Chance Meeting

One

Nashville, Tennessee

        June, 2019

Aerin'd arrived in Nashville after taking her Time getting through the Appalachian Mountains once she'd left her mother's house. While she was a fan of country Music–what girl born and raised in the South wouldn't like at least a lil of it?–that wasn't why she'd decided to make a pit stop here. She was in need of gas, lest her car break down on the side of the road, not to mention a nap and coffee once she woke up. This'd just been the closest Town or City when she'd looked down at her gas gauge and seen that it was right at an eighth of a tank.

        Once she'd caught that nap she'd wanted and fueled up, she'd decided to head to the first place she knew sold coffee that caught her eye. Sure, Starbucks was a bit on the expensive side for her tastes–she was no coffee connoisseur, after all–but she didn't care about that. At the moment, she needed the caffeine and the bitter flavor of the Dark liquid in her mouth, or she was gonna lose her shit.

        With her coffee in hand once it was finally made, the young woman turned to head outta the building and back to her car. She generally hated people–most especially the preppy, more-money-than-sense types–and the sooner she could get outta here, the better. Besides, being agoraphobic at the very least just made her wanna get outside where she could get some relatively fresh Air even more. She certainly wasn't expecting to all but collide with a brick wall right in the doorway, the hot coffee sloshing outta her cup making them both let out a yelp. Reacting to the pain of the hot coffee now all over her shirt, she didn't even realize she'd actually collided with a person for a few moments.

        Looking up when she realized someone was talking to her, Aerin didn't expect to come face-to-face with none other than Ashley Purdy. Her jaw dropped as she registered the man standing in front of her, a scowl on his face as he pulled his own shirt out from his well-muscled, but skinny torso. Outta all the people she coulda literally run into–and with a scalding cup of coffee in her hand–why couldn't it've been another average Joe like her instead of one of her idols?

        "Watch where you're going, lady," the man in question snapped, glaring down at her.

        "Some way to treat a person you've never met, asshole," she quipped back, her stunned look turning into a scowl of her own.

        Apparently, he wasn't used to being talked to like that, 'cuz Ashley immediately looked taken aback.

        "I'd have offeredja one of the T-shirts I've in my car, but now I'm kinda liking the idea of making ya run around shirtless, if ya don't have one of your own in your car," the young woman growled.

        "Wait a minute–I'm sorry," he sighed.

        "Too late for that," Aerin snapped, reaching down to pull her shirt off. "I don't do I'm sorries and second chances, no matter who ya are."

        "At least lemme replace your coffee for ya," the bassist said. "I wasn't gonna to start with, but I admit that I wasn't exactly paying attention, either."

        She couldn't help rolling her eyes. "And what if I don't wantcha to?"

        Once again, Ashley seemed taken aback by her choice phrasing, and she couldn't help rolling her eyes again at the absurdity of the situation. Uncaring of whether she hurt him or not, the young woman shoved past him, beyond ready to get outta this wet, sticky shirt–and not get a public indecency charge slapped on her for it.

        Like the gentleman his dearly-departed grama'd raised him to be, he turned and chased after her once it registered that he'd really pissed her off and she was leaving. He was stunned to see the ratty lil car she was driving, not to mention that it was stuffed to the brim with whatever belongings she possessed. Everything from clothes and shoesta guitars and amps was in that car, and it looked like she'd done her best to cover up the latter with the former to make it hard to tell what it was. Obviously, she didn't want her stuff getting stolen whenever she'd to leave her car unattended, which was Natural.