So I dropped off the face of the Earth for a little while there. I'm not even going to get into why. I'll go on and on and you'll never actually get to the story. So all I'm going to say is that this is not your ordinary one-shot. You might not like this. No, there is no death. No, there is no tragedy. Just keep an open mind, okay? That's all I ask.
The normally lively city was in a lull as July swept in with hundred-degree weather and not even a breeze to save the usually cranky but now constantly agitated citizens. She was one of them. Why did she opt not go to a nice air-conditioned gym and instead run in the blazing heat again? Sweat was practically gushing off of her and the water bottle she'd brought along was nearly empty. She was beginning to regret her decision. Sitting down – okay, maybe collapsing was a better verb – on the closest bench she practically hissed when the scorching metal made contact with her bare thighs. Serves her right for doing this to herself.
"Gah!" Someone let out a strangled cry, she heard a loud plop and then birdseed was all over her. Frantically trying to wipe all of the seeds off of her she stood up and wiggled around. The pigeons took notice. Then she was being swarmed, a dirty bird on every inch of her as she tried and failed to swat them off.
"Perfect!" She huffed and then swore under her breath. This day was going swimmingly so far. Just splendid.
"Oh wow, I'm sorry." She looked down through the pigeons and saw a man scrambling up from the ground, an almost empty canvas bag in hand. He stuck his hand in and it pulled out a handful of seeds. Ah, it was Pigeon Boy. And wow, Pigeon Boy was handsome. "Come on, guys. Get off the nice lady who hasn't screamed at me yet. I have a nice little treat for you over here." He held up the bag and wiggled the hand full of seed in front of the bird's faces, their heads comically follow his every move as they scrambled around on her. "Tsk tsk, I know she's gorgeous but you don't do this on the first date."
Once all of the pigeons had decided she wasn't all that great compared to the new offer and had started flocking around his feet, squawking and flapping their wings, he finally looked up at her with a sheepish smile.
"Really, I am sorry. Some biker douche ran into me and I fell, spilling all of the seeds and, well, you know the rest." Pigeon Boy held out his hand to her, his smile growing when she took it. "I'm Josh."
"Kate." She smiled at him and chuckled at the birds pecking at his feet, obviously wondering where their snack had gone. "Is this how you meet all the girls, Josh? You have your little pigeons attack them and you come to their rescue?" She smirked at him as he threw another handful of birdseed to the ground.
"Yes, and I look especially dashing when clumsily falling to the ground." He flipped his hair out of his eyes and she couldn't help but notice that it looked soft. It looked really soft. "Besides, all the ladies love it when I not-so-subtly cover them in birdseed."
"Well, you may want to tweak the plan a little bit. Maybe throw the seed bag away after you spew its contents onto your next target?" He grinned and she laughed.
"Devious, I like it." He laughed almost musically and damn she wanted to make him do it again.
"Oh, you have no clue." She winked at him and thought about how disgusting she probably looked. Sweaty and smelly, yeah that's appealing. God, how could she subtly check for pit stains? Oh, who was she kidding she had pit stains.
"You want to feed them, Kate?" He held out a handful of birdseed to her and she was about to bring up how well that went before but then he smiled that goddamn smile at her and she knew she would've agreed to taking the whole damn bag if he'd asked. Those warm brown eyes paired with that smile could probably make her do anything.
"Sure." She smiled back at him and held out her hand. He chuckled at her, obviously considering her method of holding the seeds to be amateur.
"Here." He took both of her hands in one of his big ones and pressed them together before cupping them, pouring the birdseed in. They both smiled at the success and she couldn't help noticing that while she was staring at the three birds now happily perched on her wrist he was staring at her face. Looking up at him to find a small, almost awed smile on his face she could feel her cheeks warming as heat crept up her neck.
"They're really not so bad." She said and he nodded, still staring at her.
"I used to hate them." She raised her eyebrows in surprise and he laughed warmly before continuing. "When I first moved to the city I hated the pigeons. Rats of the sky as far as I was concerned. But then every Saturday afternoon when my parents were working – they were big time CEOS and couldn't afford to pay attention to anything else – my grandmother took me to the park and we fed the pigeons together. I've just kind of kept the tradition, I guess." When she was almost out he took another handful and cupped one of his hands with hers. One pigeon flapped its wings in delight as a few more landed on their arms.
"That's sweet." She said and turned her head to smile at him.
"It's kinda relaxing. Plus, like you said, they're not so bad." She noticed that this time when he smiled the sides of his eyes crinkled. She was wrong before, they were more black than brown. The shrill ringing of a phone interrupted whatever she was about to say. Not that coherent thought was even possible for her right now. In fact, maybe the phone saved her from making a complete fool out of herself. "Damn, it's my day off but I'm still on call. Excuse me for a second."
He answered the phone with a brisk "Come on, man!" and walked over to the bench she'd been sitting on before. He kept nodding at whatever the person on the other end was saying but his eyes frequently strayed to her. She let that thought stew for a little while before she allowed the butterflies to come. The remaining seeds fell from her hands, she wiped her hands on her shirt when he wasn't looking and glanced back over at him. He was hanging up, his phone finding refuge from the scorching summer in his pocket. She swore she heard him mutter "Right when I meet a cool girl…" under his breath before turning back to her. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe she was hallucinating. But she swore she heard it.
"I have to run, sorry. Duty calls. But hey, if you ever want to do this again then give me a call, okay? Or we could do something that doesn't involve increasing the population of those nasty little birds. Your choice." He handed her a business card, threw her a dazzling smile and then he was gone, jogging toward the street. She looked down at the card and grinned, mentally noting that she should call Lanie when she got home.
Dr. Joshua Davidson.
It had a nice ring to it.
Yep. Different, eh? I've decided that I really hate all of these 'OH MY GOD, JOSH IS EVIL! KILL HIM, MAKE HIM ABUSIVE, ANYTHING PLEASE!' fics. Come on, the dude seems like a nice guy! So I decided to write this. Mostly because, while I'd like to bonk him over the head for his timing, I like Josh. Not the fact that he's Kate's boyfriend, of course, but his character in general seems really interesting.
AAnyway, review? I know it's not the typical story. Maybe that's why I really want (read: need) your opinion on this. It's not the norm so I wanna know how I did with coloring outside the lines. Please?