Who: Bucky and open What: wandering Where: park on wheel 3 When: Wednesday mid-day OPEN/ongoing
Bucky had closed up shop early, setting out a warmer of coffee and his serve yourself sign on the pastry case before leaving the cafe for a while. He'd had the usual rush in the morning, and it would probably get busier late in the afternoon when the younger folks started wandering in for milkshakes and afternoon snacks, but in the middle of the day, things got quiet. And sometimes, frankly, Bucky got bored.
He was still wandering the halls, trying to decide if he wanted to go back to his apartment or somewhere else. He'd been looking forward to school and classes starting again and his dining table had been taken over by recipe pages, shopping lists, workbooks and quizzes for the kids, but he could only work on lesson plans for so long before he went overboard. Summers had always been harder (lonelier) but this one had felt especially tough. Back in his time, he'd been closer to people, had more friends his age, but he'd had a harder time here. Something about being out of place, or being back in a time and place where he'd still had his husband, had made it harder to reach out. He knew it was his own doing, but sitting in his apartment alone, sitting in the cafe alone, sitting in the park alone...it had worn on him a little. He knew he could have gone to his family, and he did sometimes, to help his parents or give them a break, but he didn't like to disrupt their routine too much either.
He ended up sitting at the edge of a pond in one of the parks, his shoes on the shore next to him and his jeans pulled up so he could soak his feet in the water, thoughts wandering as he took in the relative calm around him.