Just My Cup of Tea

Garrus glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand after he had situated himself in his room. The room was quite more luxurious than he originally thought. The queen-sized mattress was bedecked in palest yellows and grays in such a shade that reminded the turian of the color of the clouds still spitting down rain outside. The three throw pillows in shades just one or two darker than the sheets made a beautiful contrast against the rainy backdrop and the sheets themselves. The closet was roomy and the bathroom was porcelain white and spotless, making it almost hard to see into the room with the bright lights. Despite the curtains being wide open, the gray rainclouds shadowed the streets below and Garrus still had to turn on the lights bolted above the nightstand. The clock's glowing red numbers told him that he had forty-five minutes until he was to meet the receptionist at the hotel lounge.

Then it occurred to Garrus that he wasn't sure what he was meeting her for. This was London, so it could very well be a simple cup of tea, but there was the same probability that he would be meeting her for a beer. A small shrug of his shoulders in the bathroom mirror told himself that he was ready for either, or whatever she might throw at him. He decided to keep in the light cloth armor he had traveled in and just spend the next half hour relaxing on his bed and trying not to fall asleep.

Then, on second thought, if he was afraid of falling asleep, it might do him good to get down to the lounge where there would be people. He could probably find some way to pass a half hour before he was to meet the receptionist. It also occurred to Garrus then that he wasn't privy to her first name and found himself drawing a blank when it came to the name she had told him when he had arrived a few hours before. After the mental kick, the turian gathered his room key and the money he had hastily exchanged after he had stepped off the plane and left, making sure the door locked behind him.

The elevator was near full when the doors opened to Garrus and he debated taking the next elevator for a moment when a foot stuck out to stop the doors closing. "There's room for you, it's okay," a woman's small voice said, drawing her fat child up to her stomach to try and make a space. Garrus simply nodded his thanks at the woman, and she returned his nod with a timid smile to match her fraying brown hair. Garrus almost felt bad for the woman when they exited the elevator on the ground floor and the child immediately began whining for an ice cream cone.

He noticed the lounge just ahead of him when he took the right out of the elevator, and took a quick glance at the reception desk. The blonde was pulling a key out of the glass box behind her desk for a couple with two large suitcases behind them. The woman was hanging on the man next to her, so Garrus knew the two were obviously together. Probably here on a vacation for themselves, to get away from whatever was bogging them down back in their homes. Garrus didn't think he came to London to escape his home and his problems, he just thought that everyone needed a week - or two - to themselves to do anything they wanted in any place they wanted.

Garrus entered the lounge area of the hotel, and his flicking mandibles accompanied his smile. It was a quaint room with tall, thin windows with filmy curtains that let in the last struggling rays of the sun behind the thick, gray rainclouds. There were a handful of small tables laid out in front of him, a few couches along the right wall with a television in the center that was currently playing a tennis match that no one was watching, and a small bar to his left with another handful of barstools. Garrus also took note of the stove in the last corner of the room for occupants to make their own tea. It looked cozy, a great place to sit and have a cup of tea or a beer after a long day of traveling or dealing with strangers in all situations.

There were a few outdated magazines on the tables in between the tennis match and the couches and with a lack of anything else to do, Garrus sat down and picked one up. He had rifled through about half of it and was in the middle of an article about a soccer player he knew nothing about when soft standing lamps in the room were shadowed slightly on his right. He placed a talon on the page he was on and flipped the magazine closed, looking up at the shadow on his side. It was the receptionist, and the smile on her face was as soft as the lighting in the room, making his mandibles flick as he set the magazine down on the table upside down. "That mag is four months old," she said.

Garrus stood and a smile spread across his face. "I have no emotional investment in tennis, so this was my only other option."

She glanced down at the upside magazine on the table. "What were you reading?"

"An article about a soccer player. Just something to pass the time. I don't really know anything about the sport."

She giggled, a high-pitched bubbling noise that sounded like it even had an accent. "You really are an American, aren't you?"

A plate above the turian's right eye raised. "What do you mean?"

"No one around here calls it soccer. All us Brits call it football."

"Ah, okay. Thanks for that."

"Of course. Now, before we go any further, you'll have to forgive me. I meet so many people in a day and I hardly ever remember them. What was your name again?"

Garrus' mandibles flicked. "Don't worry about it. Garrus Vakarian."

"Garrus. Alright. I'm Jayne. Jayne Shepard." She extended her hand.

Garrus took her hand and shook it. "Jayne. A beautiful name for a beautiful woman."

