Iris and Warren (HiddenArtist & CharmSnake)

Who were all these people at the bus stop? He could barely navigate the sidewalk. Then it clicked, September day about three o'clock. School just let out. The clamor of young voices confirmed this. They stood around everywhere oblivious to anyone who needed to get past. Some chatted, some smoked, some chatted while they smoked, flicking their ashes without a care where they landed. Some were immersed in their phones.

It was a nice warm day, sunny enough for shades. There would not be many left before autumn set in and he seized the opportunity to travel light and not wear a jacket. A cigarette butt flicked in front of him and he stopped short not to mess up his shirt. Work permitted him casual license with his attire but he still needed to be presentable. His black dress shirt with copper pinstripes didn't need a cherry hole in it when he visited the next client. The shirt was classy but the open collar and the loose pair of jeans that it was tucked into made him casual. The black boots gave him an extra couple of inches and put him over six feet. He pushed back a wave of blonde hair, lowered his shades a moment and glanced over at the teen girl who had carelessly issued the burning projectile. She kept on gossiping to her friend without even acknowledging him. He shook his head and made his way through the crowd.

The 217X lurched to a stop and the doors flapped open. The young throng started to funnel towards the entrance. He was caught in the tangle and was trying not to get his boots stepped on. Eventually he spotted a gap and stepped out.

"Out of the way loser!"

The raised voice turned his head. Some little Asian girl in a pink track top and yoga pants stared down from the bus steps with disdain. She reached down with a straight arm and shoved a taller girl in a worn hoodie in the chest, making room for her group to file past. Three more girls, two of them with backward-capped boyfriends in tow boarded laughing. The last girl, a blonde ponytailed pixie with the word 'Angel' spelled in sequins across her flat chest stopped and turned before she ascended.

"This is the express. No trailer trash allowed," she sneered as she held her boyfriend's hand. "You'll have to catch the next one."

"Yea, get a date you carpet-licking dyke!" the Asian girl called out to uproarious laughter.

A shriveled old lady sitting on the bench behind them tisked.

Iris just wanted to get home. It had been a particularly brutal day, and she was just tired. The relief she felt when the bus showed up was short-lived, though. She barely got one foot on the bus when Lindsey shoved her back, causing her to stumble a bit as she caught her footing and Lindsey's clique of cruelty boarded the bus. She didn't even bother wincing as Carla called her trailer trash, it was something she'd heard for as long as she'd been alive. Nothing new there. But the idea of having to wait for the next bus was... very unappealing. She just wanted to be home, away from the cruelty of her classmates.

She had two options. Either she got on the bus anyways and listened to their continued torment the entire way to her home, or she stayed and listened to them call her a loser with no spine for silently doing as they said. She was just emotionally exhausted, though. It was even before her first class that they sent her books sprawling across the floor; she didn't get her lunch because they knocked her tray over after she paid for her food - and then made her clean it up - and in gym she got a tennis ball to the back of her head. She wasn't going to be able to deal with another 5 minutes of those girls, let alone a half hour.

It only took her a moment to decide she wasn't going to just sit and wait for the next bus either. Yes, she was tired, but she couldn't risk another minute of their harassment. So, shrugging up the hood of her hoodie, she began her hike home. She wished she had music... she loved music... but her parents couldn't afford to buy her an mp3 player or any music to go with it. Instead she had only the sound of Lindsey's clan's laughter and the traffic to greet her.

Boys will be boys but girls were vicious. The victim of their torment took a step back in hesitant contemplation, and when it was apparent that she was not immediately getting on, another half-dozen commmuters squeezed past and boarded. Then the driver shut the doors abruptly and the bus rolled away from the curb. If she hadn't made her decision by then it had just been made for her.

"Slut!" the skinny angel girl yelled out from a rear window on the bus as it joined the traffic.

Back on the sidewalk, the girl lifted her hood to shroud her face and with forehead tilted downward, slowly stepped his way. Her clothes were basic and well worn. With her locks of dark hair protruding from the hood past her cheeks and down her chest she cut a sad image, a lonely inner pain soldiering on. She didn't seem to notice him until he spoke.

