The silence and the staring were, he supposed, to be expected, given how thoroughly he had just shoved his own foot in his mouth. Alfred was rather at a loss as to how to correct the problem, though, and so merely stood awkwardly and waited for something to happen — either for Miss Zelda to say something, or, he supposed, for enough time to pass that he just died of embarrassment right there on the spot. When she eventually did speak, her words took him absolutely by surprise. There was a good deal of color in his cheeks when he looked up at her, startled out of embarrassment at least for the moment.

"Oh," he managed, and was suddenly quite aware that if he said very much more than that he was likely to ruin it. He wasn't sure what it was, but it seemed now as though there was an it, a thing that existed here in this particular moment which could very well be ruined by any of his usual social missteps. He'd continued with, "Uhm, alright," before he could stop himself, but then made a conscious effort not to ramble on about anything else — which meant it was time to actually kiss her, if they had run out of things to say.

Leaning in, Alfred pressed his lips against hers and shut his eyes. His free hand found its way towards the back of her jawline to cradle her neck only a second afterwards, as if he had forgotten which order the steps usually came in. He hadn't done this in years, but it seemed to be the sort of thing one didn't forget how to do, because the longer the kiss lasted the more it sent his insides to buzzing. By the time he was aware of this he had the sudden suspicious that he was being horribly uncouth and that he should have stopped kissing her at least two seconds ago — nevermind that she had said really kiss me — and pulled away rather abruptly, cheeks and ears glowing cherry red.

"Sorry if that was rubbish," he mumbled before he could think better of it. "I'm out of practice with this sort of thing."