Her cheeks flushed a light pink color, just enough for Garrus to see it before she turned her face downwards at the hardwood floor. "Thank you," she said simply. When she looked back up at him, there was a small smile on her face. "Care for a cuppa?"

Unsure of what she was referring to, Garrus just replied, "Yeah, sure."

Jayne began to walk toward the stove in the corner and Garrus followed. "I don't want to brag, but I make a hell of a good cuppa."

"I'll have to taste it to believe it."

"You'll have to wait a couple of minutes."

"I think I can do that."

Jayne smiled again, turning her back to the stove and leaning on the edge with her palms. "So what brings you to London?"

Garrus shrugged. "Just a vacation. Extended vacation."

"But what made you choose London? You could've gone anywhere in the world and you chose here."

Garrus thought for a few moments, then shrugged again. "I'm not entirely sure. I guess I just wanted to go somewhere far different from home and see what it was like."

"You said you're from California, right?" Jayne asked, raising an eyebrow. Garrus nodded. "You could've achieved that by just going across the country. You didn't have to come across the pond."

"The pond?"

Jayne smiled as the kettle on the stove began to whistle. She turned and began to pour the hot water into the cups. Still not facing him, she answered, "The Atlantic Ocean. I'm surprised you don't know that one, I've heard quite a few Americans use that."

"Those must've been ones that live close to it. I don't."

Jayne turned back around, a cup of tea steaming in each hand. She handed on to Garrus, who had a bit of trouble trying to figure out how to hold the small cup in his large hands. Jayne masked her smirk in her teacup as she blew on the steaming tea. "Right," she said to him, still watching him fumble trying to hold the teacup. "Try putting a finger through the handle. That might help."

Garrus finally had a grip on the teacup with his hand around the opposite side of the handle, his front talon just poking through it. "I figured it out. Thanks though."

Jayne smirked again as she took a sip of her tea. "So?"

"I can't really say."

"Haven't taken a sip yet?"

Garrus waited a moment before answering. "Haven't had an actual cup of tea before."

Jayne's hands lowered away from her face and her mouth opened wide in surprise. She brought her hands back up to her face and took a sip of tea after a few long moments, masking another smirk. "You're kidding."

"I wish I was. Then I might have a better chance of impressing you."

Jayne laughed softly, the lighting illuminating spots on her face that Garrus thought were just absolutely beautiful. "Are you always like this?"

"Complimenting beautiful women?" She gave Garrus a look that said That's exactly what I'm talking about. His mandibles flicked in amusement. There was silence between the two of them, save the tennis match still on the television and the sipping of tea. "So how long have you worked here?"

Jayne looked up at him from over the brim of her teacup. "About two years."

"Two years at the same desk?"

"Mhm."

Garrus took a step toward Jayne and leaned over to place his empty cup on the counter behind her. She watched him in his approach and kept her eyes on him even as she sipped her tea again. He looked over at her as he stood up and she saw a faint glint in the piercing blue of his eyes. She again masked a smirk behind her teacup as she finished the last sip. Setting the empty cup down behind her, Jayne glanced at her watch. "Hell," she muttered. She looked back up at Garrus with a clearly apologetic look. "I'm sorry, but it's getting late, and I promised my best friend I would get home at a reasonable hour tonight."

"Now that's an interesting statement. From that I can infer two things. One is that you share a living space with your best friend, most likely an apartment, because that's how it generally works. And two is that you have a reputation for staying out until ungodly hours of the morning with...people. Or just yourself. And that opens the door up to a whole new set of interpretations." The plates above Garrus' eyes raised just slightly, as if expecting a reply from the surprised blonde woman in front of him.

Jayne just stared at him for a while. Not only was she unsure of how to reply to Garrus, but she was the slightest bit uneasy. He was able to pick out something about her that he didn't know the real significance of. And what made her uneasy is that she was willing to tell him about it, in time. "I'm not working on Saturday. Maybe I could show you my favorite lunch spot..." She pulled the edge of her bottom lip in between her teeth and let it fall back into place slowly. "And you can see if those interpretations are correct."

A slow smile appeared across Garrus' face. "You know where I'm staying. Noon on Saturday."

The clashing tones of his voice made the words said even more intriguing to Jayne. She nodded at him. "See you tomorrow." She brushed past him on purpose, her arm against his, and told herself not to look back at him as she walked away.

Garrus turned and watched her walk out the glass doors of the hotel, sighed, smiled to himself, and then walked out to the elevator. He was suddenly overcome with sleep, and had a hard time even keeping his eyes open in the short ride up to his room. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.