Chapter Text
Tessa Virtue likes her job, more than she ever thought that she would.
It may be quiet and slow most days, working in a shoe store alongside her boss, a lovely woman named Marie-France (who’s dream it had been to open a shoe store of her very own after she’d spent years working in her grandfather’s store), but she won’t trade this job for anything.
The shop is quite cozy, with shelf after shelf stacked almost to the ceiling with men’s and women’s shoes of all types. The store hasn’t started carrying children’s shoes yet, although Tessa doesn’t know why. She makes a mental note to ask her boss about it later.
At the store, ma petite chaussure, people can either buy shoes or donate shoes to the store, in the way that one would at a used bookstore.
Whenever people donate shoes, Tessa always sits behind the cash register, her usual seat, with a cloth and disinfectant spray, wiping down every shoe after carefully inspecting it, to make sure that it’s something that can be sold. If it can’t be sold, then it’s usually returned to the owner, but most shoes that come through ma petite chaussure are in sellable condition.
Tessa has, however, seen some pretty gross shoes that she could hardly believe it when Marie-France had insisted they keep them. There was one particular instance, with a pair of shoes that had looked like someone had run over them with their car and then tried to put them in the washing machine.
Tessa still can’t believe that Marie-France kept those monstrosities. Even so, she can’t believe someone actually bought them.
Behind every shoe is a story, as Marie-France likes to say.
Tessa has a theory that that’s why her boss won’t throw away any shoes.
Another time, Tessa had tried to throw away a pair of green alligator-print shoes, but was stopped after Marie-France told her that they’d been worn by someone famous that she’d never heard of.
It’s been a very long day, dragging on as slow as molasses. Tessa almost can’t believe it’s only two o’clock; she feels like she’s been stocking and re-stocking the shelves forever.
The heavy door opens, signaling a customer, which makes Tessa perk up just a little bit.
It’s a woman, rapid-firing questions over the phone as she peruses the aisles.
Tessa wants to tell her that the women’s shoes are in the back, but the lady has a very stern look on her face, and, when she starts yelling, Tessa realizes that it’s probably best that she hadn’t say anything.
She watches as the lady finally heads towards the back of the shop, still frantically questioning whoever is on the other line.
“James, I’m sorry that I couldn’t make it to your son’s birthday party, okay?” she snaps, and Tessa wonders what the hell this woman is doing in a shoe store.
“Sorry I’m so late,” Marie-France’s voice pulls her out of her thoughts, and she turns to see her boss has handed her a steaming cup of coffee from the bakery down the street. “I have so much paperwork to do, not to mention it’s Patch and I’s anniversary, so I–”
Inwardly, Tessa smiles. Her boss and her husband, Patch, are one of the cutest couples she knows. Sometimes, if he knows that his wife is having a particularly stressful week, Patch will show up at the shop with coffee and lunch for Marie-France, or he’ll come to take her out to lunch instead.
It’s easy to see that Marie-France and Patch are in love; the shoe store owner glows whenever she talks about her husband, an instant blush creeps onto her cheeks like the two are high schoolers with a crush and not a couple that has been married for years.
“You should take the rest of the day off,” Tessa interrupts her boss with a small smile.
“Tessa, no. I don’t want to just leave you here with that mountain of work–”
“It’s fine, go enjoy your night with Patch. It’s only your anniversary once a year, you know.”
Tessa’s boss is quiet for so long that she doesn’t think she’ll actually go home, but then she tilts her head to the side as a slow smile spreads across her lips.
“Okay, if you’re absolutely sure you’ll be fine on your own.”
Tessa rolls her eyes but laughs. “Of course, or else I wouldn’t have offered.”
“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”
“Yeah, you most definitely will.”
After Marie-France leaves, she busies herself with thinking about rearranging the shelves, but ultimately decides against it, so she clicks on to the internet.
The door opens, and she doesn’t look up because she assumes that her boss forgot something, as is the tendency with Marie-France sometimes.
