could bump her out of the way.
“No problem,” was the casual response, followed by a soft chuckle. “I suppose I watched Pay it Forward one too many times.”
“Well, you certainly made my morning,” she half-joked in response, and tried to make the contents of her now thoroughly messy bag fit back into it the way they had been just a few minutes ago. “If not for you, I’d have had to find some other way to jump start my–” A glance up. “–day.”
Okay, so her erstwhile caffeine savior was pretty. Beautiful, actually; just a fraction taller than Anna herself, impeccably dressed in slacks and a woolen coat with a dark blue scarf tied artfully around the base of her throat; long, pale hair tied up and back with crooked bangs falling over sky-blue eyes and she was totally staring and she really needed to stop that.
Well, that was just flippin’ dandy. ‘Dork who forgot her wallet’ was exactly the kind of first impression she wanted to make on someone like that.
Dammit. Anna managed to resist the nigh-overwhelming urge to facepalm, and instead offered a somewhat shaky smile before turning to secure her cup. That done, she turned back around to hopefully continue the conversation… and almost tripped in her hurry to catch up when she realized that the other woman was already holding a cup of her own and was leaving.
“Hey.” She squeezed her way into a semi-available spot in the slowly shuffling mass of people heading for the door, and hitched her bag higher onto her shoulder. “Any chance I can catch you here again tomorrow, maybe?”
“Hm?” The glance she got was slightly distracted at first - presumably due to the phone in the woman’s free hand - but it sharpened soon enough. “Ah, I’m afraid not,” was the apologetic answer, around a slight smile. “I’m a little out of my way today. Why do you ask?”
“Well…” She lifted the paper cup in her hand and waggled it. Gently, because ‘idiot who spills hot liquid on a gorgeous woman’ was an infinitely worse impression to make than ‘dork who forgot her wallet’. “I do owe you a cup of coffee.”
“No, you don’t,” was the blonde’s reply, along with a brief, curious glance over one shoulder. “I was paying it forward, remember?”
Anna opened her mouth, closed it again and desperately fished for a rejoinder as the morning crowd weaved around - and worse, between - them, because while she herself had no issue with navigating the crowd, it seemed to be parting for the other woman on some sort of hive-minded instinct, which was putting Anna herself at a distinct disadvantage in terms of speed.
“Wait up!” she called when she made it into the still-nippy, early morning air several halfway-panicked heartbeats later, and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the smartly-clad form stop.
“Yes?” Those very blue eyes were watching her questioningly when she jogged to catch up, and Anna took a breath to settle her still-rattling nerves.
“Let me try this again,” she began, and shifted her cup into her left hand before offering her right one. “Hi; I’m Anna. I don’t owe you a cup of coffee, but I’d like to. Specifically, I’d like to buy us both one, and ideally have us drink this coffee in the same place, uninterrupted, for at least half an hour.” A pause, and a slight cant of her head as she cleared her throat and crossed whatever she could. “Basically, I’m trying to ask you out.”
“… oh.” There was a distinct flush rising in the pale cheeks that had nothing to do with the cool wind, and Anna felt her heart drop for all of half a second before the blush was followed by a faint, but very sheepish, half-grin as her hand was clasped. “Hello, Anna. I’m Elsa, and you’ll find that I tend to be a little dense when it comes to social cues. Particularly in the early mornings.”
“I can live with that,” Anna chuckled. “So… can I owe you a cup of coffee?”
“That depends.” Their hands were still clasped between them, and the thumb that was drawing slow patterns on her skin was almost as distracting as the growing smile that was being aimed her way. “If the coffee goes well, can I owe you dinner?”