Re: [Diner: Atticus & Hazel]
He was ... odd. Kind of lumbering. She didn't regret asking him to sit though, especially when he changed the music from obnoxiously hopeful to the melodramatic sullenness that was Nirvana. Hazel's lip twitched again, but she gave no other sign whether she approved or not (she did) or if she was curious (she was). Nirvana was a bit, well, dated. Classic, but definitely dated, almost as much as the change in his pocket. Unbidden thoughts of her life before crept along the back of her mind like an incoming, coiling fog--it was cold and unwelcome. Hazel's fingers wrapped themselves about the mug and tightened as if it were an anchor.
"I've never been to New York, but I hear the food can't be beat. That pie looks like shit anyway." Mabel rose her head from her game at that declaration, but instead of shooting a dirty look, she simply shrugged. What did they expect? Ritz quality food at this hour in a middle of nowhere diner? Yeah, good luck with that fairy tale. The waitress slipped into the back, not bothering to pluck up the sorry piece of abandoned pie.
"You could say that. It's late and it's night." Ever so obliging, Hazel. Ever so. When he sat she scrutinized: Dark scruff, pensive brows, hair that had no particular rhyme or reason and went this way and that--and sharpie. On his neck. Okay, her brow quirked at that. "Did you have a fight with a sharpie and lose?" Her chin nodded to his neck. She had almost mistaken it for hair, but stubble didn't run that low or that thick. "Also, odd place to do some reading." Stormy eyes shifted to the books weathered cover. She'd never read it, personally.
Hazel reached into the silver dish beside him and plucked out a sugar packet slowly, carefully shoving it along the cheap, shiny linoleum table top that separated them. "... if it's bad as you say stop torturing yourself."