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I. CHOCOLATIER DU MONDE - (OPEN)
It didn't take too long for Kyle to find a job in the city. He wasn't entirely sure if this one would last, given that he was hired for a seasonal trial period, but it meant doing something kind of cool and getting paid for it, so he couldn't complain. Working at a gourmet chocolate shop meant giving people things they actually wanted for prices they were already willing to pay. He didn't have to sell anyone on things they didn't want and had the added bonus of rarely dealing with agitated customers.

Of course, with Valentine's Day around the corner, the shop was busier than ever and most of his shifts were spent on his feet helping people. He was mostly grateful that they didn't do deliveries and that every transaction was straightforward and in-store. Plus he'd already been able to sample most of the flavors and could actually able to recommend some. Which is why, when the next customer was up, he immediately offered them a smile and a sample of the dark chocolate orange creme.

"Try this."

II. CAFE - (CLOSED TO ALEX)
Kyle couldn't help but wonder why Alex had asked him out on Valentine's Day. The girl seemed adamant in shutting down every attempt at flirting and diligent about insisting on their inability to ever progress. Which he was fine with if that's what she wanted, but the mixed message was more than a little confusing. There was a part of him that wondered if maybe she was oblivious to the day. Even still, she had to have a reason for asking him out to coffee then. Luckily, his new job at the chocolate shop provided a convenient excuse to bring her a gift without making a big deal out of it.

"Hey," he greeted her with a smile, taking a seat before she could even offer. Kyle set the small golden box in front of her. "Here, I got these for you. I figured you wouldn't like the heart box, so I went simple."

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Alex pulls a pair of gloves out of her pocket and puts them on. She shrugs, still grinning at him. "I never really thought about it. Blue, I guess."

It's a painfully mundane topic of conversation, but she likes it. It's exactly the kind of question she can imagine a guy who's just a clerk asking a girl who really did used to work in marketing, the kind of boring question that got asked on every first date since the beginning of time. Not that this is a date.

"What's yours?"

"I don't know that I have one," he replies with a laugh, as if realizing the truth of the words as he says them. Kyle hasn't really thought about it much either and almost immediately regrets the stupid simplicity of it. Not that he knows what else to talk about her while trying to avoid prying into her past, family, and lack of job. "If I had to choose: Red."

He supposes there's something morbid about that.

Alex doesn't really associate the color red with bad things. She just smiles and says, "We're opposites." Blue and red are kind of opposites, as far as Alex, who knew very little about color schemes, is concerned.

She's pretty sure that they're only a couple blocks from the park when a woman walking a dog passes by. The dog immediately waggles its way over to Alex, sniffing her enthusiastically and trying to jump on her with its tongue lolling out. The woman apologizes, swearing up and down that the dog doesn't normally accost random strangers, but the dog doesn't stop until Alex finally tells it to sit.

"It's, uh. It's okay. Dogs just like me," she says awkwardly as she disentangles herself from the animal's leash.

He takes her at her word on it, having no read idea. It makes sense after so many rounds of the military's perverse version of Capture the Flag in Basic, with red versus blue. He's about to make a comment about how opposites attract when he's distracted by the dog nearly assaulting Alex.

Kyle shifts towards Alex, naturally protective, even though the dog isn't that large, before noticing she has it under control. When it sits, he crouches down beside it, petting the dog and helping Alex to disentangle from its leash. The dog pays him no mind, but he has no reason to think anything of it really. He speaks to the dog in a ridiculous pet-voice, like you do. "Hey, buddy. She's pretty, isn't she? Yeah. I think so too. But attacking her isn't the way to go, is it? No, it's not. No, it's not."

He looks up to Alex, smiling. Once she's untangled, he asks her in a normal voice, "Are you okay?"

