The morning sun shone through Rose Tyler's flat rudely awaking her from a deep sleep. She groaned and turned over in bed her arm landing on an empty spot next to her indicating that her boyfriend Johnny was already gone. A note was left in his place. Rose still sleepy, propped herself up reading it.
'Gone to band rehearsal' it simply said. Not even an 'I love you.'
She grunted tossing it across the bedroom. Band rehearsal, of course. Sometimes she wondered if his band was more important than her. Rose sat up, running her hand through her messy blond hair and sighed before kicking off the sheets and getting up, yawning.
The light from the sun making her wince. Rose was not exactly a morning person.
"Coffee," She grunted. "I need coffee." Rose concluded heading to the tiny kitchen.
Rose Tyler was a punk rock girl. That's all anyone really needed to know. With her short blond hair, ear piercings and dark clothes she wore the look proudly. But there was another side to her she was nice, smart, loved to read and she was a romantic, but she never admit it and despite her boyfriend Johnny always neglecting her she stuck by him, anyway, which either made her stupid or very devoted. She wasn't sure.
She sipped her coffee and glanced out the kitchen cracked window staring at the people below living their lives.
Rose sighed and started glancing through a newspaper left on the counter. An ad for a vintage bookstore and coffee shop caught her eye.
The place was called 'Idris.' It promised cheap books, great coffee, and five-dollar punk rock concerts every Friday night.
'That must be the place Clara was always going on about,' she thought. 'Well, at least on about the owner's cute brother, anyway.' Rose grunted.
It sounded good but she wondered if she should bother after all she had plenty of books and she liked coffee but only in the mornings.
Suddenly her phone vibrated breaking into her thoughts. It was a text from Johnny. Part of her was still angry at him. She should just delete it, but curiosity got the best of her, and she read it, anyway.
It was his typical message, 'Hey babe, going to be late." Hope you can entertain yourself. Bye, love you.'
She rolled her eyes. Short and sweet as always. He didn't even apologize for dashing out this morning. Rose was tempted to text back that she was going over to see a 'gorgeous book seller' and not to bother waiting up but realized she couldn't do that to him. Despite his faults Johnny was a good guy.
Rose sighed and texted back a simple, 'love you' message before pushing send. Rose placed her phone back and went to get dressed to see this 'amazing bookstore' because apparently she now had a reason to go!
The place wasn't hard to find, it looked like a worn blue painted wood shack squeezed between a row of typical, normal plain looking small business. The entrance was even painted to look like a police box door, it was weird but kind of cool! She went inside. The coffee bar was busy and noisy, a red-haired girl from behind the counter spotted her and waved.
Rose guessed it was the owner.
"Hi, welcome to Idris," The red head shouted from the counter. "I'm Amy. How can I help you?"
"Where's the book section?" Rose yelled back.
Amy pointed at the end of the shop. Rose thanked her and walked down the aisle of tables leading to rows of bookshelves. The books were worn but the selection was impressive. She glanced at the authors. There was everything from Tolstoy to Dickens, it was amazing!
Finally, she came across a desk. A young man dressed in a grey shirt and blue jeans was leaned back in his chair, his feet propped up on the cluttered desktop. He seemed engrossed in his book as he chewed on a pen cap. Rose guessed he was the co-owner.
A small sign written in fancy cursive caught her eye. It said, 'The owner's brother is deaf." Mess with him at your own risk, have a nice day!'
Rose smirked, a sense of humor, she liked that.
She slowly approached and he looked up at her.
Rose was taken aback, she almost forgot how to speak proper English! Clara was definitely not wrong about him! He was gorgeous! Rose almost wanted to use the word beautiful to describe him. He had messy brown hair, doe amber eyes, fair freckled skin and lips begging to be nibbled on.
Rose immediately wanted to hide away for her crazy thoughts! What was she doing? She had a boyfriend, a great one!
The young man just continued to look at her waiting for her to say something. Finally, she was able to snap herself back to reality.
"Hi," She signed. "I heard you've got a nice book selection." Rose smiled, silently thanking her grandmother for teaching her sign language when she was little.
He looked at her surprised and signed.
"You know sign language?"
"Yeah, my grandmother was deaf." Rose explained signing.
The young man nodded impressed.
"Well, it's not often I meet someone who can sign. I usually just lip read." He signed back.
"Can you talk at all?" She asked curious.
He paused for a minute.
"Learning." He finally sounded out, nodding.
Rose smiled. For some reason, the way he said it was the most adorable thing she ever heard. She almost blushed.
"So, how can I help you?" He signed leaning forward.
She casually shrugged. "Well, you're the book seller, what do you recommend?"
He studied her a minute before going over to a bookcase and climbing a stepladder reaching up the shelf giving Rose a good view of his long lean body. She quickly looked away.
"Stop it, Rose!" She scolded herself.
He hopped back down and handed her a worn book.
"You look like a 'Charles Dickens' girl." He signed.
Rose loved this author, one of her favorites!
"Impressive," Rose smiled. "How did you know?" She signed.
He shrugged. "Lucky guess," He signed. "Will that be all?"
"Yeah." Rose replied.
He started to ring her up when she realized she forgot her wallet.
"Damn it." She cursed under her breath. She glanced up at him embarrassed.
"I can't buy it," She signed. "I forgot my wallet." Rose admitted embarrassed.
He shrugged.
"Pay me, tomorrow, then." He signed handing her the book.
Rose looked at him shocked. "Really?"
"Yeah." He signed.
Rose was hesitant. Was this a trick?
"How do you know I'll come back," Rose tested. "For all you know I might be a book thief." She signed.
Jamie gave her a smirk.
"Well, we make most of our money on coffee," He signed sitting back in his chair. "So, if you want to rip us off a buck fifty go ahead. I doubt we'll notice besides, I trust you." He shrugged.
Rose smiled at the kind gesture. "Thank you…"
"Jamie Smith." He signed.
"Rose Tyler." She introduced herself suddenly feeling shy.
"You're-welcome, -Rose-Tyler." Jamie sounded out, smiling.
Jamie seemed really sweet. Rose slowly smiled and started walking out the shop, repeating his name in her head. Rose then spotted the book he was reading; 'Picture of Dorian Gray.'
"Oh, I've read that. One of my favorites." She signed.
He smiled. "Mine too but this one belongs to the shop," Jamie signed. "Lost my copy years ago." He then returned to his book.
Suddenly an idea came to her. She knew how to thank him. Rose slowly smiled and left the shop.