Andrew
He's not sure what her problem is with him, either. She’d barely said two words to him after he’d caught her talking to Danielle, and he doesn’t think he minds.
He’s also eighty percent sure that he’s seen her before, but he has no idea how .
The day had gone smoother than he had expected it to go, considering he’d never worked retail before in his life and was trying to learn a POS system.
He’s just glad that he had gone to school when they were still teaching kids how to make change.
More people paid cash than he had ever thought would in an increasingly cash-less society.
He’d pressed a lot of wrong buttons, miscounted change twice, and only had to re-ring a sale once. All-in-all, not a bad first day.
The customers also had loved seeing Roscoe laying at his feet on the floor as he worked.
Andrew was thankful that he decided not to be a terror today, and greeted people politely when they asked if they could say hi to him.
Cara had mainly helped people find books they were looking for, and manned the coffee bar while he checked people out and got to know the regulars.
Only a couple of people seemed to recognize him, and even then, they had only done double takes. No one had confirmed it by asking, probably because no one expected him to turn up in Lake Placid.
And he’s okay with that.
He’s more than okay with that .
He’s already feeling more healed than he ever could have, had he stayed in Raleigh. Funny how a few weeks away to separate yourself and process can help you get perspective and feel normal again. He hates that Landry is right about this.
He also thinks that this job, while unplanned, is something that’s going to help. It’s consistent, methodical, and he’s dealing with the public in a different way than he ever has. There isn’t any part of this that is fan-service. It’s just working.
Suffice it to say, his more recent dealings with the public haven’t been the best.
Here, though, everyone seems kind, and moving through life one day at a time. Even the tourists seem that way, and that was saying something, considering they were going through life in the most beautiful place on the East Coast.
As the day went on, he found himself wondering if even the tourists were regulars, coming back season after season, if only to get a little peace and quiet. He’s sure that some of them were, one family even mentioning it to him as he was checking out their purchase .
The only two people he isn’t quite sure about yet are the twin brothers, who, the first time he’d met them asked for an autograph, and this second time called him a liberal demon-rat. Which, he’s only eighty percent sure is a bad thing, here.
It’s still better than the names he’d been called in the last three weeks.
The door flies open as he finishes straightening up the counter, and Danielle moves past him quickly. He lifts his hand in a greeting, but he doesn’t think she sees him because she doesn’t respond, just heads to the back office.
He watches her disappear, and finishes organizing the bookmarks, waiting for her to come back. Then he moves to the wall calendar section, which he determines is his own personal hell after about five minutes trying to match and organize them.
Calendar people are monsters.
It’s June . The year is half over, no one should need a calendar right now.
He doesn’t care that they’re on sale. January is the time for new One Direction calendars .
Danielle doesn’t come out from the office, and he finds himself walking the aisles and straightening books that Cara had missed, and wiping down each shelf with a dust-cloth. His eyes flick to the glow of the office light with every swipe of the cloth.
Roscoe stands from where he had been sleeping by the counter, and he stretches before trotting back to where Danielle was hiding.
“Roscoe!” Andrew whisper-shouts. “Come back here!”
The dog doesn’t listen, and he doesn’t come back after he checks on her, like he normally will. Roscoe usually does a check on everyone in his general vicinity once every hour, then he’ll go back to his nap, having the audacity to sigh like his life is hard.
Andrew tugs a hand through his hair, waits another minute, and then follows the dog’s lead back to the office. At least he can get Roscoe out of Danielle’s hair, and let her know that he was going to lock up because Cara left early.
As he gets closer to the office, he hears the unmistakable sound of crying .
He stops dead, unsure of what he should do.
If it was anyone else, he would stay out of it.
Comforting someone is intimate, and sometimes ill-received.
Unless they explicitly ask him, he never makes the first move.
But, this is Danielle. Someone he likes, and wants to know.
A girl who, according to JT, has been through a lot in the last few weeks.
She seems like she might just need someone, anyone, to be there for her. So, he can do the brave thing and be that person, or he can be a coward and let his dog do it for him.
He takes a breath, releases it. Rocks from his heels to his toes, and shakes out his hands. Bounces up and down on the balls of his feet a couple of times.