Edited 2016-02-20 01:06 (UTC)

Alex notices Kyle moving in front of her, and she appreciates the gesture, even if she can take care of herself. And even if the threat weights about thirty pounds and mostly just wants to drool on her. She finally gets free of the leash, the dog's owner still apologizing, when she hears Kyle call her pretty. There's nothing she can really say to that, and no reason why she should say anything, so she just stares helplessly at the back of his head. She's trying hard to keep this platonic, and he's not helping.

"I'm fine. We should go." She reaches out for Kyle's arm, to pull him along. She just wants to have a nice day at the park.

But the woman, who seems not to have heard Alex speak - she's old, and maybe she is a little deaf, but Alex is pretty sure she had to have heard that - coos, "Aren't you a handsome couple. How long have you two been dating?"

Kyle doesn't fight Alex, standing as she tugs at his arm and offering a smile to the woman. He's not sure why she seems so eager to get away, but he figures it has something to do with their limited time frame or her having places to be later. He's about to say goodbye when the question comes. Not one to waste a golden opportunity, his smile widens and he wraps his arm around Alex's waist.

"That's sweet of you to say, ma'am. We've been together, what?" He looks to Alex, flashing her a wide grin in good humor. "Six weeks?"

His gaze back to the woman. "Time really flies."

Alex doesn't want to make a scene. The easiest thing to do, she decides, is just to play along until the woman goes away. She wraps her arm around Kyle's waist and leans her head on his shoulder, putting on a relatively convincing smile as she looks up at him. "Five or six sounds right."

The woman looks absolutely delighted, and she looks like she's about to say something else when Alex cuts in. "We actually have lunch reservations. It was really nice meeting you, ma'am."

She tries to subtly maneuver Kyle away.

"I'm sorry to run, but it was nice meeting you," he adds. The woman is enchanted with the pair of them as she continues on her way, Kyle and Alex strolling easily away from the woman and her dog. He can't help but smirk at the exchange, glad but not surprised that Alex went along with the white lie.

"I think you made her day," he teases as they turn the corner and disappear out of sight of the woman.

Alex wants to ask why Kyle lied, but he's already answered: it made the old lady happy. She can't argue with that. Once they turn the corner, she drops her arm from around his waist and moves away, just enough that they aren't touching anymore. It's a lot easier to simply drop the act like it hadn't happened than to admit that she kind of enjoyed it.

She glances down ruefully at the fur clinging to her pants and the damp spots from the dog's drool. But she doesn't want to address that either, because that would just be drawing attention to the fact that dogs tend to be very clingy and submissive around her.

"We're only a couple blocks away, right?" she says, opting to change the subject entirely.

Kyle's arm hovers only a split second longer than her own before dropping away as she sidles back to her own space. He returns his hands to his pockets, unperturbed, and exhales a deep breath specifically for the sight of his breath in the air. He glances over and his eyes follow hers to her pants, which is why it's almost surprising that the words that follow aren't related.

"Yeah." He nods forward to where the lower corner of the park begins a couple blocks ahead of them. "Have you ever been?"

Alex is grateful that he's willing to drop it. She looks over at him and smiles, much more genuinely than before, and shakes her head. "I walked by it once or twice, but I've never been in."

It doesn't take long to get there, and Alex is stunned by how different it is once they're through the gate. She hasn't been in a real park since she was a little girl, when her father used to take her to the old heritage gardens in Moscow or Izmaylovsky Park to let her get lost under the trees.

The trees here are bare, but there's a light dusting of snow on the branches and on the ground that makes the whole place look like something out of a picture book. She stares, open-mouthed, until she spots a small bridge through the trees, and walks towards it. It goes over a little stream, which spills down over the rocks and past bushes and rushes and the trailing branches of a willow tree. In the summer, she imagines, it must be bright green, but even the winter, the ice and snow are still beautiful.

"It's gorgeous." She grins at Kyle.

Edited 2016-02-21 03:47 (UTC)

Kyle walks along with her easily, finding the whole thing comfortable and familiar, as usual. Alex is simultaneously a mystery and an old habit, intimately familiar to him and entirely unknown. The more he sees of her and gets to know her, the more he's subconsciously dismisses the dichotomy to err towards a favorable opinion.

