A careful one.

Getting inside isn’t hard. While Tella’s isn’t precisely booked around the clock, it’s still popular. Slipping in with a group is simple. Getting into the bathroom proves a little more of a pain. Not to mention that it makes you feel way more like a pervert.

Fortunately for you, Alex isn’t patient. You can see her fidgeting at the table from here, distractedly contributing the bare minimum to the conversation. Her eyes keep darting over to the bathroom. After a minute or two, you can see her huff, then stand and make her way over to it. When she passes in front of you, sliding around you without even noticing, it’s almost painful not to reach out and touch her, but you restrain yourself. Instead, you manage to make the swinging door to the bathroom hang for just a moment longer with your palm as you follow her.

Only four stalls, but you still take a moment to feel certain you’re going into the right one. Sitting down feels weird, suddenly hitting you that you don’t have a use for places like this anymore. Well, not for their intended function.

“Adam?” you hear her call out softly in the stall next to yours. You relax, dropping the veil hiding you so you can speak (and, you know, focus on it), clawed hands gripping your knees. You weren’t this nervous the first time you had to fight a man to the ****. At least you don’t seem to be sweating. Can you sweat?

“Hey, Alex,” you finally manage to respond. Nerves build up right away, wondering how you sound to her, if she can tell, if the old shoes she can probably see under the walls if she cares to look are giving you away.

“Oh my God, this is so weird!” she whispers back to you with no apparent hesitation. She doesn’t sound frustrated or irritated, though. You can feel a smile behind the words as the barest tinge of an English accent dances over them. “You know, I half expected to find a glory hole in here.”

“So you HAVEN’T checked under the roll, then …” you tease back.

“… I know you’re joking, but I checked anyway.”

“Caution. Valor. Etc.”

“Is that your real voice?” she asks. You grimace. “Like, you’re not putting on something for me, right?”

“I’m not TRYING to …”

“It’s just not what I thought you’d sound like,” she continues as you squirm a little. “You seem so subdued when we text, I was imagining this smooth, whispery kind of deal.” You really hope she doesn’t dwell on this. “It’s kind of ridiculous you also get to sound so fucking hot. It’s like … Tom Waits by way of Barry White.” Okay, she can dwell a little.

“If it’s any consolation, you sound … exactly how I expected you to,” you tell her, allowing yourself a smile now.

“How’s that?”

“Like …” you hesitate before continuing, worried if it sounds too intimate … but you barrel ahead anyway. I mean, you’re already here. “Like home. But when you haven’t been there in a while.”

“Flirt,” she quips back. But you can hear a BIG smile on her face through her tone that time. “I’m sorry if I made things weird for you. I didn’t know you were sensitive about going out.”

“It’s been over a literal year since anyone invited me anywhere. I still really appreciate the effort.”

“Hey, I do, too!” You can hear a light “thump,” then notice you can see denim at the crack below. She must be sitting on the floor. “If I didn’t already have to go out today, I don’t know if I would have had the balls to ask you to meet me.”

“Tella’s a hit, though?”

“It is. A few of them had already been here, but no one giving me shit about it,” she sighs. “They’re not even friend-friends, just work friends. But the idea of disappointing them still makes me shiver. I mean, they’re not BAD people. I’m just sort of bad AT people.”

“I’m glad I could help.”

“Mm. I’m going to guess not a lot of luncheons in the ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter,’ crowd?” The crack makes you muffle a laugh, too worried about the sudden burst of menacing chuckling being too much.

“Oh, no, there are,” you manage to say once you recover. You don’t even think you need to breathe anymore, it shouldn’t be that hard to stop yourself from laughing. “There’s just a critical mass of men’s rights, prepper, and paramilitary literature you need to read to make conversation. Old Klan fliers don’t hurt, either.”

“I’m glad you don’t fit in, then!” she says with a slight gasp of mock offense. “It doesn’t sound like a good crowd, though. Not even work friends?”

“Nah. People in my line of work tend to have issues. Lot of alpha types, don’t want to share space, don’t want friends, just lackeys … if I wanted that, I’d have an office job.” You idly click your claws together as you speak. You can remember HAVING an office job before this, blindly plugging away at data entry every day. What it was for is unclear in retrospect, but you remember it. “They’re not all bad. It’s just hard to sort out the assholes from the decent folk.”

“And is that not the very nature of the human condition?” I mean, in your case, no? But it wasn’t a lie, either. You hadn’t had a lot of pleasant experiences with other things like you. Not none, but the few you recognized walking around on a regular basis had proven singularly uninterested in friendship, if not outright hostile.

“Anyone like that with you?”

“David,” she responds immediately. “David’s our boss. Not here. Real toolbag. He used to do work in for-profit. I mean, pretty much all of us there have, but he’s the only one who shows it. We’re all working twice as hard lately just to make sure the animals are still getting a good standard of care with his ‘innovations.’ That, and he’s, like, 1950’s sexist.”

“And I saw most of your co-workers here are ladies, so I’m sure that’s fun.”

“Oh, EVERYONE hates David. I’m just the one who has to put down anyone who’s collateral in his budget crusade,” she gripes, bitterness entering her voice. You note murdering her boss would be a bad idea, even if he does sound horrible. “It’s extra-stressful, knowing I’ll have to be the one with my finger on the plunger if we can’t pick up the slack he’s dropping.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry. I’ve had bad bosses, but that’s going to top any stories I have for ya’,” you answer, not mentioning that you’ve SEEN worse bosses … you just hadn’t been working for them. After all, an employer’s gotta’ be pretty bad at their job to end up on your radar these days.

“It’s okay. I know, this isn’t exactly great first date talk,” she says.

“Is that what this is?”

“Do you want it to be?” Her voice sounds hopeful, and you silently will that you’re not misreading that.

“I mean, it’d be a hell of a story for how we met … though that’s already pretty weird for us, huh?” You can hear her giggle at that. “Yes, I do. If you do.”

“First date it is, then!” she calls back peppily. There’s a brief pause, and you can hear her collecting her breath. “And it might be a little much for a first date … but I did, too, y’know.”

“You did what?”

“Think of you when I fucked myself.”

You both hear the door open and freeze before you can answer. Naturally.