It was a gray morning. Early October tends to have those, around here. The coffee shop was busy, filled on the inside, and there were many occupied tables outside, the patrons wearing their jackets and scarves.
A blonde emerged from the door, a paper cup in her hand, and she scanned the tables. All full, save one, tucked around the corner of the small fenced in lot. She shrugged, and took the seat furthest back, facing the street. It was actually nice and quiet back here, blocked from the view and voices of the many people chattering among themselves while they caffeinated.
She used her cell phone as a mirror, finger tousling her short hair just right, straightening a crooked earring.
Happy with the results, she was just about to smile at herself when she was startled.
A brunette came around the corner with soft curly hair and glasses. She was dressed in layered earth tones, and she screeched to a stop when she saw the blonde. Her coffee cup with its tight lid made a gurgling sound as its contents sloshed.
The blonde unloaded the smile she had been just about to use on the equally startled brunette, and gestured to one of the empty chairs.
The brunette smiled, nervously, but nodded her thanks. She sat, her back to the white plastered wall of the coffee shop. She sipped her coffee, made a 'too hot' hiss and pulled out her own cell phone.
The blonde idly moved her thumb on her screen, watching her new table mate more than the flickering images on her screen. Her eyes covertly took in the brunette's calves in dark stockings, her well filled sweater, the length of a visible collarbone.
The brunette held her phone up and at an angle, and the blonde admired her cheekbones, her flashing blue eyes behind the dark rimmed glasses, her perfect, white teeth as she smiled and snapped a selfie.
A frown on her face, then, when she looked at the outcome, and another try followed, the angle different, the smile the same. The frown returned; still not good enough.
The blonde put her phone face down on the table. She smiled, raised an eyebrow, and extended a hand, face up. The brunette was surprised. No one just handed over their phone to a stranger.
Slowly, though, she
did
, to her own astonishment. The blonde took her phone and winked.
Moments later, the blonde was in motion, a light touch on the brunette's chin to turn her face just to
there.
The camera clicked, fast and staccato, and the brunette began to blush at the attention, at feeling like a model on some photoshoot. The blonde moved around her, erratic in her motions, like some drunken moth battering at a porch light. No, a pixie, bringing delight to the woman she danced around. She pulled faces, struck awkward poses herself, drawing a genuine smile and unexpected laughter from the brunette.
As suddenly as the flurry had started, it was over. The phone was back in the hands of its owner, who began flipping back through the snaps. A sharp intake of breath,
there
was a good one. Oh, and another, and
more!
The brunette's lips parted, she looked to her table mate to offer her thanks.