"It's fine." Raven took the napkins and dabbed ineffectually at the cream. "Could've been worse. Could've been the brownies."
Annabelle laughed despite herself, still flustered. "I really am sorry. I just…I didn't expect…"
She trailed off, very aware that she was staring.
Because somewhere between the cream disaster and Raven's dry commentary, Annabelle had suddenly noticed something rather important.
Raven was attractive.
Not in an abstract, "yes, I suppose objectively she's good-looking" way. But in an immediate, visceral, "oh God why is my heart doing that" way.
It was the leather jacket, probably. Or the way she'd handled the cream catastrophe with deadpan humor instead of anger. Or possibly the fact that she'd spent her morning making beautiful biscuits for a school fundraiser while pretending she didn't care.
Or maybe it was just… her.
"Annabelle?" Lily appeared beside them, eyebrow raised. "Everything alright?"
"Fine!" Annabelle said, too brightly. "Just a small accident. Nothing to worry about. Everything's fine."
Raven was still wiping cream off her jacket, looking faintly amused.
"Right," Lily said slowly. "Well, I've been doing some calculations. We raised just over eight hundred pounds today."
"Eight hundred?" Annabelle seized on the distraction gratefully. "That's brilliant! That's more than I hoped for."
"It's a good start," Lily agreed. "Though we're still quite far from fifteen thousand."
"This is just the beginning," Annabelle said, determinedly optimistic despite the rather large gap between eight hundred and fifteen thousand. "We've got the sponsored read next month, and the talent show, and…"
"And you're an incurable optimist," Lily said fondly.
"Someone has to be."
Raven had finished de-creaming herself and was shrugging out of her jacket, revealing a simple black t-shirt underneath. "I should go. Need to shower this off properly."
"Thank you for coming," Annabelle said. "And for the biscuits. They were absolutely the star of the show."
"They were just biscuits," Raven said again.
But she was almost smiling as she walked away.
Annabelle watched her go, still feeling oddly flustered.
"So," Lily said casually. "Want to talk about whatever just happened?"
"Nothing happened. I dropped some plates."
"Annabelle."
"I noticed she's quite attractive, alright? It's not a big deal. Lots of people are attractive. I notice attractive people all the time."
"Do you usually stare at attractive people like you've been struck by lightning?"
Annabelle busied herself with gathering the remaining dishes. "I wasn't staring."
"You absolutely were."
"Well. She surprised me. With the biscuits. And the helping. I wasn't expecting her to be so… involved."