“What’d you forget this time?” she asks, still focused on the screen in front of her, where she’s logged onto her work email.
“Um, nothing?” an unfamiliar voice answers her, male and definitely not her boss.
She looks up to see a guy in a dark t-shirt and jeans, sunglasses perched on his nose.
Which is weird, given that it’s raining outside, and, the last time Tessa checked, one doesn’t wear sunglasses in the rain.
She freezes when her eyes drink in the stranger’s hair; it’s dark brown, sticking straight up and messy atop his head. She almost thinks that she’s seen him before, but she has no idea when or how.
Get it together, Tessa. “Oh. Right. Sorry. I, um. Thought you were my boss. She usually forgets things, especially when she leaves early, like she did today.”
Why is she so nervous all of a sudden? This isn’t normal for her.
And then the guy takes off his sunglasses, and Tessa has to stop her jaw from physically dropping to the floor.
“It’s fine,” he tells her, as his chocolate eyes land on hers.
She knows him, she thinks, but she isn’t one hundred percent sure. Not personally, so maybe the correct thing to say would be that she knows of him.
You would have to be living under a rock to not know who Scott Moir is.
He’s an actor, having quickly nabbed a starring role in some independent film that Tessa hasn’t seen, but her sister probably has. It was this indie film that catapulted his career into the spotlight, and now he’s been the most-talked about actor of the year.
So, while Tessa hasn’t seen any of Scott Moir’s movies, she most certainly knows who he is. He’s graced her television in various commercials, and she’s almost positive that her sister, Jordan, is in love with him, but she doesn’t know that for sure.
She has one of two options: she can pretend like she doesn’t know it’s him (because, until she’s pulled up a picture, she won’t know for sure); or, she can address him as “Mr. Moir” and tell him that she’s there to help with all of his shoe shopping, should he need anything.
Then, the words are out of her mouth before she can stop them.
“Can I help you with anything?”
Option one it is, then.
He smiles, and she’s at least 95% sure he is the famous actor Scott Moir, although she doesn’t think she knows of another Scott Moir.
“No, thank you. I’m just browsing for the time being.”
“Of course. Take your time.”
She has to stop herself from adding a Mr. Moir on the end of that statement.
He probably wouldn’t like it very much if she outed him in front of the whole store, except she isn’t sure how big of a deal it would be, considering ‘the whole store’ is just the two of them.
A loud thunk a few minutes later interrupts Tessa’s thoughts, where she’s been answering an email.
“I’d like to buy these,” Scott tells her, and she nods before taking a look at the shoes.
They’re tennis shoes, covered in what looks like someone’s ripped-up jeans (Tessa is almost positive that these were a donation from a few months ago), and she looks up at him, horrified.
“Um, are you sure?”
He only nods with a shit-eating grin.
She rings up the shoes. “Okay, that’ll–”
A squeal drowns out the rest of her sentence.
“Oh, my god! Can I have your autograph?” The lady from earlier, the one on the phone, asks, and her stomach is oddly square, protruding out in a way that Tessa hadn’t noticed earlier.
“Um, ma’am, is that a shoebox under your shirt?” she asks, not even glancing at Scott, because she knows that he’s probably trying to hold in laughter, and if she looks at him, she’ll absolutely lose it.
The woman stands up straighter and knits her eyebrows together, her hands clasped together under her stomach as if she’s holding it. “No! How dare you insinuate that my unborn child is a shoe box.”
“It’s oddly square, if I do say so myself,” Tessa comments, and the other lady sighs. “If you’re stealing, you know, I could just . . . call the cops on you, and I bet you wouldn’t like that very much, now would you?”
“Fine, I’m sorry,” she tells Tessa, retrieving the box from under her shirt. “Please don’t call the cops on me. But I want his autograph.”
She jerks her thumb in Scott’s direction, who, as she’d thought, looks like he’s trying not to laugh as Tessa hands him a piece of notebook paper and a pen for him to sign for the woman.