"Sluts would have no trouble finding dates," he reasoned facetiously. "They gotta pick one or the other."

Was it too much sarcasm from a complete stranger? It would probably freak her out, but he'd just witnessed something so juvenile that he had to speak.

Tensing slightly from the last-minute insult, Iris showed no other reaction to the girl's words. She just kept her eyes on the ground in front of her and did her best to ignore everything. Wrapping her arms around herself, she almost didn't even notice the guy standing nearby until she heard him speak. Casting the briefest of glances towards him, she didn't stop in her movement, just kept moving forward. She didn't recognize him, so he wasn't one of her typical tormentors, but she still doubted that his words were meant to insult them rather than her.

She wasn't sure whether she was going to reply or not, she was exhausted and just not in the mood, but found herself opening her mouth anyways. "I don't think that's crossed their minds. This way they get the best of both worlds." She commented dryly, still not even looking at him as she moved past the man. Her arms tightened around herself, wondering if he would stay there or follow her to continue her torment. With her luck? He'd follow to harass her some more

For just a split second her eyes flicked up at him and then immediately back down. It had caught him off guard but he he had no idea why. At least the moment afforded no time to figure. She didn't break stride as she spoke and kept on walking.

He wanted to say something but was at a loss for words. It would be too creepy. She was just a teenage girl, with teenage girl problems. He should let her just keep walking. The eyes were pretty though. He wanted to get another look at them. A black grommet belt held her jeans to her hips as she walked on. If he didn't say something she'd be gone forever.

"So you're not ... just gonna catch the next bus?"

The longer the silence held, the more hope she got that he'd just leave her be. And then she heard his voice again. After tensing a moment, unable to stop the reflexive action after having had to prepare herself for hearing insults every time someone spoke for so long, she let out a sigh. He seemed sincere... She didn't know if she could trust that or not, but she slowly turned herself around to face him.

Resigned to the prospect for the confrontation, some part of her telling her he wouldn't leave her alone if she kept walking, she just decided to respond now. Looking him in the eye, not caring if he saw how tired, hurt and angry she was, she spoke. "look, I don't know who you are, and before you go judging me for what little you know of me or what you think you know of me, you don't know me. I'm not in the mood to deal with any of it, so no. I am not going to take the bus. I've made the walk home before, and I'll make it again. Enjoy your ride." She finished before turning away and continuing walking again, keeping her arms around herself.

Just when he thought that he was being ignored, she turned around and let him have a lecture. With all that talk about judgments perhaps she was a lesbian after all just as the popular girls had teased. Maybe this was a lost cause, but then he saw her face. Piercing green eyes under stark black eye liner defied him yet cried distress at the same time. The hoodie shrouded pale skin, young and already careworn. He was paralyzed.

She finished her rant, turned and walked on. His shoulders slumped as he felt the sadness she projected. He'd been told. Her faded dark figure grew smaller and smaller as she continued down the block, away from him.

"Fuck it," he thought. He was headed that way anyways.

With a few quick steps he semi-jogged to make up some of the distance until he saw the light ahead turn red. Then he slowed to a more normal pace hoping that the light would not change. A few more steps and he had caught up. He stood beside her on the corner of the sidewalk keeping a distance respectful of her space.

"Hey," he said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come off that way, I just ... I just wanted to ask if I could get you a coffee across the street here." He lowered his shades to reveal light brown eyes.

The signal turned to 'WALK'.

As much as she tried to just ignore her surroundings, Iris couldn't help but here the footsteps coming up behind her. She tensed, but didn't move or say anything, just waited for the light to change. Somehow she just knew it was the guy from the bus stop without even turning to look at him. Her curiosity warred with her exhaustion, she wanted to know who this guy was. Why he was talking to her. He hadn't been outright mean to her, at least not yet, and that was different than almost every other person she'd ever spoken to.

When she heard his voice, she kept her arms around herself and just turned her head to look at him, not moving anything else. This time she actually looked at him. Not just looking him as just another one of her tormentors, but seeing him as an individual. Her eyes started with his blond hair, taking in its' well groomed state and then moving down to his eyes that were hidden behind his sunglasses. Her gaze traveled down to his clothes, the nice shirt and not-holey jeans. So he had money.

