Always, in December(7)
Her breath loosened a little when she saw him. Another man, slightly balding, had stopped to help him, and he was already getting slowly to his feet, his movements slow and awkward. She jerked toward him, her nerves fizzing, mouth dry.
“Are you OK?” she blurted out, but he didn’t seem to hear her above all the interested chattering of the little group around them. The balding man was now holding out to him a wallet, and a few stray bits of paper he must have dropped. She stumbled forward another step, earning an evil glare from Taxi Woman. God, what if he was hurt? He was up, but he looked a bit unsteady on his feet—what if he had a broken rib or something?
“I’m…” She tried again, but stopped, sucking in a tight breath when he finally looked at her. She couldn’t quite make out the whole of his face, only got an impression of a somewhat chiseled jaw and messy hair, but she swore she saw it darken, the night’s shadows winning out over the pockets of light from the streetlamps and headlights. She took another wavering step toward him, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed. He said nothing, just dismissed her with a glance and turned instead to Balding, who was helping him to take the last of his belongings.
Josie became very aware of the clamminess of her palms. “I really, I don’t know what to say, I can’t apologize enough,” she babbled, wishing he’d just meet her gaze, rather than now looking at the tarmac, frowning, as if she weren’t worth paying attention to. “I just, I don’t know what happened, I wasn’t concentrating, it was completely my fault and I—”
He held up a hand as the crowd around them began to disperse, losing interest now the drama of the moment was over. He looked her up and down, as if weighing up the sincerity of her words, taking in her laddered tights, the skirt of her work dress poking out beneath her blue winter coat, purple-and-white sneakers that definitely did not go with the outfit. Her body felt stiff and when his gaze traveled up to her face, she felt her cheeks warm. She had no doubt she looked a total mess—he probably thought he’d been run over by a complete lunatic.
“It’s fine,” he said, his voice clipped and low enough that it barely carried over the sound of the traffic. He turned away from her again to thank the balding man, who nodded, glanced at Josie in a curious sort of way, then headed off up the street.
“It is not bloody well fine,” Taxi Woman muttered. But she’d already turned her back on them both, apparently deciding that, now it was clear no one was seriously injured, she was better off out of it.
Josie hovered awkwardly. Her knee was throbbing now, but she didn’t want to bend down to check it in case that looked like she was more concerned with herself than the stranger she’d just knocked off his feet. Now that they were the only two people left, he glanced over to her and his eyes flickered briefly, as if he was surprised to see she was still hanging around. She couldn’t quite make out the color, wasn’t sure if they just looked dark because of his expression. He was about her age, she realized, and a couple of inches taller than her.
“I’m really, really sorry,” she said again, aware that she sounded like a broken record, but completely at a loss as to what else she could say that wouldn’t sound utterly wrong, given the circumstances.
“I said it’s fine,” he said on a tired sigh. Not as clipped as before, but still not quite what she was after. Josie bit her lip, but before she could say anything else, the taxi driver wound down the window on the passenger side.
“All good here then?” she asked, clearly making an effort not to look at Josie, seeming to decide this was a better form of punishment than shouting at her.
The man nodded. “All good, cheers.” Oh sure, with the taxi driver he was perfectly affable. But then, Josie supposed she’d been helping him get to where he was going, not knocking him over the moment he got there.
“Right-oh.” And with that she rolled up the window and pulled back out onto the road behind a bus.
The man frowned again the moment the taxi drove away, and turned his attention back to the road. The way he was determinedly ignoring her, she could probably have gotten away with just leaving, but it felt wrong to abandon him. She glanced down at the road too, and noticed what he was looking for before he did. She grabbed his phone, a meter or so from where he stood, and her stomach twisted as she saw the screen was completely smashed.
“Shit,” she muttered, grimacing apologetically as she held it out to him. “I’m so—”
“Sorry?” He raised his eyebrows as he took it from her and she felt herself flush. His eyes were green, she noticed now that she was closer, though they were those fancy two-toned kind of eyes, with a ring of something lighter around the edges. It felt wrong to describe the second color as “gold,” given the way his eyes seemed to scowl without so much as a furrow of eyebrows.
“I’ll pay for it,” she said immediately. She wondered what model of iPhone it was, how much that would set her back, whether she’d have to use her credit card to pay for it. He didn’t reply, just pocketed the phone and grabbed her bike from where it was still strewn across the cycle path, pushing it up the curb onto the pavement. She should have done that, she realized. The bike was in the way, and she hadn’t even thought to move it.
She stepped up beside him. “Seriously, let me pay for it. Maybe there’s a phone shop near here that’s still open and we can—”