“What’s your name?” he asks, and Tessa almost answers before realizing that he’s not talking to her.
“Linda.”
He scribbles something on the paper before handing it to the woman, Linda.
She squints at it. “I can’t read your handwriting, what does it say?”
“Well, there’s my name, and it says, ‘Dear Linda, please don’t ever fake a pregnancy by stuffing a box of shoes under your shirt. It’s not particularly funny, just rude and inconsiderate.’”
Linda laughs, but it sounds fake. “I would ask if you want my number, but I’m already in a relationship.”
Scott just stares at her. “I mean,” he starts, scratching the back of his neck, “I don’t really want to date you, because, like, you’re not very nice?”
“I’m sorry,” he adds, after half a second of silence, “that was pretty mean of me.”
The woman glowers at him before stomping away without saying anything else.
They both watch her leave, and then, once she’s out of earshot, Scott turns to her.
There’s a grin on his face again (she’s half-tempted to ask him if he’s never not grinning, but she decides against it), and he takes his shoes from her after paying for it and turns it over in his hands.
“I was going to try that, but I don’t think that would be a good look for me. What do you think?”
Tessa can’t help it; the laughter that she’s been holding in ever since Linda appeared with the shoebox under her shirt bursts out of her and into the air between her and Scott. “I don’t know that I would try that if I were you.”
All he does is grin.
Later that night, Tessa is stopping at the bakery down the street from the store to get coffee, because she has to finish all of the paperwork that Marie-France was going to do earlier.
Before she realizes it, she runs someone on her way back home, spilling her coffee all over herself and whoever she’s run into.
“What the hell?” a male voice swears, and she doesn’t even register who it is just yet, too focused on the fact that she accidentally ran into someone and, in the process, spilled her coffee all over them.
Her eyes widen as she feels the hot liquid drip onto the pavement below. “Oh, shit. I’m so sorry!”
He sighs. “I’m already running late, what’s one more inconvenience?”
It’s at that moment that she realizes that she’s standing in front of Scott Moir, and, to make matters worse, he’s the one that she spilled her coffee on.
“I am so, so sorry. My apartment’s just over there if you want to change or something.”
“How far is your apartment? ‘Just over there’ doesn’t quite cut it, I’m afraid.”
She points to a forest green door just barely visible from where the two are standing. “My building is right there, it’s the one with the green door.”
Scott is quiet for a moment, seemingly thinking over her request and about how it can’t possibly hurt to change into clothes that are warmer and not covered in coffee, considering the fact that it’s still raining and there is a dark spot of coffee all over the front of his shirt.
“What’s your name?” he asks suddenly, and she remembers that they haven’t introduced themselves to each other yet.
“Tessa.”
“I'm Scott.”
Yeah, I know, she wants to say. She doesn’t.
“Okay,” he relents, not looking at her, and that’s when she realizes that he’s talking about going over to her apartment.
Tessa nods, leading him down the street to her apartment building.
She sets her keys in the bowl by the door once they get inside, shrugging off her coat and slipping off her shoes as if she’s forgotten that he’s there.
With how quickly her heart is beating in her chest (she tells herself it’s because she doesn’t have people over often), she doesn’t think that she can forget his presence.
“So . . .” he begins, and she turns to see him standing helplessly near the door.
“Oh! Right. The bathroom is upstairs and down the hall to the left.”
He sets the bag with his shoes in it down on a chair near the front door before nodding and heading up the stairs.
While he’s in the bathroom, she rushes to the kitchen, but it’s spotless, as usual, so she lets out a sigh of relief.
“Thank you,” Scott’s voice sounds from around the corner, and it takes another few seconds before he’s in front of her. “I really appreciate this, Tessa.”
She offers him a small smile, walks over to the fridge and gazes at its contents. “Do you want anything to eat while you’re here?”
“No, I’m good, thanks.”
“Nothing at all? Not even some water?”
He shakes his head.
