Letting Her In

Do I Know You From Somewhere?

This story is based in the big city. New York. It was a Friday night and like most, the cafe where you would find Toni Topaz working, was very quiet. Toni had moved to New York City after she graduated to take a gap year before she started University. She had her whole life planned out. She was going to get a photography degree and try to find herself working for some big company like The New York Times or something. She was also in New York to help the Serpents stay strong. Back in High School, she was the queen bee. She was part of the Southside Serpents and you'd find her with someone new in her bed every night. At graduation she made a pact with herself. She was going to be better than that. She had a long term relationship with fellow Serpent, Fangs Fogarty. She was starting to get bored just standing there with her thoughts so she decided it was time to close early. "Babe! We should close early tonight!" She shouted to Fangs, who was upstairs taking his work uniform off. He came back down and held Toni by the waist and she smiled at him. "That's fine baby. I'm going out with the boys anyway. I'll leave you to lock up." He smiled back at Toni before kissing her and leaving the cafe. After a few moments, Toni was just about to lock up as she saw heavy rain begin to shadow the lights of New York City. Then she saw something dodgy. Some men were crowding a tall, redheaded woman just outside the cafe. She put her best brave face on and went to see what the big deal was. "Please just leave me alone." She heard her say to one of the men so she spoke up. "Get the hell away from her!" Toni yelled at the man but he decided to argue with her. "We know her," he said with a smirk plastered across his face. Toni didn't believe him, not for a second. "Is that so?" she asked, glaring at the man. The man grabbed the woman by the arm and looked at Toni. "Yes, in fact we do and we were just kidding around." Toni let out a scoff-sounding sigh. Toni was so ready to knock this guy out but before she could, the woman turned around and punched him straight in the jaw. "Hey that's it!" She shouted. Toni didn't want her to deal with this on her own. At the back of her mind, she thought she kind of recognised the redhead in front of her but that was the least important thing right now. "Go inside, love. I'll deal with this." She told the woman. She needed to be a good bartender and help the woman. Provide her a place where she could feel safe, just until the rain stopped. The woman nodded and looked at Toni. "Thank you so much." then went inside at the bar.

Meanwhile, Toni was purely pissed off that some disgusting men were even trying to harass an innocent woman. "Oh come on we were just having a little fun. She was asking for it while wearing that dress." That was it. Toni used all of her strength to ball her hand into a fist and knocked all three men out. "Oh my god!" The redhead exclaimed, watching what Toni was doing. That punch made the men scatter. Toni hadn't punched anyone in a long ass time and this was a perfectly valid reason to do so. Toni made her way back into the cafe and stood behind the bar. "Let me get you an ice pack." She said to the familiar looking redhead in front of her. "Thanks, uh do you have a towel as well?" She asked. Toni nodded and walked upstairs, bringing a towel and ice pack down. She handed both to the woman sitting in front of her and decided it was appropriate to ask if they knew each other. "I recognise you. Oscar nominee?" Toni asked shyly to which the taller woman nodded. "Uh yeah." She blushed slightly. Then the name came to Toni, "You're Cheryl Blossom, right?" she smiled. "Yeah that's the problem with being this deep in the industry, I get recognised very easily." Cheryl answered while drying her fiery red hair off with the towel that Toni lent to her. "I'm Toni." She introduced herself.