Her gaze was drawn back to his as he pulled down his shades, feeling as though her heart just skipped a beat in her chest, and for a moment she couldn't look away. She was momentarily transfixed by those brown eyes, and finally she remembered herself. Feeling a hint of a blush heat her cheeks, she immediately looked away, trying to get her brain in order.

Thinking back to his offer, she looked across the street to the coffee shop he was speaking of, and for a moment she allowed herself a feeling of longing. Then she shook her head, "I don't have any money." Not meeting his gaze again, almost afraid of how she had reacted to those eyes the first time, she crossed the street without another word when the signal turned.

He kept pace with her deliberate stride as she crossed the street. She kept herself wrapped in her own wary arms and faced dead ahead.

"Who said anything about money?" he posed rhetorically. "I asked if I could get you a coffee. A guy can still buy a girl a coffee these days right?". He smiled at her but she wasn't looking. All he could see was the profile of her nose and chin behind the hood and the tuft of dark hair. They were halfway across.

"Warren, by the way," he offered. If he couldn't get a simple introduction out of her he'd let her go.

Listening to his words, she slowly came to a stand still outside of the Starbucks. She turned to him warily, looking him in the eye, trying to read his intentions. Biting her lip, thinking about what he said, she gave a quiet reply. "My name's Iris." She wasn't sure what to expect at this point, she was so used to hostility.

Should she accept his offer for coffee? What were the chances that he expected something in return - something she wasn't willing to give? After studying him for another moment, she nodded her head slowly. "Okay... Coffee sounds good." She tried for a smile, concern still hovered in her eyes though. Then she began to turn to head into Starbucks.

"My name's Iris."

He felt a tingle in the back of his neck. She was a flower, a weeping flower, and she was beginning to open up, even if barely.

"Okay... Coffee sounds good."

Unexpectedly she had agreed and a warmth spread inside his chest. This was actually going somewhere, although he couldn't shed the notion that maybe it shouldn't. She was young enough that it probably wasn't considered appropriate, but he couldn't help but pursue. He was drawn to her and as long as he felt that they might be connecting he wasn't about to stop.

She turned to enter the Starbuck's. The thick belt strapped her faded worn jeans rather tightly appealingly about her hips. She was not thin. She was not heavy. She was not glamorous, but admittedly she was sexy. Warren chastised himself for thinking about her in that way, then wondered why. Somehow there was more to this than that.

"Where are you going?" he teased. "That's not coffee." He nodded to his right with a clever smirk. "This is."

There was a small parking lot in front of a plaza and almost hidden in the corner was a neon sign, 'la Trattoria Venezia'.

When he asked where she was going, confusion met with anxiety. Did she somehow misunderstand his question? Did he not mean right then? Was he - Then she heard the second part to his thought, and a blush warmed her cheeks when she realized her overreaction.

She turned to look to where Warren had gestured, seeing the fancy little coffee shop. She chewed on her bottom lip, fighting the blush that threatened to warm her cheeks as he teased her. "Oh." She said quietly, not used to the seemingly positive attention being put on her.

After hesitating a moment longer, glancing at him to try to read his mind yet again, she turned to move towards the other little coffee shop. Her mind was wondering at the difference, what it meant, as her hands struggled to decide if they wanted to get stuck in her pockets or if she wanted to wrap her arms around herself. The little cafe Warren pointed at was pretty obviously more sophisticated than starbucks, and she wondered if that said anything about the man himself.

As they walked to La Trattoria Venezia, Iris looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Studied him, more like. She didn't recognize him... And she was pretty good with faces. "Do you even go to Jefferson High?" The question just sort of popped out of her. It seemed now that the answer was pretty obvious. He looked and acted different from most of the people she'd ever met, he seemed older, so she just wondered by how much.

"Do you even go to Jefferson High?"

He chuckled slightly at the coincidence before choosing a cozy table at the window and dropping his shades into the front pocket of his shirt.