Tessa studies him for a second, before she blinks and shakes her head.
Knock it off, Virtue, she thinks. You know he’s attractive. It’s basically a scientific fact at this point, but that doesn’t mean that you should be ogling him like you are now. He probably has a girlfriend.
“Well, as I said, thank you for being so kind,” Scott starts, walking over to the door without waiting to see if she’s following him.
She scurries to open the door for him. “It was my fault, really. But you’re welcome, Scott.”
Neither of them says anything for a few seconds.
“It was really great to meet you,” she admits, “Odd, but great.”
He gives her a small smile before shutting the door behind him.
Odd, but great? she thinks, closing her eyes as she leans back against the door. Who says that? That’s . . . a weird thing to say, Tessa. Oh well, it’s not like you’re going to see him ever again.
She opens her eyes to see that the bag with those horrible denim shoes is sitting on the chair, exactly where he had put it minutes before.
There’s a knock on the door she’s still leaning against just as she notices the bag, and she jumps at the loud sound before turning around to open the door.
Scott is on the other side.
“Hi.”
She blinks, forgetting that he’s here for his shoes. “Hi.”
“I forgot my shoes,” he explains.
“Right.” She opens the door wider to let him in, and he grabs the bag off of the chair.
They’re standing in front of the closed door, and then he surges forward and kisses her.
When his lips press against hers, she forgets everything. How to move, how to kiss. It takes her a few seconds before she moves her mouth in time with his. His nose is squished against her cheek and she almost melts right there in the foyer of her apartment when his hands come to rest on her waist. The kiss is over as quickly as it began, and when she opens her eyes to see Scott’s chocolate eyes gazing into hers, she has to stop herself from instinctively kissing him again.
“Sorry,” he breathes, stepping away from her just as the doorknob turns.
“My roommate,” she explains, as he takes his hands off of her waist.
Kaitlyn, Tessa’s roommate, bursts through the apartment and walks right in-between the two of them, not even noticing Scott’s presence.
“I have a date tonight!” she singsongs as she disappears into the kitchen.
“I should go,” Scott says, and Tessa nods in agreement, even though she really doesn’t want him to, not after that kiss. He opens the door, gives her one last grin, and then he’s gone.
“Tessa!” Kaitlyn calls. “Did you hear me? I have a date tonight.”
Tessa rolls her eyes. “You have a date almost every week with a new guy, Kaitlyn. I’m really not surprised at this. Should I be though?”
“You’re my roommate; that’s for you to decide.”
“Well, have fun, I guess. What’s his name?”
“Sam, I think. Or Evan, I don’t really remember.”
“You’re . . . going on a date with a guy whose name you don’t remember?”
“I’m pretty positive it’s Sam, but it might also be Evan. What’s wrong with that?” Kaitlyn blinks at her.
Tessa can’t help but sigh. “Nothing, Kaitlyn. Absolutely nothing.”
She can still feel Scott’s lips on hers and his hands on her waist, and she zones out on whatever Kaitlyn says next.
Her roommate snaps her fingers in front of her face with a sigh. “What’s gotten into you, Tess? Was it not a good day at work?”
“No, work was fine.” Better than fine, actually.
“Did you see that Scott Moir is in talks to star in some new rom-com? It was all over Twitter.”
“Kaitlyn, you know I don’t have a Twitter. How would I know that?”
Her roommate shrugs at her, brushes past her on her way upstairs. “I don’t know, I thought maybe you’d decided to join Twitter. It’s not so bad, Tessa.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Hey,” Kaitlyn calls down the stairs a few seconds later, “If my date with Sam/Evan doesn’t go well tonight, why don’t we watch Scott’s newest movie?”
“Sounds good!” Tessa responds.
Kaitlyn’s date with Sam/Evan must go well, because she and Tessa don’t end up watching Scott’s newest movie.
But it’s fine, Tessa tells herself, do you really want to watch one of his movies after meeting him in real life? Probably not.