[Memory, Closed] Close to Your Chest

[Rhys Valentin]

the Stacks

late evening on the 78th of Roalis, 2707

If he'd said something wrong or unsatisfying, if telling the girl she was pretty hadn't been the right thing to say (isn't that what most girls wanted to hear from boys like him? isn't that what was expected?), Rhys was too guttered and too inexperienced in the art of reading strangers—in reading the opposite sex—to at all know or suspect he'd done anything she'd not been waiting on at all. In fact, while she hesitated for just a moment, that hint of a frown on her face, he might have stared too long at the way her brows moved or the way her make-up was smudged or the way that her lips pursed together just so. Then she thanked him and he scoffed, rubbing a hot hand under his nose, knuckles dragging,

"I mean, nice for someone with a knife, eh? Where'd you learn to do that shit? Not in Bastia, for sure." He turned the pearl-handled thing over in his fingers once she'd returned it instead of immediately shoving it into his trousers, pressing the warmth against his palm and running his thumb over the catch that tucked the blade back between the two slivers of incandescent shell. He'd not seen a girl with so much enthusiasm over sharp objects and to say he was a little intrigued would have been an understatement, though the warm feeling that tickled down his spine could have been just all the alcohol, right?

"Butchering your fancy-ersed clothes is pretty crazy." He admitted with a grin, but he'd stared at her face for too long and now he was flustered again, laughing loudly. Bleary blue eyes drifted and he couldn't help but want to assist with smudged make-up, couldn't help but feel some familiar, comfortable tug of interest in the way she was required to tilt her chin to look up at his too-tall, too-lanky self. Tugging out his kerchief and holding it near her face felt far less awkward than he thought it would, but then her her own hand moved—no—her tongue traced over skin and Rhys was acutely aware of every detail he'd never before noticed on the face of a near stranger in a way he'd definitely not been aware of before.

He stared, making a very quiet, very drawn out huh sort of noise from parted lips, not blinking while his heart fluttered wildly against the bone cage of his narrow chest.

"Nice?" The young Valentin finally smirked, echoing her question as if it was the answer, clearly staring at her mouth before meeting her gaze. His kerchief was in her hands and his hands were unsure of what to do with themselves other than reach up to fiddle with unfastened buttons below his collar, suddenly feeling a rush of warmth he couldn't trace the origins of, "Nah—" Rhys inhaled, summoning all the alcohol- and adrenaline-infused bravado he could at all summon, burying all sorts of strange feelings he didn't want to feel, and hummed his response while his smirk became the most wicked of grins,

"—that's fuckin' dangerous."

Her lips. Her face. The whole of Niccolette.

Dangerous.

Shifting on his unsteady feet and glancing down the phosphor-lit streets at her question with all the swiftness of someone who suddenly needed a new subject to dwell on, pulse dancing beneath flushed skin, he shrugged roughly before glancing down at the cobblestones near where she'd left her regards to the Queen's Arms' proprietor in the form of vomit, slowly looking back down the rest of Regrets Way as if formulating a plan,

"Looks like we both made room for more, hmm? I've got a few other favorite places, an' I'm not clocking ready to walk home anyway. Sleep is for the weak." The young Valentin chuckled, ignoring the bitter taste of bile those words left somewhere in the back of his throat, "I'm not buyin', though. 'Cause I'm sure not trying to get you drunk."

He snorted, turning to lead them down the street to some other pub full of students wasting their last weekend before classes again, totally not afraid to brush her shoulder and trail fingers along her arm as he did so, wobbly on his feet and giggling stupidly.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Evening, 78th Roalis, 2707
Regrets Way, The Stacks

Niccolette didn’t bother with any of Rhys’s fumbling attempts to explain; her course was set already, in her mind, and she didn’t have any interest in backtracking or explaining herself. If she had, perhaps she might have told Rhys that sharp things had never frightened her. Blood hadn’t either; not her own, not Marcellos’s, not her opponents on the dueling field, not those she was meant to practice healing on. And Rhys wasn’t the first boy to lend her his knife.

That last bit, likely as not, she wouldn’t have said; Niccolette hated to be drawn into such discussions with boys, hated the awkward shifting and squirming that resulted. It was much easier to leave it all aside; much less boring.

Rhys was looking down at her, and even with her gaze pointed deliberately away, Niccolette could sense the moment when his whole body stiffened, almost able to feel the faint exhalation of breath from his lips, tinged with something just shy of words. She wondered if his heart was pounding, wondered what she would feel if she rested her hand on his chest, wondered how it would look –

Niccolette turned herself back towards him when Rhys spoke, unable to resist. His eyes were locked on her lips, and Niccolette allowed herself, a faint, pleased smile. She waited, this time. Despite herself, she felt anticipation bubbling up eagerly inside her. She didn’t want him to disappoint her, not again. Not like all the rest. If he could – if he could just – and he did.

