Work Text:
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“Medium green tea for Anne?”
Anne looked up from her phone that she had been aimlessly scrolling through. She smiled at the barista but he barely glanced at her as he slid the tea cup across the counter to her. She didn’t blame him though, if she had to serve coffee to customers for six hours straight, she wouldn’t bother glancing at anyone either. Not that she thought she deserved a glance from him today anyway. Her hair was thrown up in a lopsided bun and she had on the largest sweater she could find. She was here to get shit done and she wanted to be comfortable doing it.
She had just started her second year of university and she already felt as though there wasn’t enough time in the world to get done what needed to be done. In fact, she was skipping her Philosophy class at that very moment to finish her English paper that was due by midnight that night. Her plan was to park herself at the cafe for several hours until she finished.
Picking up the mug, Anne surveyed the cafe around her. It was filled with frantic students, middle aged women and businessmen with briefcases. It was around noon so it made sense that a lot of people would be here eating lunch, but she hadn’t expected it to be this busy. Looking around, she wasn’t sure if it was going to be possible to find a spot. Every table that she could see from her position near the counter was filled. But, on the other hand, leaving the cafe to find another place to write would mean she had to go back up to the barista and ask for a take out mug to transfer her tea into and she really didn’t want to do that to him.
So instead, she decided to move deeper into the room, hoping by some miracle that she’d find an empty table tucked away somewhere in a hidden corner. As she neared the back of the room with no luck, she noticed a boy- a good looking boy- around her age, sitting at a table to her right. She couldn’t quite figure out why he stood out to her, but she was intrigued by him. His hair was dark and untamed, as if he had been absently running his fingers through it all day. He had papers chaotically strewn all over the table and a textbook directly in front of him. He seemed to have tuned the rest of the world out, headphones covering his ears as his eyes intently scanned the pages of his book.
Distracted by the sight of the boy, Anne stopped watching where she was going and her foot snagged onto the leg of a chair she was passing. She managed to catch herself before she fell flat on her face, her tea however, was not as lucky. As if in slow motion, she watched as half of her steaming, green tea flew from her cup, through the air, and towards the messy haired boy. The tea splattered all over his papers, his textbook, and his hands.
The boy yelped and shot out of his seat.
“What the fuck?” He exclaimed, surprised.
Anne stood in shock. One hand held the now half empty tea mug and the other came up to cover her mouth in alarm. Her face turned red as his wide eyes met hers.
After a beat, Anne sprung into action. She quickly grabbed some napkins from a nearby dispenser and moved towards the boy.
“I am so sorry,” She explained to him while dabbing the pages of his soaked textbook. “I was just walking by trying to find a table to sit at. There aren’t many free ones right now because it’s the lunchtime rush but I was hoping that I would find one at the back because I really need to finish my paper and I didn’t want to go through the trouble of having to find another place to go so I was praying that there would be one back here. Anyway, I must have gotten distracted and tripped and my tea went everywhere. Not that I should be surprised that this happened really, I always find myself getting into scrapes like this- I have a knack for it- I find it quite humiliating somet-”
Her ramble was cut off because she realized that after she had finished wiping off his pages, she had grabbed his hand and started to wipe it down too. Almost immediately, she realized what she was doing and she dropped his hand as if it were on fire. She took a step back and looked him in the eyes, a blush rising to her cheeks again.
He blinked at her silently for a moment before a smile slowly started to creep onto his face. He gently took one of the dry napkins she was holding and began to dry off the rest of his hands.
“Don’t worry about it.” He said, amused. “It was a fun little distraction from all the studying I’ve been doing.”
“I can’t see how getting hot tea spilled all over you and your work could be considered fun so I’ll have to take your word for it. Well, as long as you’re sure I haven’t done any permanent damage here, I’ll let you get back to your studying. Sorry, again.” She turned to leave.
“Wait!” The boy called after her. “You can sit here. At my table. If you want. Wouldn’t want you to have to leave to find another place when there’s a perfectly good chair here, across from me.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to intrude.” She replied, usure.
“No, no. Wouldn’t be intruding at all. Here let me just-” He scrambled to move some of the papers from “her” side of the table.
“Okay, well let me buy you another drink then.” She said, eyeing his empty mug. “It’s the least I can do for you after spilling tea all over you and then making you give up half of your study space.”
