Second Ave Series: Ac-Counting on You (WLW)

Babbling...

Brook groaned into her pillow as her phone's chipper alert chimed, then realized it was still too early for her alarm to be sounding and lifted her head. Squinting through her darkly lit room with blackout curtains, she reached in the direction of its glow and quickly found it to be a call. After turning her head to the other side, she latched onto her light remote on her other bedside table and clicked on her LED lights that trailed the borders of her room. Hitting the receiver icon, she set it on her ear and let it balance there as she laid her head back down.

"Yel...low...?"

"I-I'm sorry... Did... Di-Did I wake y-you?" A sheepish voice spoke from beyond her phone and she swiftly sat up, cupping the back of her phone.

Brook knew those dulcet, timid tones. She'd replayed them in her mind over and over again when it strayed to one person in particular. Brook brought the phone down from her ear and cupped her mouth with a soft gasp as she read the name Gwen Murray. When she programmed her number into her phone and left her a message over the weekend, she never anticipated such a skittish person would actually reply, yet here she was first thing Tuesday morning. The day of her scheduled therapy session her psychologist had asked to occur in Brook's very own cafe and bookstore.

She brought the phone back to her ear and found silence coming from the other end. "I'm so sorry. I just woke up and figured you were one of my family members or friends without even looking at the screen. They're the only people who actually call me this early in the morning. Um, how are you? I mean, what can I do for you? Is it about your visit to my shops later? Do you need to reschedule a preferred meal, or something? I can cook whatever you'd--"

"W-Wait, Miss Bluestone. Please, slow down." Gwen finally interjected and Brook face-palmed.

"Sorry, I was just a bit caught off guard."

"I think...maybe I should be the one apologizing...?"

Stunned, Brook flicked the brightness of her LEDs up as she jerked her head back with confusion. "Why would you need to be sorry? No, there's no need for that. How about we both just move on to what you wanted to discuss, so I won't be so frazzled."

"Frazzled? You...get frazzled wh-when talking w-with me?" Something shifted on Gwen's side of the phone and Brook hesitated to answer as she chewed on her inner cheek.

Eventually, her willpower dwindled and she spoke her mind. "You...are very memorable and the second I think about you, I'm just surprised by the effect on me. Sorry if that's odd."

There were a handful of quiet moments until Gwen spoke in an even softer voice, though finally without her habitual stutter, "I have an effect on you? Wait, did you just say you think about me?"

"About your face. More specifically--"

"My scars. I know, they're hard to get around." Gwen let out a long winded sigh before she began breathing rather thick and Brook thought for a moment through a furrowed brow.

"Your scars? Oh, right! On your cheek? No, I don't mean that." The heavy breathing stopped altogether and Brook realized she was awaiting further explanation. "It's your eyes. I've never seen such ocean blue eyes, so they made an impression."

"You... You don't really have a buffer, do you, Miss Bluestone?"

"Not really, no." Brook got up and wedged her phone between her shoulder and ear as she rifled through her clothing in her dresser for some trousers and a button up top. She knew most people kept their clothing in closets, but something that always helped Brook to think was folding her laundry on her bed several times a week. On top of that, her closet was full of things for donation, items she needed to move into a storage unit and other bits and pieces she wasn't sure she wanted to keep. It was packed to the brim and she wasn't about to address it any time soon with how busy she'd been with work. As she rifled through her drawers, she finally noticed something Gwen had repeated at least twice, growing a bit wary of what it meant. "You know, you can call me Brook, right? Everyone does."