“Oh,” Ashley stuttered, forgetting her manners, “Sorry, sit.”

Spencer must have forgotten herself too—as it was, she had yet to realize she was still standing.

“I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again, Mary,” She teased, graciously taking the seat.

“Mary…”

“The virgin Mary,” Spencer elaborated sweetly, a wicked smile on her face.

“Ahh, yes,” Ashley replied thoughtfully, meeting and matching Spencer’s smirk, “If it’s any consolation, I didn’t think I’d be seeing you either, Mary.” Ashley countered, tearing her croissant in two.

Spencer’s only reply was a cocked eyebrow as she waited for, what was sure to be, Ashley’s lucrative elaboration.

“Why, Mary Magdelene, of course,” She explained, smiling widely.

Again, Spencer was impressed—Thoroughly impressed.

“You are full of surprises, Ms. Davies,”

And she really was.

“As are you,” Ashley replied sincerely, offering Spencer a half of her croissant.

However, with the reality of Ashley’s offer also came the reality of their situation, the reality of who they were—in Spencer’s case: who she herself was. And that’s when it happened. Again.

Like a bad stomach flu, she felt the sensation rising, up and through her belly, across her rib cage, oozing its way down past her lungs and to her heart, where it squeezed, constricted itself like a boa constricter would the first day’s catch.

“Oh, God,” Spencer groaned.

“Spencer…Spence, are you okay!?” Ashley asked worriedly, hurriedly, noting Spencer’s shortened breath, the hand she had clasped over her heart for dear life.

Just then, the tension began to ease itself, the boa unfurled itself, and she could breathe. Suddenly, Spencer was very aware again. As a matter of fact, she began to experience hyper sensitivity. At that moment, she was very much privy to the fact that Ashley’s face was mere millimeters from her own, that her hand was tracing, carving small circles into the dips of her back, that she could feel her labored breaths on her lips.

“What put you under the impression that you could so much as touch me?” Spencer whispered slowly, turning her own gaze to meet Ashley’s surprised one, the very same one that soon transformed into a scandalized grimace.

Then she was walking out, she was gone, grabbing her purse from where it had fallen on the floor in her mad rush to help Spencer, and torpedoing towards the door with, to Greta’s surprise (Greta who had been phoning her nonstop for nearly a week now. After all, she was her first), Spencer right behind her, pushing and shoving her way past every caffeine addict that stood in her path.