She caught the wince, and the way he shoved his hands back in his pockets. She wondered if it was something she'd done? She checked her hands surreptitiously, but they weren't gross or sweaty, and she'd washed them recently, so they couldn't have smelled bad...
His hand had been warm, solid and strong. If she was honest, she'd sort of enjoyed the feeling of having her hand engulfed in his. But that was beside the point.
There was a little shy smile on his face when she began talking about the elves. Not that she thought he was shy, more that he was shy about smiling? Perhaps he didn't do it very often. "You have a nice smile," she said impulsively. She wanted to say something more, like, perhaps if he smiled more, he could have lots of friends. But she decided against it, remembering how badly he'd taken what he perceived as efforts to change or improve him in their past encounter.
It was awfully sweet the way he kept turning red. There was certainly more to this boy than popular opinion would suggest. If he was just a simple thug, like the stories said, he wouldn't have bothered talking to her, wouldn't have bothered being nice to her, and certainly wouldn't be going red every time she said something new.
"I always thought the elves really enjoyed serving us," she mused, really thinking about what he'd said. "But I guess I never thought about it. I suppose we could ask them, but what are the odds of them telling the truth if they hate it? They always seem to be happy, at least. And I'm always polite to them."
When he agreed to get food with her, she grinned happily. "Brilliant!" she exclaimed, sincerely happy to have his company. "It's always nice to have someone to eat with, and at the moment I can't think of anyone I'd rather eat with."