Niccolette laughed aloud at Rhy’s final words, tilting her head back, looking up at him with no less bravado than his own. No, she thought, pleased not nice. Never nice. Niccolette grinned, wickedly, her heart pounding in her chest. Dangerous. Yes. She liked that; she liked that very much. Let other girls be nice; let them be sweet and smiling and pretty; let them be healers; let them gentle their spells with all the softness their teachers demanded of them. Not for her, Niccolette promised herself, alcohol and Rhys’s attention both stoking the fire inside her. She was not nice. She was dangerous.

Niccolette giggled. “Good,” his fingers caught on her arm – slid from her shoulder down along the sleeves – and Niccolette felt a shiver rush through her, felt heat rise on her cheeks beneath the dim streetlights. She felt almost unsteady; perhaps she was already too drunk. Niccolette dismissed the thought as quickly as it arose; more drinks would help, she was sure. She wanted to leave it all behind – the vomit, the embarrassment, even, maybe just a little, how good it had felt to cast like that. How strong she had felt. It was a wonderful and uneasy feeling at all once, and Niccolette didn’t like to think too much on it; better to drown it in something at once.

Niccolette left the silk overskirt behind on the floor of the alley without even looking back; once it had dropped to the ground, she had paid it no more attention. It was as if, once cut from her dress, the fabric no longer existed for her; it lay, pooled, as she had left it, one end in a puddle of something indeterminate. She very nearly succeeded; only the too-stark lack of attention betrayed her.

Regrets Way had no shortage of places to drink; one bouncer throwing a drunkard out didn’t mean anything to the rest of them, not so long your coin was still good. The two of them wandered past several open doors, Rhys leading. Laughter drifted out into the air on the fumes of beer, liquor and smoke. Niccolette giggled again at the colorful clouds emerging from one dark doorway, spinning around one in the mingled greens and purples beneath the pale yellow shaft of streetlight.

Niccolette emerged from the spun more than a little dizzy, and caught herself against Rhys’s chest, her hand flat against his waistcoat for just a moment. She cleared her throat and pulled away, her hand curling into a small fist, catching back against her chest. She glanced around, utterly forgetting that she had told him to take the lead in her search for something else to look at, somewhere else to take her body.

“Let us go here,” Niccolette brushed past Rhys, leading him across the street, and pushing open the door of the Whice’s Nest. She glanced back over her shoulder, grinned once at the other student, and pushed inside, neither holding the door for him nor pushing it closed, almost forcing him to rush, just a little, to keep up.

The Whice’s Nest was a little darker than the Queen’s Arms, a little quieter. It was known for the riot of colorful fabrics used to upholster its chairs and spread across the walls to create a multicolored tapestry not remotely reminiscent of a whice. It might have been nice, once, when it first opened and the fabric was all new. Occasionally, bits and pieces of it were replaced – occasionally. It smelled of beer and liquor inside, with a faint musty odor somewhere beneath the surface. Some of the stains were the stuff of legends, and students had been known to hold mock funerals when particularly famous ones were replaced.

Niccolette waited for Rhys just inside, ever so slightly impatient, one booted foot tapping against the sticky floor. “You will do a shot, yes?” She grinned up at him again. One hand fluttered at her side, but didn’t close the distance between them, smoothing her dress inside, casually. The words were a question, but more than that they were a challenge, ever so slightly. “Or do you like something to sip?”

[Rhys Valentin]

the Stacks

late evening on the 78th of Roalis, 2707

Rhys considered himself a decent leader, though perhaps he leaned too hard on his height and his loud voice, leaned too much on the wiry muscle he seemed to have more capacity for than the majority of his peers. He wasn't thoughtless, not exactly, but he was prone to enjoying the stroking of his ego as much as the next mortal. When Niccolette smiled and when she let him lead, the two of them giggling and peering blearily into open pub doors or into the faces of passing strangers, he felt a strength he'd been trying desperately to drown trickle through his frayed, youthful existence.

They both turned down a few establishments—too full, too quiet, too cheap, too expensive—making faces and rolling eyes, the Brayde county blond quite sure he didn't care where they ended up as long as he wasn't left to his own devices, alone.

Colorful smoke drifted from one of the many places along Regrets Way and the boy grinned when his unexpected companion spinned, eddies of faint color swirling beneath the phosphor glow. It was instinctual to move to catch her, though Rhys' reactions were slow in his intoxicated state and he'd started laughing first, but the Bastian caught herself instead, against him, her palm a brand against the fine brocade of his bloodied waistcoat, tangibly warm through the fabric. He inhaled sharply, the heat of contact dancing through all the liquid distraction that already filled his veins, exhaling with a huff through parted lips—

Had he ever really looked at another girl like this before?

