Re: [restaurant; ren & hannah]
Hannah was helping. She liked helping, and she wasn't trying to make a move on him. When Hannah made moves she was overt. She was a crawl into your bed or crawl into your lap kind of girl. She was brazen removal of clothing and no insecurity about her skin. She wasn't perfect, and she didn't think she needed to be. She knew it wasn't about perfection. Men, they weren't about perfection, and she knew Ren didn't look at her like that. He liked his scholar, and she was here to help, and her compliments and smiles were as genuine as a summer sun. She liked him. She did, and she liked him a lot, but she could read things that weren't books, and his pages weren't very confusing.
"I'm under contract," she explained. "I can't leave because I'm under contract." But he asked about money, and she leaned forward like a girl ducking her head beneath blankets to whisper secrets with a sibling sharing the same bed. "I'm going to make some extra money, though. I found out they rent windows in the Red Light District, and I'm going to try to get one. Don't worry," she said, in case he was going to, "I have a friend insisting on going with me to look, just to make sure it's safe." She sat back, pleased with herself. Like the motel room, it was something she wasn't supposed to do, and Hannah thrived on soil that was not meant to be tilled by her.
She watched the wine fill the glasses, and she thought the slight slosh of the liquid against the glass was like dancing when he swirled it. She mirrored him, learning, learning, swirl and a sip, and then she pressed her lips together and closed her eyes for a moment before opening them again. She smiled. "I like it," she said, and she put the glass down delicately on the table and listened to him talk about readings, and she understood. "I think a reading sounds wonderful. I'd be in it, if you want me to, though I don't know if I'd be any good. But I bet you'd get a lot of people interested. It's kind of boring in a small town, and people like doing different things." She lifted her wine glass again, and she smiled over it at him. "What reading are you thinking, or are you going to decide that once you see how many people want to do it?"