Malcolm Bowen was feeling pretty pleased with himself. He'd been up to little since the World Cup meeting, this and that and projects on every hand. Keeping himself busy. He'd been working on a particularly difficult potion for the past few days and it was nearly ready for testing, save the final ingredient--powdered basilisk scales. He was on fairly good terms with one of the witches running the apothecary these days; it wouldn't be too difficult to feed her the right words to get the little bottle from her claw-like hands. Something about her skin, perhaps. Plenty of women her age fretted about that sort of thing, weren't they?
In high spirits, he rounded the bend to turn out onto the main street of the Alley--as he saw just who had decided to set up shop there, he was turning straight back around, not missing a beat as he stepped back into another, connecting alleyway.
Sometimes he just didn't know how to approach a situation. This was one of those times. Natasha Beckett had a long history of making his life more complicated.
Then again, she'd probably seen him already--if he didn't at least step over for a minute, he'd have to deal with whatever it was she deemed an appropriate punishment this time. Wincing slightly, Bowen nodded to himself, stepping back into the Alley and approaching Beckett's table. "Fancy that," he said in greeting, stopping just short. "Stepping closer our direction, love?"