"No, no, I mean it." She laughed. Rosalie discarded her mug on the table behind her and began to move about the room. "You would be ashamed to see my personal set up at home."

---

She let the thought linger for a minute while she made her loop around the cauldron. Rosalie could have pointed out that the brewing rooms were shared and nowhere as organized as his space. She could have emphasized that it was the solitude she craved. Instead, once she'd mostly returned to her starting point she asked, "And who am I to imagine as your patient?"

---

She returned to her mug and took another sip. It was nice, chatting and laughing with someone so uncomplicated, someone with whom she didn't have to think through her actions and words at every turn. "Do you sell many beauty potions, Mr. Greengrass?" Rosalie asked with a raised brow.

---

It'd been years since Rosalie last felt wanted — since that Halloween most likely, when she last strived to be beautiful and caught Ezra's attention once again. The thought of that night and what almost happened in the closet had her disguising her discomfort behind another sip.

"I suppose they do," she replied, her smile having faded some. She suddenly felt lonely, like a ship adrift in an endless empty sea. "It's nice to be wanted," Rosalie then added in a wistful tone

---

They were dancing on a dangerous ledge, Rosalie recognized it instantly when his hand touched hers. She ought to have spotted it sooner for she'd stood on this ledge before. The smiles, the flirtatious laughter, the inappropriate behavior — they were all the signs that led to her heart being broken. They were all the signs that led to the chasm between the woman she was now and the girl she'd left behind.

It was wrong for someone other than Ezra to lead her down this path.

But it doesn't change anything, does it? Ezra had said. Rosalie hadn't been able to respond then, but she knew the answer just as surely as him now: no, it doesn't.

Rosalie blinked at Mr. Greengrass. She didn't dare breathe or speak, lest the heartache still bleeding into her chest somehow shatter the moment. She could have this, whatever this was to be, for a least a minute or two.

---

She blinked at him. He blinked at her. His fingers stayed on her wrist. A beat passed, two, three.

”I’d like to kiss you,” Noble said quietly. ”But if you don’t want that —” He shrugged. They could talk more about potions, or about his workshop, or anything else. He just wanted to spend time with her — with anyone who he didn’t have baggage with, but she was pretty and they had the same interests.

---

Rosalie forced herself to stop thinking long enough to step closer towards Mr. Greengrass. She still didn't trust herself to speak, didn't think she could verbally agree without some sort of indication of the emotional whirlwind she was trapped within. The mug was soon discarded once more on the table, her free hand now reaching up to cup his cheek. His face was warm against her fingers, his beard sharp in a way she didn't remember feeling with —

She pressed up on her tiptoes, pressing her lips to his.

---

There were more differences to him that would have been distracting if she allowed them to be. (The feel of his lips, the lack of urgency and passion, the slight but suddenly extremely noticeable height difference.) Instead, Rosalie focused her efforts on matching his. Her touch turned gentler, her lips parted for him. This was no passion fueled closet adventure. This was Mr. Greengrass, and he was nice. Rosalie would learn to be nice too.

---

Everything about Mr. Greengrass was gentle and Rosalie might've growled in frustration were she not utterly determined to enjoy this for what it was. (An escape. Freedom from the grief still ever present in her chest.) She leaned towards him when she felt his hands on her hips, her chest lightly brushing his jacket. Rosalie took the opportunity to delicately move her hand from his cheek to the nape of his neck. She wouldn't tangle her hands in his hair the way she typically enjoyed to while kissing, wouldn't press him further than he wished to go, even if not doing so felt wrong in a way she couldn't quite name.

---