He follows behind her as she rushes ahead in her enthusiasm, wearing a very genuine smile at her enthusiasm. His eyes travel between watching her, exploring the landscape and appreciating the beauty on his own. There's a dome somewhere with flowers inside that he's hoping to bring her to, the rest of everything still reminiscent of winter.

"Keep walking, Winslow. There's a lot to see." It's teasing, as Kyle doesn't even begin to move until she does. He wants her to enjoy her time while he appreciates the distraction.

"Shut up," Alex says dramatically, giving him a playfully exasperated look before turning her attention back to the stream. She could stand there all day watching the water crash over the rocks and little icicles form and melt, but she knows he has to get back to work, and if there's more to see she wants to see it all.

Somewhat reluctantly, she leaves the little bridge behind, heading deeper through the trees into the park. Maybe it's this place, which makes everything outside it seem very far away, maybe it's the fact that she can still feel the warmth of his arm around her waist, maybe she just ate too much chocolate or drank too much coffee. Whatever it is, even though she knows anything romantic between them would be a huge mistake, she likes him a lot, and here and now she wants to make sure he knows that.

"I'm really glad I met you." She turns to face him as she says it, stopping in the middle of the path. It's a little stilted - it's not a sentiment she's used to expressing - but it's entirely sincere.

His smile briefly widens at her playful retort and Kyle has to focus on not staring at her. It's hard when there's little to distract from her and she's such a great distraction from the things he probably should be thinking about. As if in direct defiance of the thought, he pulls his hands from his pockets, running his fingers along a branch to feel the snow and start embracing the cold.

He stops short when she turns to face him, not worrying about something negative and yet not at all expecting the words that do come. Kyle twists his head enough to give her a teasing side-eye, smiling even as he does. "Thanks?"

Not wanting to discourage her though, he immediately drops the facade and gives a sincere smile instead. "I'm glad I met you too."

She's not sure what else to say or how to respond when he reciprocates. In fact, she's a little flustered by how happy she is right now, so she turns away with an awkward smile that she can't quite suppress and keeps walking.

"What else is there to see?" She can't imagine anything better than this. There aren't any other people on this little stretch of path, and it feels like they're completely alone in the world.

Kyle's hands clench to fists at his sides after she turns and he has to physically restrain himself for a second to keep from kissing her. His fingers loosen and he continues on a moment later as if nothing at all is amiss, because truly nothing is. He picks up the extra couple steps to catch up and walk beside her again, shrugging.

"I thought this was the park but the greenhouse garden, but I think this is the one with the zoo," he admits, pointing off to what looks like an enclosure in the distance and not at all embarrassed by the honest mistakes. "I think it's pretty small. Do you have time?"

"I'm not the one who has to get back to his job tasting fancy chocolates," Alex teases, falling easily into step beside him. The zoo sounds amazing. She hasn't been to one of those since she was a little girl either, and she didn't know there was one in this park.

She walks quickly, but still can't help staring around at her surroundings. In the distance, she spots a partially frozen fountain, dusted with snow. Just like the bridge, it looks more like a picture book than something she could really walk down the street and find. "It almost doesn't look real."

Kyle smirks at her playful jab, shaking his head in mock exasperation. It wasn't at all what he had planned, taking her to see the smelly and caged animals rather than the beauty of the winter gardens. He hopes she doesn't mind the sub par plan before realizing he's not sure why he doesn't want to disappoint her. Maybe it's the reminder of Monroe. Maybe it's something else.

"You should take some pictures," he offers. Although he doesn't take too many himself, it seems like the thing that people do more often that not. As if on cue, a couple near the entrance begin lining up a selfie. He smiles at them as he moves to the ticket window, sliding his card forward. "Two adults."

