𝒉𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒚 ( 𝑬𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝑻𝒐𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒐)

𝒕𝒘𝒐

Discreetly leaning over the counter, Willow Alcott smiles at the young man hiding behind it.
He looks up to her, his eyes are still wild and now scanning his surroundings in panic as if he was looking for the next best exit.

“They didn’t see you coming in here”, Willow informs him and he relaxes a little at her words.
Still waiting for him to say a word, she hears the bell above the door, the noise indicating that a new customer just entered the café.

“Need to get that, stay here”, she demands and turns around,not having time to think about her impulsive decision of letting a stranger hide behind the café’s counter, not daring to think about the fact that he could easily rob the whole place.

Taking the young family’s order and offering to bring out some wooden toys for the little girl to play with, Willow nearly screams when she stumbles over the strangers foot, him still being hidden she forgot for a second and just rushed behind the counter, her head being in full on waitress mode.

“I am very sorry but you can not sit here”, she mumbles,not wanting the young family to think she is talking to herself while preparing their food.
The panic returns to his eyes, really not wanting to get back out there and possibly become a victim of the next crowd.

“In the back, you can stay there until you feel safe enough to go outside again”, she kindly offers, seeing how scared the young man is she has the feeling he wouldn’t dare to steal anything from her.

“Thank you”, he mumbles with his thick accent and scrambles to his feet, stumbling in the direction of the door that leads to the changing rooms.

Shaking her head in amusement, Willow turns her full attention back to their customers and even stays at their table for a little chat.
Tourists from Germany that want her to tell them some secret spots they just have to see.
Willow denies herself the answer, that if she’d tell them about the secret spots they would no longer be secret, instead she writes some lesser known tourist attractions on a piece of paper and tells them to grab a piece of pizza at Al’s.

Leaving her a generous tip, the family eventually leaves when their daughter gets impatient and demands to see the ocean.

“You can come out now”, Willow calls while cleaning up the empty table and loads the dishwasher.

“I am Willow by the way”, she smiles when she remembers that they have not told each other their names yet.

“Ethan”, a faint smile is on his pretty face and Willow motions to the cake and sandwiches in the display offering him some food.

After a little convincing, Willow gets Ethan to take a piece of lemontarte and a cup of coffee on the house, now waiting patiently for him to finish his food and to start talking, curious about his odd behaviour.

“I am in a band and in the last couple of months our fanbase doubled, tripled, I don’t know”, he begins and Willow cocks her head, looking at him with a confused stare, trying to place him in any band he knows.

Willow doesn’t know a lot of bands, in fact she barely knows anything about pop culture, not interested in the world of the rich and famous at all everything she knows, she knows from Ada and she hasn’t been ‘round to give her any updates.

“We won the Eurovision”, Ethan explains relieved when he realises that Willow really has no clue who he is.

“Oh yes, I remember my roommate was complaining about how bad England was doing”.

“Congratulations”, Willow adds and extends her hand, Ethan taking it with a strong grip.

While Ethan talks about how the fans managed to catch him away from the others and didn’t stop following him until Willow so kindly offered shelter in the café, the blonde girl begins to clean up.

From time to time Ethan has to stop talking and looks at his phone to translate words he doesn’t know in English and Willow shows a lot of interest in him.

The way he takes his time to think about what to say, carefully checking his words before they leave his mouth, causes Willow to encourage him to talk.

With the café now cleaned and ready to be closed up for the night, Willow pours both herself and Ethan a cup of tea and they continue their conversations at the table farthest from the windows.

Only when Ethans phone starts ringing and the cozy atmosphere is broken by the noise, Willow realises how late it has gotten, the sun now left the sky for the moon to rule over.

Excusing himself he starts speaking in Italian to someone on the other end, hectical and louder than he did before with Willow, clearly upset about something.

Trying not to eavesdrop, even if she can't possibly understand anything he says, Willow gets up and takes their mugs to the dishwasher.

"I can't come back", desperation is again laced in his voice and Willow's head pipes up.
So much for no eavesdropping.
"Not now, I am so sorry".

He hangs up the phone and then drops his head, burying his face in his hands.

"Anything I can do?", before Willow can think the words are out of her mouth.
Always being eager to help the people around her, sometimes she ends up in the weirdest situations all caused by her big heart and need to help.

"You don't happen to have a place where I can hide for the next week or so?", Ethan ironically asks,his voice muffled by his hands covering his mouth.

"In fact, I do".