Had a girl ever been this close other than Charity—

Damnit all.

There was a sharp sting of guilt, a tightening in his field, a ringing in his ears.

—He hummed, blue eyes drifting over her dizzy, surprised face with the hint of an almost shy sort of grin beginning to crease its way into his flushed features until she pulled away again, until she suddenly needed distraction from that moment of contact. He blinked at her, mocking a scoff as she told him what to do,

"Now you're sure?" Rhys taunted, chiding her with a tsking sound of his tongue against the back of his teeth. His attention darted to the sign, to the street, to the foggy panes of glass that made up the window, letting him know it was no cooler inside, packed with bodies. She slipped further away like she was fleeing him, inviting a chase but also not, and he shouldered through the door behind her with an unsteady step or two, heel of his palm hard against the wood, wincing at the tingle that reminded him of just how hard he'd clocked that bastard a few pubs up the street.

The interior would have left much to be desired had the boy at all cared, if he'd been a few drinks shy of the level of drunkenness he was currently floating through. He was slow to stop, expecting Niccolette to keep walking, and so he took one step too many and was forced to use her body as his hard stop, muttering an apology from behind the stupidest of expressions,

"Just one? A'right—" He laughed, clumsily slipping around her, awkward but determined, leading them to the bar with a squeeze of her elbow before he parted a couple of older students by ducking between their conversation, making space for the Bastian to follow behind him,

"—this isn't a damned date. I don't have to sit around a candlelit table and sip while making polite conversation. I broke Marcello's fuckin' nose an' puked all over his shoes. That's at least two shots in victory. Yeah?"

He laughed, practically crashing against the bar as he spoke, rolling his blue eyes at her challenge as if it was hardly a matter of concern, as if he hadn't already pushed the limits of his alcohol tolerance at sixteen yet this evening, as if he wasn't just a few more drinks shy of passing out on the sticky floor and waking up in some Collie station.

A sore hand reaching up to rake unkempt blond locks from his face, he smacked his other palm on the bartop, instantly regretting it because it was wet with old, stale beer and gods only knew what else. The young wick behind the bar had been mixing a Green Madhouse, and his attention snapped up to the unruly boy and his unnecessary interruption,

"Oes, hang on, kov." He winked, yellow-eyed gaze sliding to Niccolette and then back to Rhys while he poured the bright green liquid into a glass, tinkling of alcohol over ice inaudible above the Whice's Nest din of conversation, "Whatcha want?"

"Two shots of—uhhhhh—" The tall blond waggled two fingers for emphasis before pointing along the upper shelf, selecting something with a dark black, smoky glass bottle and a label he squinted at to read. Maybe that was a chrove on it, "—of that there."

The wick laughed, "Ye sure? Really?"

"'Course I am." Slurred the adrenaline and bravado-fueled student, glancing to the Bastian who'd challenged him, "Unless we need somethin' to sip on, after all?"

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Evening, 78th Roalis, 2707
Regrets Way, The Stacks

Niccolette’s breath caught as Rhys bumped into her. He had mostly stopped, and he didn’t hit her with enough force to unbalance her, even with the height difference between them, but she was abruptly conscious of the hard plane of his chest against her shoulder, of their sudden renewed proximity – of the warmth radiating out him, enough to feel even in the tight, enclosed constraints of the bar, even with so many others around them –

Rhys edged past her, his hand closing briefly on her elbow. Niccolette’s arm tingled, and she followed after him without hesitation, without questioning.

Niccolette laughed at Rhys, coming to a stop just behind him. She held there for a moment, breath coming a little fast, and smirked back at Rhys when he challenged her in response. She was aware of a strange feeling that echoed along with his clear affirmation that this wasn’t a date. It was not! Of course it was not a date; she had only just met Rhys Valentine, met him properly anyway, and it wasn’t as if... She supposed Marcellos would have called their drinks back at the Queen’s Arms a date. He was not the only one. More than once Niccolette had gone out for what she had thought was nothing, and found out too late that the boy in question considered it a date.

So, naturally, she ought to have been relieved that Rhys did not think this way; she ought to have been relieved that he was very clear about it.

Niccolette did not feel relieved.

The Bastian edged her way next to the taller Anaxi, resting the ruined sleeves of her ravaged dress against the bar. It was too late, she thought practically, to be concerned about such things.