“I just might take you up on that. I’m going to be here for a while. I’m drinking black coffee.” He replied, handing her his mug.
“Coming right up, uh...” She hesitated.
“Gilbert,” He said. “Gilbert Blythe.”
Anne beamed at him, “Anne Shirley-Cuthbert. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
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Anne returned successfully with a black coffee in one hand and a new green tea in the other. She placed the coffee in front of Gilbert and sat down in the seat across from him.
“Thank you” He said as he looked up from his notes.
He watched her for a minute as she got situated, taking her laptop out of her bag and turning it on.
“So you’re a student at the university here?” He asked her after a moment.
“Yeah I am. I’m in my second year, studying English.” She said, slightly surprised. She assumed that they were going to sit in silence and do their respective work. But he seemed as though he wanted to talk to her, probably in need of a study break she assumed. For some reason, Anne didn’t mind indulging him and his small talk so she continued the conversation,
“And judging by all the notes in front of you, I think it’s safe to assume that you’re also a student?”
“Yeah. I’m a third year. Pre-Med.” Gilbert answered.
Anne whistled softly. “Holy. That’s a lot of work. I’m stressed just thinking about it.”
“It’s not that bad if you love doing it. Although, right now I’d rather not be. I have a big test tomorrow that I am not prepared for at all. I’m skipping my class right now to study for it.”
Anne let out an understanding, breathy, laugh. “I know what you mean. I have a paper due tonight that I’ve hardly started. I had to skip my class right now too, to work on it.”
“Look at us. A couple of star students. What class are you skipping?”
“Intro to Philosophy.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No?”
“With Professor LeBlanc?”
“Yes?”
Gilbert laughed.
“That’s the class I’m skipping too.”
Anne giggled, surprised.
“What are the chances?” She asked.
“What are the chances?” He repeated, softly, deep in thought for a second before snapped out and said, “Now tell me, what’s your paper about?”
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The rest of the afternoon passed quickly. They worked in silence most of the time but there were sometimes when Gilbert would need another study break or Anne’s head would get too overwhelmed to write out a comprehensive sentence. At those times, they would talk.
They found that they had a lot in common. They both liked pineapple on their pizza, and both hated the colour orange. They both had fairly unconventional families. She found out that he lived with his “almost” brother, Bash, and his wife, Mary, and their baby Delphine. Anne took note of the way his eyes lit up when he talked about the baby. In turn, she told him about Marilla and Matthew and how they adopted her when she was 13 years old. She didn’t tell him about her life before the Cuthbert’s adopted her. That was a story for next time, when they weren’t in the middle of a public coffee shop.
As the clock neared suppertime, Anne neared the last few sentences of her paper. She knew that she had to leave soon, she had promised Diana and Ruby that she would be home for supper tonight. But Anne found herself reluctant to pack up her things, and instead tried to draw out her departure by reading her paper over three more times (to check for any overlooked spelling errors of course). Finally, Anne knew that she had to go or she’d be late. She closed her laptop and began packing up her things.
Gilbert looked up from what he was writing.
“You’re leaving?” He asked. Anne couldn’t help but think that he sounded a bit dejected but she knew it was only her wistful imagination.
“Yeah. I promised my friends I’d be home 15 minutes ago.”
Anne finished packing up her things and slung her bag over her shoulder. Her and Gilbert stared at each other for a moment. She wasn’t really sure what to say. So long? It was nice to meet you? Hey give me your number because I really enjoyed hanging out with you these past few hours and I’d really like to see you again. Also you’re really pretty? Instead, she just went with a simple,
“I guess I’ll see you around?”
Gilbert cleared his throat and stood up abruptly.
“Hey, why don’t I give you my number? You know, just in case you ever decide to skip class again and need someone to give you the notes.” He said teasingly.
She laughed and handed her phone over to him. They exchanged numbers and then Anne smiled at him.
“See you in class on Friday. Sorry again for spilling tea all over you.”
“Don’t worry about it. Perhaps it was fate.”
“Oh, I doubt that fate sent me here today to spill tea all over your work. That’s something far too unromantic for fate to be involved in.”
“I don’t know,” Gilbert replied teasingly, “I think we were destined to be friends, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert.”
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