Vincent was somewhat taken aback by the sudden flurry of foul language from the young woman he'd knocked over unintentionally. Before he could offer to help her up and apologize, the tidal wave of acidic insults continued. He involuntarily ran his hands down his open brown button up shirt and red tee, swatting at any dirt real or imaginary. Vincent's black jeans seemed unscathed.<br/><br/>She was standing now, and considerably shorter than he, not quite by a foot by his reckoning, but he couldn't be sure. He sighed internally when she folded her arms and tossed her hair back to look up at him.<br/><br/>He considered insulting her in return and walking away, heavily considered it in fact; he felt his pale cheeks pinking, but fought back the urge to start a fight he didn't want to have in the first place.<br/><br/>He knew that he was anything but "fat"<span style="font-style: italic">(not that he thought being fat was bad, but that was moot here)</span>, since he had been gardening and doing martial arts or swimming most of his adolescent and early adult life. He didn't know if he'd call himself "buff" or "ripped" but he was very much in decent physical shape, and a mostly flat abdomen, and hard lean muscles under his clothing. Still, for some reason, it stung a little. Vincent did his best to leave his face expressionless.<br/><br/>He silently counted backward to himself from five before he said anything. While he found her behavior downright deplorable, he wanted to go eat and had no intention to escalate things if he could help it.  He reached backward with a tendril of hair and pulled one of his recently pruned burgundy roses from his bag.<br/><br/>"<span style="color: #008000"><span style="font-weight: bold">Forgive me for knocking you over,</span></span>"he said smiling warmly, "<span style="color: #008000"><span style="font-weight: bold">I should have been paying more attention to where I was walking</span></span>," he said.  He held the rose out to her with his silky hair the same way he would have if it had been in his hand. "<span style="color: #008000"><span style="font-weight: bold">I hope I haven't disturbed you while I garden; talking to the flowers helps them grow, or so the old saying goes</span>,</span>" he said apologetically.<br/><br/>Another thought occurred to him in that moment causing his cheeks to flush red;<span style="font-style: italic">she'd said he was pretty</span>. No one had said anything like that to him since his mother had died two years ago.<br/><br/>He looked at the young woman from under his pale eyelashes as the seconds seemed to become eternity.