That Don't Play in Public Life

It was all too odd for words, really.

Here he was, sitting out in the cold, laughing jovially as though the chill was a figment of his imagination, telling a complete stranger that his thin shoulders were free for her to throw her burdens onto if she felt the need to sling them. Not his preferred icebreaker, he had to confess - but what was life without its little oddities? He never would have thought that this would have been how he would use his lunch break, watching his infectious twiddling spread to the closest victim, the sight of the woman toying with her own looped earrings nowhere near cathartic enough to make him want to stop.

He took the opportunity to steal another sip of hot chocolate from the corrugated cup in his hand as she strung a reply together for them both, the sweet liquid now that little bit cooler across his half-dead taste buds. He did not want to seem too overbearing. After all, it had only been a friendly offer - one that had slipped out before he could really mull over the idea and agree with it himself. He could understand why it may have thrown her - he was only an acquaintance of barely five minutes.

Which made him all the more thankful that the gesture had not been thrown back in his face with a look of horror, nor with an order that told him with the utmost precision exactly where he could insert it inside his person. He straightened himself up in his seat whilst he had the chance, his trim torso twisted, a cup-brandishing arm propped up on the half-filled luggage box fixed to the back of his bike, the other settled on the helmet held safely in place between his legs. The stance did not have a name - but if it did, it would have involved the phrase 'moderately uncomfortable but not too painful'.

'Mister Motorcycle Psychiatrist'...he could not suppress the urge to chuckle that cracked open his lips. A jangle of earrings accompanied a curious tip of his head, and he watched as she gestured at the grand city - one that made the regal and charming Cambridge look like a quaint little hamlet.

"Of course." He answered with a bob of his polite head. The quirky little title reminded him of one of those obscure foreign video games he had played with his nephew around Christmas - the central characters had been a trio of stalwart and loud cheerleaders who went out of their way to motivate people when morale was running low. They always seemed to be there at the right moment, anticipating the call they required before springing into action. Was this what it felt like, or was it something completely different? He was not too sure, himself.

Besides, he had been god-awful at that game.

Little Miss Worried was standing a lot closer, now - obviously venting was best done in close-quarters to stop the nosy from getting a free ticket into a private conversation. Now in his new found agony uncle stance, he listened intently to what felt like a rhetorical question. Deep brown eyes widened to urge her on like an accepting nod may have done, and she continued as though she had read his mind.

Small mistakes... lots of them, she told him. He certainly knew what that felt like.