It's one thing to have his number in her phone, it's another to have pictures of him, or worse, of the two of them together. The couple taking selfies look like they're having a lot of fun, and she feels a momentary stab of envy, but she knows there's no sense dwelling on it. Fortunately, him buying tickets is a distraction that Alex quickly takes advantage of.

"It's okay, I can buy my own ticket." She reaches into her pocket to pull out the cash. The less this feels like a date, the better.

"Too late," he flashes as smile back at her, the teenager inside the ticket window having already accepted his form of payment. He takes it back and then the two tickets not a moment later, returning the card to his wallet and offering her one of the tickets. "You can pay next time."

It's not a big deal to him. Kyle places little priority on money beyond having enough himself, freely sharing with anyone he deems a friend without a second thought. Of course he would pay on a date, but that doesn't mean he won't pay for his friends for things too. Especially when it leads to another meet up at some later time.

If she makes any attempt to offer him cash, he'll begin walking towards the Zoo entrance with or without her. Otherwise, he'll wait until she's ready and then follow along with her.

Alex frowns at him, but puts the money back in her pocket and takes the ticket, walking with him to the entrance. There's a sign for an aquarium, and straight ahead she can see a large monkey hanging out of a tree, but instead of rushing off towards one or the other, she stops by a map.

The zoo is a lot bigger than she would have thought, and she doubts they'll have time to see everything.

"They've got butterflies," she says enthusiastically, looking over to Kyle.

Kyle looks over the map over her shoulder. He nods with a widening smile at her suggestion, her continued enthusiasm contagious. That she wants to go for the butterflies first, of all things, only serves as a reminder how little he knows about her. Maybe it's the way Alex continues to surprise him at every turn that already has him strangely enthralled by her, even as he knows he needs to keep some distance.

"Butterflies it is." He turns to begin in that direction, trying to figure out roughly how much time he'll need to get back in his mind as they walk. Should be able to see a few things. "As long as we see the bats before we go."

"I wouldn't have thought you were a bats guy," she says as they walk. She actually hadn't thought about it, and doesn't know what animal she would associate him with, but if she had to pick it wouldn't be bats.

It's a short stroll to the butterfly enclosure, which turns out to be shaped like a giant caterpillar with a glass body. It's extremely cheesy, but Alex kind of likes it.

Inside, it's like a greenhouse, much warmer than it is outside, and all the plants are green and thriving. Hundreds or maybe thousands of brightly-colored butterflies flit through the air. Even at the height of summer in Russia, she'd never seen so many in one place before. She grins, moving further into the enclosure before glancing over her shoulder to see whether Kyle's enjoying this as much as she is.

"I told you I was stationed in South Africa, right? There are more than fifty different species of bats down there. Some guy in Johannesburg told me there are almost a thousand species of bats in the world, which is a quarter of all mammal species. Think about that, how cool that is." His voice conveys his genuine admiration of the animal as they enter through the thick plastic curtains into the caterpillar-shaped dome.

The sight is definitely engaging. His parents took he and his sister to a place not unlike it in Toledo once, though the one here is more fun and arguably better kept. Kyle smiles in response to Alex's grin. He can't help it. He holds his hand out near one of the butterflies who ignores him for a few seconds before flitting away. It's kind of fun to see them all.

"Check this one out." He crouches down to admire a large butterfly curled up between large leaves. His wings are a moth-like and dull brown. When he leisurely flaps, however, the insides are a brilliant, iridescent blue. "Best of both worlds."

Alex doesn't think that's especially cool - she was never one for science - but she likes that he thinks it's cool. Every new thing she learns about him makes him feel more familiar, more like she has a complete picture of who Kyle is. It makes everything about him even more comfortable than it already is.

She crouches next to him, admiring the butterfly. Very gently, she reaches out one finger towards it, and instead of flying away, it lets her ease it onto her finger for a few seconds before it flaps back to its leaves.

"My mother used to take me to catch them in the summer." Even if she can't tell him her mother's real name or where they really went to catch butterflies, she wants to tell him something true about herself.