RP: Coffee makes everything better

[charisma79]

Date: January 5, 2012
Characters: Charisma Gibbons, Nellie O'Neill, Paul Tallman
Location: Starbucks on 8th, Fort Worth
Status: Public
Summary: The best way to start the day is with coffee.
Completion: Complete

Comments

[nellie_oneill]

Nellie was getting herself acquainted with the city she'd thrown herself head first into. Elliot had shown her around a bit, but like with everywhere she moved over the years, she learned best with hands on experience. He'd told her about the Starbucks; in fact, if his sister was to be believed, he had more caffeine in his veins and money invested in Starbucks and other coffee shops than was entirely healthy. She understood the urge, though. Caffeine had long since become one of her best friends

[charisma79]

Glancing over when another woman sat down at the table next to hers was a reflex, and Charisma couldn't help but notice the job application or the way the woman seemed to be searching through her purse for something. When the woman couldn't seem to find it, Charisma wondered if it was a pen, as she noticed that there wasn't one on the table with the application the woman had picked up. Pulling her own purse up to the table, she opened it and pulled out one of the millions of pens that she had in it. She was always losing, lending, or having her pens stolen, and this way she never had to worry about having one on hand.

"Here you go," she said, reaching across the stretch of empty space between the tables. "Job hunting?" she was asking before the thought occurred to her that she should probably let the woman be.

[nellie_oneill]

Nellie was quickly realizing that having left most of her pens in her room in Virginia was probably a bad idea, even if the security people at the airports always gave her funny looks for carrying so many and once she’d even had her favorite metal ball point pen confiscated. She still wasn’t sure if it had been legit or if the agent had just taken a liking to it.

She looked up when the woman at the next table over spoke and held a pen out to her. She smiled brightly at her. “Oh, thank you! You’re an angel,” she said, reaching out to take the pen. “I usually carry a bunch but airport security always looks at me funny, so I dumped them all back home.” She nodded at the question, not minding being ‘interrupted,’ if that’s what it was, in the least. “Yeah. At least something for the now while I look for the later,” she said. Her family was fussing up a storm that she’d just up and yanked roots like she was, but it already felt like the right move to Nellie. “I just got to this area, so I’m just sort of exploring my options, I guess.”

[charisma79]

Charisma gave the other woman a friendly smile. "You're welcome," she said. She was no angel, but she understood the sentiment behind the comment. She was glad that the woman didn't seem to mind the interruption and seemed friendly enough, as Charisma had always enjoyed striking up conversations with the random people she encountered in everyday situations such as this. She grinned, nodding in understanding. "I always carry a bunch, too." She figured the woman must have got to the area recently if she still hadn't replenished her pen supply yet. "Feel free to hang onto that one," she offered with a smile. It wouldn't be a hardship to her, and if the woman was going to be filling out a bunch of applications today, she knew it would be a hassle and not very impressive to have to ask for a pen at every place

[paul_tallman]

He'd gone for a run, a little longer than usual, dogs in happy tow. Evan was in for a all-hands meeting at work. His share of the chores was done, and Lucy had insisted she didn't need him to "babysit" her while she was visiting town. And sitting in front of the T.V. just didn't appeal, so he grabbed his keys and wallet and started out, scooping up the paper from the table by the door and tucking it onto the passenger seat as he started into town. Lucy'd taken over grocery shopping, much to her brother's dismay (a fight he'd let Evan do on his own, thank you), but there were a couple of errands he could still think up, maybe. But first, he thought as Puck rumbled into the Starbucks lot, coffee. The best way to keep from accidentally grabbing some of Lucy's gourmet mixes was to just head out to the coffee shop, though teasing her about it always got his wrist slapped, even if she smiled while she did it

[charisma79]

Charisma had finished her danish a while ago and somewhere over the course of her conversation will Nellie, Starbucks had got fairly busy, so much that she felt a little guilty about having a table all to herself. Her eyebrows shot up when a young man was jostled right over her table, dropping his paper. She slid from her chair and bent down to help him pick up the strewn newspaper, then smiled at him as she handed them to him.

"I'm just about done," she told him. "You're welcome to join me and have the table when I leave." With as busy as the coffee shop was, she couldn't imagine him turning down the offer, though she knew some people were weird about sitting with strangers.

[paul_tallman]

"Thanks," he muttered with a grin, glad she hadn't ripped into him for watching where he was going, and hoping she didn't think he was a total klutz, despite all the people around them. "Dangers of trying to get a seat, right?" Scooping the sports section under the art pages, he looked around for the want-ads, then looked up and saw them in her hand. Ah, good. Would have been a shame to lose them. "You sure?" Paul took them from her, and pushed himself up with one hand to his knee, then tucked the various random bits of newspaper under his arm, smiling at her gratefully. "'ppreciate that, thanks." He dropped into the chair across from her with a quiet whoosh, settling his coffee on the tabletop. "You probably did the smart thing and got here before the rush," he said cheerfully, the mild annoyance at the push-and-shove routine already fading. "It's what I get for deciding I'd be good and do the errands first."

[charisma79]

"Not a problem," Charisma said with a friendly smile. "So it would seem." Though Charisma really did think that people could probably do with being a little more considerate and not run into other patrons. What happened to those southern manners she heard so much about? She had to figure they just got a little lost in big cities. "Yes, I'm sure," she assured him. It wasn't a hardship to share the table with a stranger, especially as she'd be done and leaving shortly. She chuckled softly and nodded. "It seems I did, though I think it had more to do with being lucky than smart." Charisma grinned and tsked softly. "Don't you know that a coffee fix is the best start to a day before getting into errands?" And she hoped the stranger wouldn't mind the friendly teasing.