Silas--
My ears perk up and my eyes steal a glance at the girl behind the counter when she says, "Ma'am you may have to use the other side of the card."
I hear a strain in her voice as she addresses the lady. It sounds like she's trying not to unleash frustration on the lady.
I steal another glance at her. I watch as she purses her lips and struggles to keep her eyes from narrowing to a slit. My eyes travel to her fingers tapping gently yet firmly against the countertop.
A smile forces its way onto my face.
"You think I don't know how to operate my card?" The lady responds.
Wondering how she'll respond to the woman, I peek at her from the side of my eyes.
She turns her head away from the lady and rolls her eyes.
There's the full-grown frustration. Feisty.
I snicker before picking up a snicker bar.
I tsk as I put it back. Why don't they have what I want?
My eyes drift to the side and I catch her staring at me.
She immediately turns away.
"Are you done?" She asks the lady, fidgeting to type in whatever information she was typing into the computer.
My lips twitch.
I turn my eyes to the Hershey's bars before me and my hand hovers over them before I grab two bars from the carton.
As the lady in front of me snatches the bag of Doritos without glancing at the receipt in the cashier's outstretched hand, my grip on the Hershey's tightens, and my eyes narrow at the lady's retracting back as she leaves the store.
"Have a nice day." The words sound forced as they leave the cashier's lips.
She exhales deeply as she crumbles the receipt into a ball and trashes it.
There's a gentility about her and her actions despite her not-so-subtle frustration. Like when she was holding back from barking against the lady's behavior. Even when she was crumbling the receipt.
Feeling a sense of responsibility to ease her mood, I chuckle.
"Frustrating, wasn't she?"
She slowly looks up as she nods.
She pauses mid-nod and her brown eyes lock with mine before quickly averting her eyes.
I place the snacks I got onto the counter, pressing my lips together to keep from laughing at the bashful look on her face.
I take it, she's shy.
She grabs each item and scans them, stealing glances at me.
"Credit or debit." She finally speaks.
It takes a minute before I answer because I can't get past her tender voice.
"Debit."
My heartstrings tug as she grabs the snacks and places them in a plastic bag after scanning each of them with a sheepish expression, still stealing glances at me.
I turn my head away and smile.
There's something about her expression that makes me want to constantly see it.
"I saw you staring at me earlier," I say, deciding to draw out more of that bashfulness.
I watch her hand pause and hover over the Lays chip bag, glancing from left to right, but not responding to me.
I grab my wallet from my pocket to take out my debit card, smirking.
"Your beanie," she finally mumbles.
"What?" I cock my head to the side with a scrunched eyebrow.
"I was looking at the logo on your beanie."
I take off my beanie and point at the Appa logo on it. "You mean this little guy."
She nods, chewing on the inside of her cheek while tapping her fingers on the counter.
I let my eyes shamelessly fall on her luscious dark hair which falls on her sage green shirt, shading the right part of her headphone.
My Adam apple bobs as I swallow, eyeing the way her fallen hair makes her look all the more bashful.
I ruffle my hair before putting the beanie back on.
"So I'm guessing you're a fan of Avatar?"
She nods.
I think I just got an excuse to ask her out.
"Receipt or no?"
"Sure." I don't register what she asks as my brain tries to think of a way to ask her out with an incorporation of Avatar.
"So, you wanna watch it together?" I ask, deciding to wing out.
My heart thumps loudly.
She looks up at me with pursed lips and scrunched eyebrows and I raise an eyebrow expectantly while mentally praying to God that she accepts the offer.
She looks away and glances to her right before grabbing the receipt from the printer, stuffing it into the plastic bag, and handing it to me.
"You're holding up the line."
My heart sinks. My tense body eases up as my lips form an 'oh.'
I grab the bag from her, and our hands brush, making me glance at her olive skin as she not-so-subtly retracts her hand quickly.
"Sorry sir," I apologize to the man to my left.
He smiles and waves my apology away.
I glance at the girl before I step away from her, wondering if I'll see her again. Probably not.
But I want to see her again. Maybe I should tell her my phone number. Have her call me and we could hang out.
Though, judging by the way she turned me down, maybe not.
But what if...
I bite my lip as I pause in front of the door wondering if what I'm about to do is unreasonable.
I tsk the thought away and put my wallet back in my pocket before walking to the side of the counter, yanking a pen out of the cup of pens to write my name and number on the back of the receipt, telling her to call me if she changes her mind, before placing the receipt under the cup.