This feels like he’s getting ready to go on the ice, not trying to talk to a girl who seems like she needs a person to be on her side right now.
He decides to be brave.
He crosses the threshold of the office, only to see Danielle with her head buried in one arm on her desk, the other stroking Roscoe’s head where it rests in her lap. Her shoulders are shaking, and she’s trying to stay quiet but it’s not working .
Every couple of sniffs, a sob breaks free, and Roscoe scoots closer to her, watching with sad eyes.
Andrew crosses the room, picking up a chair as he does so and setting it a safe distance away from her before sitting down. He faces her, rests his hands on his knees, moves them to his lap, fidgets with his bracelet, scratches the back of his neck.
“I’m going to hug you,” he blurts, “if that’s okay. If not, just hit me.”
A sob rips through Danielle’s throat and she turns into him before he even has his arms up.
She buries her face into his chest and clings to his neck and he feels his heart crack in two. This is a woman who has desperately needed to be held, but no one has been there to offer.
He wraps an arm around her waist, smoothing his hand up and down her back as she cries into his shirt. Her breathing is erratic, but she relaxes at his touch.
Andrew isn’t sure how much time passes as they sit in the quiet of the office, him not even trying to say anything and just holding her .
He’s not sure he’s ever held a woman while she’s cried before but he knows without a doubt, he’ll do it for this one over and over. As many times as she asks, and even if she doesn’t.
She pulls away and reaches for the box of tissues on her desk, dabbing at her eyes with one before reaching for another and blowing her nose.
She meets his eyes, then looks away quickly, like she’s embarrassed.
“I ruined your shirt,” she says, looking across the office, at Roscoe, anywhere but at Andrew.
He looks down at the eyeliner now staining it and shrugs. It was an old Met Division Championship shirt that has seen better days, anyway. “I can get a new one. You needed a hug more than I needed the shirt.”
She half laughs, and wipes her eyes again. “You’re too kind.”
“It’s true,” he says, “you don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, but I’m here if you want to.”
“I guess it can’t hurt. You’ll find out one way or another, at some point.” Danielle sighs. “I’m surprised Jet hasn’t told you.”
“He told me to wait and let you tell me, and to be patient. ”
“Sounds like him,” she says with a huff. “I might need another hug after. That felt really nice.”
“I will give you as many hugs as you want,” he says, running a hand up and down her back. “Use me as will. I can give hugs or be a punching bag, or you can yell at me. Whatever you need.”
“Masochist.”
“Only on special occasions,” he says, the comment slipping out before he can think about it. “Or would this make me sadist? Because it’s your suffering.”
“I think I would be the sadist, because I’m the one inflicting pain?”
“Does it matter if neither of us are getting pleasure out of this?”
“Who says I’m not?”
A spike of heat runs down his spine and he did not know that he might definitely be into that if she is.
“Oh my –” Andrew shakes his head to clear it, “I guess I signed up for it when I came back here.”
She smiles. It’s a small one, but it’s still a smile.
“If it’s about to get freaky, I need to get the dog out of here,” Andrew says, going with it and trying to keep her smiling. “Nothing kills the mood like a dog staring at you. ”
“Speaking from experience, I assume?”
“If Roscoe could talk he would tell some stories.”
He wouldn’t. Andrew has never brought a woman back to his house, his life already being public enough.
The last thing he needed was random women knowing where he lives.
Since he’s gotten Roscoe he hasn’t even brought one back to a hotel.
Preferring the quiet to anything else, especially with how the last hockey season had gone.
The more women offered, the more he pulled away from it. Call it growing up, or turning into a monk. Either way, his wild card days were over.
Roscoe tilts his head and lets out a noise that sounds like he’s agreeing with Andrew, making them both laugh.
“Tell me your secrets, Roscoe,” Danielle says, smiling. Roscoe jumps up, balancing his paws on Danielle’s thigh and licking all over her face.
She laughs again and Andrew is drunk on it and wants to hear it every day.
Once he’s satisfied that he’s licked her enough, Roscoe jumps back down to the ground and lays at their feet .
“I took Harper to see her parents today,” Danielle says, “at the cemetery.”