His Hope

Part 3: Ice Cream

3

Louisa wasn't much of a coffee drinker, but she would eat ice cream at any time of the day. Xavier stood from the chair and held his hands out for her and she gently placed her hands on his own, so could he help her down from the desk. He was about to say her name when he remembered that she had never given it to him. It was his turn to feel embarrassed, how could he be so crass? He straightened up in the chair and held out his hand towards her.

"I just realized I never introduced myself properly, my name is Xavier Knight." It was the only thing he could think of that wouldn't make him sound like a total asshole for not asking for hers. He was hoping she wouldn't be too offended but relaxed when she only let out the cutest laugh he'd ever heard.

"My name is Louisa," she said between giggles, shaking his hand with her own.

"Louisa... Beautiful." He nodded to himself, the name fit her perfectly and he knew he'd be repeating it to himself repeatedly once they parted ways later. He placed his hand discreetly over his stomach when it churned slowly at the thought.

"Well let's go get you some ice cream, Lou." The nickname slipped out without his consent, but she just smiled in response. Once they made their way out of the back office, both Xavier and Louisa thanked the desk clerk and then exited through the front door back out onto the street.

"I'm not sure what's around here, we only got in last night." He said glancing both ways down the street.

"There's an ice cream shop about a block that way!" She exclaimed, pointing to her left and that's where they headed.

The mention of the "we" that he had spoken about caused him to remember that his friends were still out fucking about, around the city. He shook his head and pulled out his phone to see if anybody had responded to his previous messages. He grumbled under his breath when he saw about 10 messages from them.

She watched as he pulled out his phone and tried to wait patiently for him to finish, but about 2 seconds after he had stopped walking her mind was somewhere else. When she noticed something moving on the ground just a bit ahead of them, she decided she had to go investigate. What she found made her heartache; there was a little baby squirrel stuck in the sidewalk grate.

He quickly sent one message to a group text reading 'busy, fine, meet you at the hotel later', before shoving his phone back in his pocket. When he looked up, he saw Louisa about 2 feet ahead of him bent down towards the sidewalk, seemingly looking at something. Confusion laced his features, but he went up to see what she could have possibly found so interesting on the side of the street. When he reached her and bent down next to her to get a good look, he was surprised once again by the girl in front of him.

The baby squirrel was wiggling frantically trying to get himself out and she slowly got as close as she could trying to figure out the best way to approach the situation. She didn't want to scare him more but was also worried that he'd bite her with how frantic he was. She searched around her for something that should cover him with and spotted a newspaper a few inches away. She grabbed the newspaper and placed it over the squirrel's head, before gently wrapping her hands around its body. She twisted the little baby as gently as she could and edged him out of the sidewalk grate slowly. She didn't even realize Xavier had settled behind her, too focused on her work. The baby squirrel's belly finally popped out and she cradled him gently. There was a tall tree a few paces ahead that she decided would be much better suited for it then the busy street. She stood slowly, holding him like she would a baby kitten and made her way over to the tree, but the lowest branch was just out of her reach and she huffed.

"Here, I think I can get him up there," Xavier spoke softly, amazed by what was happening in front of him. He was sure he'd never seen anything like it, like her.