I place the pen back in the cup. I catch her staring at me as I straighten up.
Maybe she'll call me or maybe not, but I know I have her attention.
With that thought, I tap the counter twice before walking away.
"Credit or debit." Her tender voice fills my ears as I walk out of the store.
***
"Who's your favorite character?"
She bites her lower lip and scraps at her thumb.
"Appa."
I chuckle. "He's not a real character."
She frowns at me and turns to me with a look that subtly says 'I'm offended.'
"Yes, he is." Her voice raises barely an octave higher than I've ever heard it.
"What about you?" She asks, fiddling with the edge of the black blanket wrapped around her.
Despite being here for almost an hour, she still looks uncomfortable.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
She drags the blanket closer to her chest and then nods.
"You sure? Cause you look out of place."
She tenses and chews on the inside of her right cheek, angling her face away from me.
"Hmm." She shrugs.
I let my eyes roam over her expression as she continues to chew on her cheek and averts my gaze.
She no longer looks bashful, she looks almost ashamed. It almost matches the expression she had on her face when she was praying.
"So, what's your favorite character?" She asks, trying to put on a bleak expression.
What's wrong with her?
I lean back against the black beanbag with my arms folded behind my head and pretend to ponder the question. I suck in a sharp breath before saying, "Sokka and Uncle Iroh," deciding to play innocent since she was.
"Really?" Looking from the laptop to me with a blank expression.
I bring my arms to my chest and fold them, deciding to sit up straight.
I jut my head at her and ask, "What?"
"Nothing." She holds up her hand in a surrender position.
"It's just that you remind me of Prince Zuko." She shrugs, wriggling her hands, "without the anger issues."
I lift an eyebrow at her.
"I mean you're both impulsive and you both have medium-length black hair and grey eyes."
She chuckles. "And what's crazier is that there's an intensity and softness about you both."
"Intensity?" I lift an eyebrow at her.
"Yeah." She shrugs.
"I can't explain." She turns her head to me.
"But there's just...something about you...that's oddly...intense." She breathily chuckles after saying the word "intense." Her eyes roam my face before returning to the blanket in front of her.
"I don't know how else to describe it." She gives me a closed-lipped smile with an indescribable look on her face.
It's a mix of conflicted and closed-of.
This time, my eyes roam her face, and I'm stuck wondering why she suddenly seems...I don't know...away?
"What did you mean by 'we're both impulsive?'" I ask, deciding to put my skepticism away, not liking the way she used the word 'impulsive.'
I lean against the beanbag and cross my arms, waiting for her to explain.
"Well..." She clicks her tongue before chewing on the inside of her cheek, glancing up at me every so often with a skittish expression.
"Well?" I ask when she doesn't continue, cocking my head at her.
She exhales and sinks into the beanbag as if it's a burden to say whatever it is she wants to say. "Well, some...people could consider asking a girl you just met to watch Avatar with you in the basement of a cathedral to be a stupid and irrational decision."
My ears perk up and both my eyebrows shoot up.
"What do you mean?" I ask, not wanting to add meaning to words when there may be none.
She chews on the inside of her cheek, glancing around the room as she says, "Exactly what I said. Impulsive."
Her tone takes me aback, and I suddenly feel irritated.
She sounds like I'd done something wrong by asking her to meet me here. Her words aren't what affects me. It's her tone. Even so, her expression doesn't match her tone. She looks bleak.
"Did I do something wrong by asking you to watch Avatar with me?" I decide to ask, wondering why she suddenly seemed a little less than standoffish but close.
She straightens up and turns to me, waving both arms in front of her as she shakes her head 'No.'
"No." She puts her hand back on her lap and bows her head. "That's not what I meant. I'm sorry you took it that way. I just meant you are an impulsive person." She adds a shrug after finishing her statement.
There was that word again. 'Impulsive.' It doesn't explain much, and frankly, I'm starting to hate it, maybe even hate her. And what is it with her shrugging?
My eyes narrow at her face. She continues to chew on the inside of her cheek, looking more skittish than before. My eyes travel to her hands, and I watch as she tugs at her fingers, quite hard. Her eyes glance rapidly between spaces. She glances up at me and gives me a tight-lipped smile; it's barely a smile.
I don't return it.
My eyes harden as they glance from her skittish face to her tugging fingers.
My phone beeps and I peek at it. I turn my hardened eyes back to her.
"Come on, Twinkle toes." Toph's voice fills the room.
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