The back wall was a mural of a gondola boat paddling in front of rustic pastel colored venetian buildings. The front counter was actually a bar with a marble column at each end. The décor was black with dark red curtains and the tables and chairs were framed with ornate wrought iron painted white. Each table had a white tablecloth with dark red trimmings draped over the edges and a single red rose in a slender vase in the center. The only other patron at the moment was a bespectacled middle-aged woman in a shawl slightly more grey than her hair. She sat in the back corner with her eyes glued to her laptop while she dunked biscotti.

"Actually I did go to a Jefferson High," he said to her once they finally sat down across from each other, "but that was in New Hampshire."

"Fancy a coffee?" the server asked as she approached in a maroon cowl neck top and her blonde hair pinned back exposing her dark roots.

"Yeah, I'll have an espresso coretto with cognac," he ordered. Then he looked across at Iris. "Do you know what you want or do you need time?" The server smiled at her but the teenager didn't seem terribly fond of eye contact.

Iris hesitated once more just outside La Trattoria Venezia, a part of her afraid to commit herself to sitting with him inside the cute little restaurant. After telling herself she could leave at any time, though, she stepped into the place, her eyes scanning her surroundings. The place had a very warm and comfortable feel to it, small yet large enough not to get too crowded too fast. If it had been any larger, any more crowded, she probably would have been edgy, expecting an ambush from any one of the numerous kids who bullied her.

Then she realized Warren had moved to one of the tables, and she hurriedly followed him, keeping her hands stuck firmly in the pocket of her hoodie. This time her hesitation was barely a moment as she slid in across from him, unsure how to act. She'd never really been one-on-one with someone before, not unless she was at home with one of her parents. The part of her that was trained never to have her hood up in school had her pulling back the fabric to reveal her dark hair, the movement causing a bit of hair to fall in front of her face.

Once again she was mindlessly biting her lip as she sat across from him, unwilling to look him in the eye as he talked. Instead she just looked around the restaurant, admiring the mural along the back wall. With a hint of surprise, her gaze flicked back to him as he mentioned he had been in New Hampshire before looking away again.

She saw the server coming so she looked back to the table, allowing her not to have to look at the woman, her hands resting nervously in her lap. Briefly glancing up at the server when the attention turned to her, "I'll just have a chai tea?" She said, ending more on a questioning note than a final one. Orders weren't something she typically gave. If anything she was on the receiving end. Always.

When the woman departed, she looked back at Warren, meeting his gaze only briefly. "New Hampshire?" She asked simply, curious what he was doing here but not really willing to specifically ask. She wasn't one of those girls that was all questions. She had questions she didn't want to answer, so she wasn't the type to pry herself.

Chai wasn't exactly Italian, or even European, but somehow it was available. The server left to fill the order. Iris' eyes looked up a moment and the dropped back beneath her dark fringe.

"New Hampshire?"

"Yeah, I grew up there," answered Warren. "Been here almost a year. We have mountains there but nothing like these here in Colorado."

The single rose in the vase in the center of the table obscured her. He placed his finders gently around the base and slid it to his left a few inches to see her better. She was beautiful and sad and it stirred a warmth in him. Whether it was the beauty or the sadness that did so he wasn't certain. Perhaps they went hand in hand.

The steam of the espresso machine hissed and the lady in the corner tapped away at her computer. Outside the window was bright and sunny but the coffee shop was on the shady side of the street and the September shadows stretched in the afternoon.

"Do you like this place?" he asked. "One of my clients is 'The Lucky Harp Pub' upstairs. That's how I know about it."

Shifting in her chair to try to force herself to be more comfortable in the situation she was in, her eyes just on the table between them, Iris responded with a quiet "Oh," surprised he's spent so little time in the only place she'd ever known. She'd barely been out of the city, let alone on the other side of the country. "I was born here." She said, trying to be polite but obviously not as comfortable with conversation as he seemed to be.

When he reached forward to move the rose, she watched his movement, studying his hands. And that small part of her mind that longed for connection couldn't help but wonder what his touch would feel like. Really the only touch she knew was the rough pushing of her classmates when she got in the way.

