Re: Near the ring of fire, later...: Cat C & Reece E
"You know, if you were ever going for casual? You absolutely failed the entire time."
Wait, rewind.
It wasn't that she'd been watching him, not precisely. The bar was small, and Cat's job? Watching. Talking. Calming. Sending people home that had too much, and talking to people that looked lonely. All that looking? It meant she'd seen him walk over to that very cheesy ring of fire. It had made her smile at the time, possibly she'd chuckled slightly. And for all his nerdness, Reece? Looked like he belonged somewhere sleeker, perhaps with less wood.
So, right, she'd seen him. Not creepy, no, not even when she realized he was waiting, looking. She assumed he wanted to yell at her about Sasha, but she felt absolutely no guilt in that department, and she just kept a wide berth for as long as she could. Deliberate, sway and slink and wide smiles for patrons.
And then, fickle as a feline, she stopped giving him a wide berth, and she was right there when he smacked his head into Johnny's shelf. He fumbled with the photograph, and she raised a dark brow over dark eyes that were lined danger. She let him clear his throat, and she let him try to explain that he wasn't lying in wait, and then she'd spoken.
"You know, if you were ever going for casual? You absolutely failed the entire time." She turned her ankle, proud of the blue denim that made her feel expensive and cheap, and impressively all at once.
Around them, the bar was mostly emptied out, and she motioned to a corner stool. "If you sit there and don't break everything I own, then you can drink while I close up the register." Sasha and Jude? Were on their way out the door, and that old straggler at the end of the bar? She'd take care of him once the others cleared out. "Feel like telling me who your friend was? He looked even nerdier than you do." Grin, warm and lush, and she watched as the door closed behind patrons and employees alike.