It had been exactly two hours and ten minutes since Chuck had begun her absorption in the shade of Olive's hair. The soft, lovely gold became more and more prominent in the dead girl's mind, but then, so did other things.
Chuck began to quietly admire the very way Olive seemed to move, with a stylish grace so eloquent and simple that her four-foot-eleven height was completely belied.
"Well…" Olive brushed past again, eyeing the clock with an exhausted countenance that proved how badly she wanted this day to end, "Quit gawkin' like a dumbfounded loon and help me clean up."
Olive's incessant order-barking just sunk into Chuck's brain like the contents of a newly baked-and-warm pie. She was unfamiliar with this spellbound feeling so eagerly curling up within her mind, but she did not push it away, either. Chuck was getting the very first spark of what she would later understand to be infatuation.
Now, Chuck was almost clumsily dropping plates as she kept a close eye on the waitresses' every step. When she breathed, Chuck could imagine this funny, soft, squeaky sound following. The thought made her smile, and the smile lit up her pretty, greenish-brown eyes.
"Again, where is your head at, Chuck?" Olive's mood having lightened since she'd 'gotten off work' (could one 'get off work', when their place of work was right downstairs from their home?) put Chuck in a much more comfortable place. She and Olive had become considerably friendly, but Chuck's unwitting, subconscious mind wished they would get friendlier.
"My head? Oh, my head is right where it always is…on my shoulders, silly." And she found the blonde's sarcastic chortle of a laugh was enough to make her chest uncomfortably tingly. Perhaps, she thought, bemused and amused all at once, this was how the Grinch felt when they expanded his heart several sizes too big.
"Well keep it there! –And come on, if Ned gets back and we've got a mess, he's sure to be angrier than a starving jackal," Chuck stopped, and couldn't help but give her a look that enunciated the thought 'Starving jackal?'. Olive nonchalantly brushed it off, her charming little giggle edged so thickly with anxiety it was a wonder Chuck could still breathe the surrounding air.
Olive's confusion with Chuck's behavior was ever-mounting. When she looked at the brunette, the woman either seemed to brim with delight pouring out of her eyes, or shyly glance away while fidgeting nervously. Why had Chuck suddenly taken up this behavior? She'd never acted like this before toward Olive, and this both worried and confused her. Did she have something on her nose? Whenever Chuck gave that half-delirious stare, Olive merely returned it with a gaze as though creatures were crawling from Chuck's ears.
The last plate clanked into the sink and, as Olive was just about to begin the arduous task of tippy-toe dishwashing, a voice swiftly pulled her from her task...but it was less a query and more of a blurt.
"When we're done here—can I invite you up for some tea?"
Olive's heart briefly kindled into a warm glow, and she felt somewhat delighted by the extension of kindness. Promptly, the not-so-perceptive woman chirped, "I would love to."