Her thoughts were interrupted by his question, and she glanced up at him for a brief moment. Before answering, she looked around again. "It's very nice, thank you for offering to bring me here..." And because she was at that spot in her thought process, she looked up at him again, and her lips parted as she almost asked him why he brought her there when everyone else she knew would be more inclined to take her to a closet and lock her away, but instead she looked away, closing her mouth and thinking better of asking. It was probably better off she didn't know anyways.

Iris hadn't bitten on the reference to his profession. Perhaps she was too nervous to notice, or maybe she just wasn't interested. Her mouth opened as if to say something, but no words came forth. It was a pretty mouth with gentle kissable lips. Despite his interest in what may have been on her mind, Warren was content to allow her to remain tentative as he wanted to avoid causing her any more discomfort than she was already in.

The server returned with their beverages and Iris’ chai was placed before her. Warren poured his cognac shot into his coffee and gave it a quick stir. What could he talk about with her? She was a teenager. Certainly he wasn't so far removed from his own teen years that they had no shared interests. Asking her about music seemed so patronizing. He could talk about his job, but that just felt like bragging. All that he knew about her was just everything that was sitting before him, a young girl full of secrets. Of course there was also the nasty girls at the bus stop, but that was something to be left behind, at least for now. he wanted to be her escape.

"Would you like to go see a movie this weekend?" he finally broke the silence. He was actually doing it. He was asking her out. It was too late to take it back now. Raising his cup to his mouth he took a small sip, hoping desperately that he didn't scare her into bolting off.

Iris was completely caught off guard when Warren asked her to go see a movie that weekend. She met this guy less than an hour ago and as far as she knew, he hadn't even seen her before then. "A movie?" She asked, starting to wonder if this was just a dream. "I... Can't afford to go to a movie." She said, almost in a state of shock. This was just getting too weird. It was hardly real. Looking down into her chai that he was paying for, she took a sip. She didn't know how to handle this, handle him.

Holding the mug between her two hands, she looked up at him, chewing on her lip while her mind raced. "Why are you..." Her voiced trailed off as she thought better of asking the question, looking back down at her drink. "Do you pick random strangers off the street to talk to often?" She asked instead, making it less about her.

"I ... can't afford to go to a movie."

"I asked if you wanted to go, not of you wanted to pay," Warren smiled. The young girl seemed flustered, as if she had just approached an intersection where the green red and amber all showed at the same time. Her look was more than curious. She scanned him intently, not that Warren could blame her. He cocked his head just slightly as she aborted her question, and presumed that the remainder of her inquiry would almost certainly be along the lines of why he would choose, of all people, her.

"Do you pick random strangers off the street to talk to often?" she asked instead.

Warren lifted his espresso cup to his mouth with both hands and smiled coyly behind it.

"Because I think you're worth asking out," he answered the question that she really wanted to know. Then with a twinkle in his eye, he took a sip.

It was the second time that Warren denied her her typical reason for not doing anything. She wasn't used to wondering whether she wanted to do something, nothing was ever am option since she couldn't pay. His insistence, though, caught her off guard. "well... I..." she struggled to get past the money barrier, and then she looked up at him, at his smile and kind eyes. "y-yes" she finally said, feeling her heart skip a beat just at the idea of going out with him again.

When Warren seemed to read her mind and answer her unspoken question, a blush heated her cheeks. Whether it was his words, his expression, the look in his eye, or a combination of it all, she felt her heart stutter in her chest. She had to look back down at her own drink to get her thoughts organized again. Every time she looked at him, her thoughts seemed to scatter everywhere. "I, um, thank you." she was worth asking out? Since when? How come no one else saw that? "you're very kind." and possibly delusional..

Her answer was yes and the pinkness rising in her complexion tugged at his heart. He placed his coffee back down on the saucer with a ceramic clink.

"Good, so I'll pick you up on Friday at like eight?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. It was a done deal. They just had to sort out the details. Warren took out his phone and prepared to add a contact. Iris, he typed and looked into hers of striking jade prompting him to change the color of her text to match. Such lovely vivid green they were, guarded by the stark black liner that attempted to muzzle the cries for help coming from within them.

"Hey, I hate to rush," he said snapping back to reality. "But I can't stay too much longer. I am on company time. Should I get your number?"