"Henry, come on," Emma Swan called up the stairs. "You're going to miss the bus."
Henry appeared at the top of the steps, carrying his bag in one hand. "I'm ready," he said as he walked down the stairs. "Besides, you can drive me to school if I miss the bus."
Emma shook her head, and ruffled his hair as he reached the last step. "I have to go to the station. I can't be driving you around, kid."
Henry grabbed his coat off the rack by the door. "Come on then," he called over his shoulder.
Emma just rolled her eyes and grabbed her red jacket, following him out the door.
On the walk to the bus stop, Henry happily chatted away about what they were going to do in school today, but Emma's mind was elsewhere. She had gone to Mr Gold's shop last night, just before he closed up, and they had spent a good twenty minutes just talking. There was just something about him that, when they were alone together, made her easily relaxed. She recalled the look he had given her when she had told him about something that had happened at the station the other day; he'd seemed genuinely intrigued by her story, and his face had been so warm and friendly. She was pulled from her thoughts as Henry suddenly asked if she was paying attention.
She blushed slightly, and smiled down at Henry. "Yes, of course I was listening."
"Then what did I just say?" he asked with a knowing grin.
Smart kid. "Alright, I was thinking about something else," she admitted with her own smile.
Henry nodded. "I knew it. What were you thinking about?"
"Nothing of interest," she smiled. They reached the bus stop, and Henry gave her a quick hug before he jumped onto the bus and disappeared among the crowd.
It was a particularly slow day at the station, so Emma went for lunch a bit earlier than she normally would have. Walking into Granny's, she saw Mr Gold standing at the counter talking to Ruby and she suddenly felt a bit flustered. He's never here during lunch, she mused as she tried to sneak past him down to the other end of the counter. Ruby spotted her over Gold's shoulder and waved at her. Gold, of course, turned around to see who she was waving at and when he saw Emma he gave her a smile; Emma meekly returned the smile before scuttling off to her seat. Gold watched her with amusement before paying for his order, and deciding he would join her for lunch.
"Mind if I sit here, dearie?" he asked, sitting down next to Emma.
She started and looked over at him with a slightly guilty expression. She had been staring down at the counter, silently begging him to not come over. "No, of course not," she said when she regained use of her brain. She looked pointedly away from him, and waved Ruby over to take her order.
Ruby came over immediately, smirking slightly at Gold sitting next to her and Emma shot her a look. She ordered herself a coffee and burger, biting hard on her lip to stop herself from asking to get it to go. As Ruby turned to get the coffee, Gold looked over to Emma to see her pointedly looking away from him. He frowned, hoping he hadn't made her uncomfortable by sitting with her, but she had said it was okay. When Ruby set Emma's mug down, she noticed Gold frowning and shot him an encouraging smile before heading into the backroom.
Sneaking a look at Gold out of the corner of her eye, Emma saw he wasn't paying attention to her anymore, or so it seemed, so she flicked her curtain of hair back out of her eyes and reached for her coffee. When Mr Gold spoke, she jumped so much that she toppled the mug, sending scalding hot coffee over the counter and towards Gold.
"Shit, sorry," she said as Gold jumped out of his seat to avoid the coffee.
"No problem, dearie," he smiled and, with a wave of his hand, the stain on his crotch had vanished. Not that she was looking there, of course.
Emma blushed, quickly righted the mug and started mopping up the coffee with napkins, looking anywhere but him.
Back at the station, Emma sat at her desk staring down at the papers without really seeing them. Her mind was back at the diner and her embarrassing incident with Gold. After Ruby came out to help clean up, Emma had quickly eaten her burger and all but ran from the diner to the great amusement of Gold. She shook her head slightly and frowned at her desk. She really needed to keep her feelings about Gold under control better. She thought back to when she had apologized to Gold as she tried to clean up the spill of coffee on the counter; he had just waved it off as nothing when he normally would have snapped at the person. Especially when one of his suits was in danger of a giant stain on the crotch of his pants.
Before Emma could peruse that line of thought anymore, she heard footsteps coming towards the door and heard Henry call out as he raced through the door. She stood and went to hug him, glad for the distraction. Henry sat on the chair facing her desk and told her about something he had made at school while Emma tidied her desk to leave.
As they walked out the door to go get some ice cream, Henry said casually "Oh and I saw Mr Gold outside the station when I got here."
Emma stopped walking and turned to Henry. "Mr Gold?"
"Yeah. He was just standing on the path and looking at the door. I asked him if he was going in, but he shook his head and walked away. Weird, right?"
"Yeah," Emma muttered, her mind racing. Gold had been outside? Why hadn't he come in? "Weird."