So basically a companion piece to In Awe of You. Nicole seeing Waverly for the first time and the instances after where she tries to introduce herself. Also, I should really note this on all these things, As it so happens this was written/finished at work so I apologize for any mistakes.
Nicole first sees Waverly when one of the officers is giving her a tour of the town. Nicole is so struck by how beautiful she is that she nearly misses the officer give her a name to the face.
"Waverly Earp. The sanest of the bunch. Still, best to not go near that family."
Nicole doesn't even question what he says, especially because her staring has her stumbling off a walkway and she really doesn't want to make it that obvious that she literally almost fell for some girl.
Nicole sees Waverly a few days later at the dry cleaners. She was sitting in the lone chair in the front, waiting for her uniforms when Waverly suddenly appears at the door. Nicole shoots to her feet so fast she nearly falls flat on her face, the chair making a horrible sound as it crashes into the wall behind her. The employee, who she hadn't noticed come back, stares at her and is growing impatient because Nicole has yet to grab her uniforms.
She mumbles a sorry and snatches them out of the disgruntled employee's hands. It's like she's fearful that Waverly will disappear if she looks away, so she doesn't. It's also how she comes millimeters from running into the door. Her only saving grace is that hearing Waverly's voice for the first time stops her in her tracks.
The employee's gaze goes from Waverly to Nicole and back again, their eyes go wide and they have such a shit-eating grin that Nicole bolts out before Waverly has a chance to turn around to see what the commotion is all about.
She's forever grateful that no one knows who she is just yet.
Mrs. Brimsby has been wailing about her stolen scarf for ten minutes now and Nicole has yet to get a word in. Her babysitter, as she likes to call him, is laughing his ass off in their squad car. He ran the second Mrs. Brimsby walked out onto the sidewalk and shouted Welcome to Purgatory. The worst part was the scarf in question was stuck several yards away on some foliage outside the ice cream shoppe. Her only saving grace is seeing Waverly pull up to the gas station across the street and jump out of the jeep she drove up in.
No one seems to notice her staring, her line of sight directly over Mrs Brimsby's shoulder. Nicole swallows thickly. A large part of her feels guilty and a bit of a creep, staring at Waverly like she is. A more insistent part ignores any guilt because never in her wildest dreams did she imagine moving to some small-ass town named Purgatory and finding the most beautiful woman she's ever seen.
Waverly turns her head and Nicole catches the wide grin on her face and can't stop the gasp from leaving her lips. It seems well in time with the story she's being told because Mrs. Brimsby nods her head and thanks her profusely before continuing on about her hat that also seems to be missing. The hat that's hanging behind her shoulders from the string around her neck.
Nicole is seconds from just walking across the street to introduce herself when her babysitter honks at her. He still makes fun of her for how high she jumps.
She watches from her car as Waverly walks into the corner store and it takes her a full five minutes to talk herself into getting out of the car so she can go say hello.
Nicole takes a deep breath as she's seconds away from opening the door and muttering to herself, "okay, okay, it's fine. I got this. It's just a girl," over and over again until she pulls back her shoulders and puts on a smile and opens the door.
A couple people greet her and she can only manage a nod in acknowledgement, her nerves flaring as Waverly comes into her line of sight again.
I can do this, I can do this, she thinks over and over as she gets closer. Waverly laughs at something and Nicole's heart races to a stop. I can— nope I can't do this, abort, holy crap. How is she this cute? Nicole stops so suddenly that she nearly trips over herself and manages to stop her fall by grabbing the closest thing to her. Unfortunately the closest thing happened to also be the flimsiest thing in the store.
As an entire display crumbles around her, Nicole hightails it out of Waverly's sight. She's gasping for air when the manager comes up to her. She's sure her face is as red as her hair as she apologises and ends up buying half of whatever it was she knocked over.
It isn't until she's home and her cat begging for attention does Nicole realize that she has over a dozen Frozen themed boxes of cereal… and no milk.
Waverly's talking to someone in the station and Nicole stops what she's doing.
This is her chance.
Ok breathe, you've got this. And she does, she so does. For once her path to Waverly is without obstacles and even though her heart is in her throat she marches on. She's Nicole Haught and she is going to introduce her fine ass self to Waverly Earp.
She can feel her palms sweating, she's so close. She's several feet away and she takes a deep breath— only to nearly run into her boss.
Nedley is directly in front of her and definitely in her way. She can't even stop the low wine that comes from her throat. Either he doesn't' hear it, or he ignores it because Nedley starts talking about some disturbance at Mrs. Brimsby's house and the old woman has specifically asked for Officer Haught because she's so pretty for a lady officer and so smart for finding her missing things.
Nicole doesn't try to hide her groan of protest and Nedley just sets her on her way with a pat on the back.
She swears to herself that nothing will stop her from saying hello to Waverly the next time she gets the chance.
The door to Shorty's is open. Holy shit, the door is open.
Nicole knows, she knows Shorty's isn't open yet. There's a sign outside and everything with the hours. Nicole also knows that there's a 95% chance that Waverly is inside getting ready for the day. It's also her first day without the babysitter and she knows she won't get another chance like this one.
She steps out of her cruiser, placing her hat on her head. It gives her a tiny boost of confidence and she is taking all she can get at this point. Nicole takes a few deep breaths and walks to the open door.
She stops just inside, the light from the windows falling over Waverly like she's some sort of angel. Nicole wrestles with herself to say something, anything. Maybe if I just... Nicole stands there with her hands on her belt, awkwardly. No, I look stupid. She leans against the door jam, yeah totally cool. It's after she's finally situated herself and looking at Waverly expectantly that she realizes Waverly doesn't have any reason to look towards the open door.
Nicole is about to fully step inside when Waverly yells and Nicole watches in wonder as the taps Waverly was cleaning malfunction.
Her own voice startles her and she's amazed at how confident she sounds, but also traumatized at what she just said. Oh my god, abort abort, change the subject please. Everything's kind of hazy but she knows she introduced herself, and then introduced Waverly. Quickly trying not so sound like a creep and making sure Waverly knows she totally got that info from the town.
Only she's certain it makes it even worse.
But then Waverly says something about smiling and waving and Nicole misses the grimace Waverly has after she says it and just stares because holy shit this girl is real and she's kind of a dork and she's so pretty and she really needs to stop staring because she's supposed to be smooth and cool.
So she takes a second to look away and asks for coffee. Nicole is going to be mortified for months after this interaction is over. She internally cringes when she asks and wants to die when she says "my bad" like what the fuck, Haught? Of course they aren't open.
That seems to snap her out of her Waverly Haze because the following minute she's smooth as fuck and she's really proud of herself for not being the ultimate creep and so glad she knows how to respect a woman's boundaries when she's almost topless in front of her.
She smirks about the boy-man, because now that she's actually paying attention, Nicole can tell Waverly is flustered. She fiddles with her business card in her pocket, the card that's been in her pocket for a couple weeks now. She sets it down and confidently walks out.
Nicole nearly laughs in relief once she's outside. She hasn't been that nervous about a woman since she was in high school and all the bravado and confidence she crafted all those years vanished the second Waverly walked into her line of sight.
She's got it back now and unless told otherwise, Nicole is going to make it her daily mission to say hello to Waverly Earp.
I hope you all have good days or better ones and thank you for reading. :3
And Yes, I know Nicole is this totally confident person but come on, "I've been meaning to introduce myself" has to mean she wasn't exactly at first ;D I also really hate these damn page breaks but whatever.