"I'm not saying I've got to be starving to swing around here or anything, but I don't need a scheme either." She actually looked a little deflated that he thought so, probably because it was true. But the appearance of the cherry coke made a dimple deepen in her cheek. It wasn't exactly a grin, but there was something touched in the expression while she ripped paper from straw, slid it down into the ice, and sipped up bubbles that were grenadine sweet.
Her flinch was an internal one, lashes low, swollen pupils pointed on the ice in her glass while she sipped. Her shoulders shrugged a little, like no big deal. "Wasn't in the mood for a repeat reunion any time soon, and I also figured I should kick my toast habit before it gets out of hand." The second part was a joke, and she glanced up a little hopeful that it might earn a smile and not any kind of judgement or sympathy because of the first part. "Besides," she swallowed down the dry ache of confession with another sip of cherry fizz, "I thought I should tell you that I'm not doing that kind of thing anymore. So you don't have to worry about me coming around here." She assumed Nick didn't want degenerate types hanging around his diner, no matter what friendly face they aimed to wear.
"I guess you could say thats also kind of why I came by." She bit the tip of her tongue between her molars, trying to figure out how to ask or how to just say it or maybe this wasn't a good idea. The worst he could do was tell her no, but that was a kind of rejection in itself, and she'd been dealing with that a lot recently.
"I'm going to be real short on money until I can find a place to work."