The woman getting on the bus is well dressed, very pretty. He'd actually say "beautiful", because that's what originally made him notice her: long, curly dark hair neatly pinned back from an elegant face with high cheekbones; big brown eyes that meet his briefly as she looks for a seat, settling beside an old woman. Felix gives him a jab to quit staring.
She's very beautiful. But that's not what made him get off the bus when she did, several kilometers before his stop.
What made him get off the bus was, he wasn't the only one to notice her. Except he doubted that the rough-looking man following closely behind was out to get just a phone number.
Wolfgang hangs back a little as he watches the man in the gray jacket cross the street after the woman. He'll follow them for just a little bit, until he's sure everything is ok. If he's wrong, no one will know ... except for Felix, who had rolled his eyes when Wolfgang insisted on getting off at the last minute. "You're being a fucking idiot," Felix had murmured. "She's not a damsel in distress. Nothing is weird. You're being weird. If anyone looks shady here it's you." Wolfgang had merely shrugged and smirked.
He picks up his pace when he realizes the man has rounded another corner to a side street and the woman is nowhere in sight. It's after 6 on a Sunday and not too many people are out in the area, lined primarily with small offices.
He approaches where he saw the man make a turn when he hears yelling. And a scream.
Wolfgang runs around the corner in time to see the woman deliver a nice left hook to the jaw. It stuns the man long enough that he stumbles and drops the tote she'd been carrying. She kicks the tote quickly out of his grasp before delivering a neat cross that clips him on the ear as he reaches for her. Wolfgang's eyebrow ticks up in interest. She is fucking magnificent.
"Hey!"
Both the woman and the man in the gray jacket look up at Wolfgang, who is running towards them: She recovers first and ducks to grab her tote. By then, someone else comes out of the office building that the two are in front of, and the man in the gray jacket flees in the direction opposite everyone.
It all happens so quickly: The woman looks over at Wolfgang before the man who'd just come out of the office building obstructs his view. Wolfgang stops mid-stride. He can hear the office worker fussing over her, asking if she's ok. He can't see her, but he hears the woman give a somewhat breathless, faintly accented "ja, ja".
The man tells her it's a lucky thing he came out when he did and makes other bullshit comments that grate on Wolfgang's nerves. Obviously, the man hadn't seen her boxing skills or he wouldn't be puffing himself so much. Ass.
Wolfgang pulls the collar of his coat up and turns around, heading back in the direction he'd come from. She looks to be ok, in good hands, even if the guy is an Affenschwanz.
"Bitte! Warten Sie! Wait!"
He pauses, looks back. The woman walks quickly towards him, tote clutched protectively under her right arm, hand clutching her cellphone. Her thick, dark hair, which had been neatly clipped back on the bus, whips wildly in curly tendrils across her face as she hurries to catch up to him. He likes it. The disheveled look suits her.
He waits until she reaches him; she comes to a halt less than an arm's length away and looks up at him with dark brown eyes that reflect her sudden uncertainty. Felix is always telling him that he looks angry unless he's drunk, so Wolfgang makes an effort not to look so surly and gives a faint smile. She smiles back, less hesitant, and Wolfgang thinks for once Felix is right.
"Danke schoen," she tells him. "Mmm." Her brows crease and she catches her lower lip with her teeth, clearly thinking through her words. She steals a glance at her phone, swipes across it. Her brows crease in concentration, and he can practically see her pulling apart each word before she recites: "Danke, dass du mir geholfen hast."
Wolfgang smiles at her labored German. He wants to tease her, listen to her voice with its soft accent curve around German syllables. For a moment, he considers answering her in German. Her eyes drop to his mouth and he finds himself thinking something else altogether. "You speak English?" he asks instead, taking pity on her.
She practically melts with relief. "Oh thank the gods!" Her accent sounds faintly British. "I'm just learning German. I'm so sorry."
"Don't be," he says, impressed and pleased that she is even making the effort; so few tourists do. "Most people here speak English. And I didn't do anything; it didn't look like you needed much help. But I'm glad I was there."
"I'm lucky that was your stop, too," she says earnestly, and blushes slightly when he looks a little surprised. "I saw you were on the bus. I didn't see you get off."
Wolfgang's smile grows a little. "You saw me on the bus?" he asks, curious.
"Yes." She nods, and he finds it charming that her face looks even rosier when he just smiles back and doesn't say anything right away.
"Well," she says awkwardly, her head dipping a little, suddenly realizing that the space between them has gotten considerably smaller and taking an embarrassed step back. "Thank you again."
"You're welcome." She turns then to head down the street she'd been going and he gets a little panicked feeling. "Wait." She turns her head, pauses. He looks around and notices that it's still a mostly empty street. "Are you ok? Can I walk you to wherever you're going?"
She shakes her head. "Oh no! I've put you out enough already! I'm fine." She gestures further down. "I'm just making sure I know how to get to work tomorrow; I'm just going to find the address and go home."
Wolfgang has already started to walk toward her, and by the time she finishes speaking they are both walking down the street together. She clutches her tote closer to her, but it seems like an absent gesture more than a protective one. "You really don't need to do this," she says, and he can see her embarrassment in the stiffness of her movements.
"No," he agrees, and decides that he may as well be honest with this woman. "But if I don't, you'd be on your way and I'd be on mine and we'd never meet and get to know each other." He looks at her and she's smiling, catches his eyes on her and blushes furiously. "I'm Wolfgang." He puts his right hand out, and she places her own into it.
"I'm Kala."
A/N: I've been thinking of "meet cute" scenarios. I suppose almost getting mugged shouldn't be on the list, but … :-)