Avery looked up at the outside of the cafe, adjusting his messenger bag. Lyra had been pretty keen for him to meet her friend, but if he was honest, he was interested to meet her too. Lyra talked this Rosario up quite a lot. The girl who was Archer's lab partner was a good person to meet, he figured, and Lyra had said she was big on research, so collaborating their information was going to work for him. He was carrying a binder in his bag with most of his notes on Archer printed out so he wouldn't have to pass across his laptop for anybody else to scroll through. Last time he'd done that, Armaan had closed all his tabs. Like, who did that???
There was a buzzer on the door that went off as he pushed it open and stepped inside, and he looked around to get his bearings. Blackboard walls? A bit naff, but sure. He imagined people got chalk all over the place. The hanging plants and the shelves of memorabilia he could get behind though.
"Do you have a table?" asked a young woman carrying a tablet, popping up beside him, and he took a half-step backwards.
"Uh... I'm meeting a friend," he said, holding onto the strap of his bag. "Lyra?"
The woman checked her tablet, then nodded and gestured towards a table. "Just here. I'll go and get you a pitcher of water while you wait for your friend." She smiled and left him, and he seated himself in the middle of one side of the table, and pulled out his phone. Great, Lyra was late.