Re: Loitering: Cat C & Reece E
Cat was busy. The store was crowded. A band played in the front window, and the coffee bar was rocking. Cat was in her element. She was working the crowd, talking, networking, and being generally entertained by the collection of life that had walked through the door. It was what she'd enjoyed about the bar, and she was glad to see she could cultivate the same environment elsewhere. Oh, she knew it wasn't going to be the same type of crowd, but it was a crowd. Cat loved crowds.
She was dressed simply, all things considered, and she was currently flipping through the records behind the counter, determining what to play between performers. She went with NIN, putting the needle on the record when the current band began stepping down. The store only sold vinyl, and the crackle over the speakers was extremely gratifying. She walked up to the front, one hand on the microphone and voice crystal and confident, slightly New Jersey in the vowels, as she called the next performer's number and indicated there would be a 15-minute break. Come get a coffee, etc.
It was after this that she noticed him.
The beard was new, and she thought it suited him. Oh, Cat had no plan here. Nothing planned and no idea how this interaction would go. She had been surprised by his last postcard's comment about communication, but she wasn't walking into this wary. Enough wary, and whether that could be blamed on practical experience, gender, hormones, or age? It didn't matter. All Cat knew, was that she was tired of misery, and wallowing in it? Had been no one's choice but her own.
So, right, she made her way through the crowd and up to the man in the Princess Leia shirt. She glanced down at the woman on his chest, then up, and she did nothing to hide similarities of expression that he might recognize. "We have some soundtracks," she said, entertained sounding and with that smile that danced on the knife's edge of teasing.