Checking out the guy at the counter was completely productive. It was a necessary reprieve from research, because if she kept staring at the books her brain would turn to mush and she'd never find anything out. It was a necessary break, Dawn reasoned.
She wasn't really sure why she was researching in the first place, except that it might be useful to know York's history. She could read between the lines where many historians couldn't. She could glean information from the subtext and maybe, just maybe, find out if there had been other people who were clued into York's secret identity as a Hellmouth.
The more you know about something, the easier you can kill it. Buffy had told her that once, or Giles.
In any case, there might be something important in those books, and she might never find out what that may be if she dozed off mid-sentence, which was why taking a moment to appreciate the hot guy was extremely important and really totally justified.
Still, Dawn wasn't prepared when he headed her way. She looked down and tried to pretend like she was reading, quickly realized that it wouldn't work - he had to have seen her looking - and tried to look casual instead.
"Um - thanks," she stammered when he proffered the cup of coffee. She reached out to accept and the very tips of her fingers brushed against his hand. A small jolt went through her. Confused and nervous, she tried to ignore it. "That obvious, huh?"