“We are quite sure,” Niccolette told the wick, confident and firm, lifting her chin ever so slightly. She looked over and up at Rhys, adrenaline pumping through her veins. “If your punch and puke deserve a shot each, then we must take a third for my spell,” The Bastian said, small and slight, her face still smeared with make-up, her now-ragged yellow dress like a dirty beacon in the dark air of the bar – and, still, or perhaps always, utterly fearless.

The wick was grinning at them both, although there was a trace of something a little amused at the edges of it. He reached up for the dark black bottle, scooped up two small glasses between his fingers, and poured easily, dark liquid streaming through the hazy air of the bar into one, then a second shot glass. “Best ‘f luck t’ ye both,” he said, cheerfully.

Niccolette picked up her glass, looked at Rhys, and grinned. It smelled, Niccolette noticed, quite strong. She was not sure what it was; she had not looked, nor had she thought to ask. She could not have refused; she was no coward. “To friendship,” The Bastian said, confidently. She clinked her shot against Rhys, tilted her head back, and drank it, the column of her throat moving as she swallowed.

The liquor raced down her throat, and Niccolette coughed, tears stinging in her eyes. The shot was exceptionally bitter, and it burned in a way she hadn’t expected. The Bastian set the little shot glass down, and weaved, unsteadily, catching herself on the bar with her hands.

Niccolette blinked, wide-eyed, and then looked up at Rhys and giggled. “Oh,” Niccolette said, happily, a warm burn settling into her chest. “I liked that,” she giggled again, biting her lower lip, wobbling a little more, and nudged Rhys’s arm with her elbow. “Another?”

The wick knew his business; he steered the two gollies to a table in the corner before letting them have a second shot (let alone a third). Niccolette plopped down on a seat, scooped her shot glass off the table, and grinned at Rhys. She took the second shot, and if it wasn’t quite as easy as the first had been, she still down it and set the glass back down on the table with an unsteady hand. The Bastian wriggled about in her seat, plopped her elbows on the table, and set her chin in her hands.

“It is not a date,” Niccolette told Rhys, nodding firmly against her hands. She slipped a little, caught herself, and straightened up again, sitting back and looking up at the Anaxi. “And so – we do not need to make polite conver – conversation,” something wicked slipped into the Bastian’s eyes. Her upper teeth dragged over her lower lip, slow and thoughtful, and Niccolette licked the spot she’d nearly bitten, almost without thinking. She looked down at the shots on the table, then back up at Rhys. “So,” Niccolette bit her lip again. “I shall be impolite,” she looked almost thoughtful, shifting in her seat once more.

“Do you know any Bastian curses?” Niccolette asked, her eyes brightening. She began to giggle again. “I like this one which is – mmm – it is like an oath!” Niccolette grinned up at Rhys. “To Hurte, of course. When one is very – very serious about something, they say – by her fearful symmetry.” Niccolette nodded, vigorously. “Like you Anaxi say clocking, also, we would say striping.”

[Rhys Valentin]

the Stacks

late evening on the 78th of Roalis, 2707

The wick bartender whistled through the gap in his teeth, resisting the urge to laugh in the faces of young, stupid galdori with deep pockets and deeper desires to drown themselves in their singular lack of inhibition. He was a tall young tsat and yet shorter than Rhys, reaching up to take the dark glass bottle from the highest shelf, nestled among some of the most expensive alcohols from all across the Six Kingdoms. By the time he turned to the very young—too young to be this wasted—pair and set glasses down on the sticky bartop, the wick was grinning. Deviously so. As if he new some secret the pair did not and he enjoyed his knowledge immensely.

Rhys was, unfortunately, utterly clueless, watching as the other man poured their drinks and grinning right back, meeting the unspoken challenge with all the bravado of a boy who'd smashed a classmate's face with a bottle and survived unscathed, with all the bravado of a boy who was totally not showing off for a young woman.

"Three it is, then!"

He licked his lips, ignoring the sting of bile that lingered on them, blue eyes wandering over the petite, dark-haired creature in front of him. Her smeared make-up, her wild grin, and the disheveled state of her once-elegant dress. In her own way, she could have been achingly similar to the delicate, blonde pianist he'd spent all summer attempting to wash and to bleed from his memory one drink and one fight at a time. In every other way, however, Niccolette was the alluring total opposite of that Captain's daughter he'd promised to never speak to again.

This wasn't technically a date because he'd not asked her out, not because he wouldn't have if he'd had the chance.

Would he?

There'd been only the strange camaraderie that came of inebriated violence and disapproving abandonment by your smarter, more sober friends, but at the same time, had Rhys been sober, had Rhys been capable of clear, focused thought, he wouldn't have denied that the dark-haired young woman was attractive. Plumb guttered as he was now, she was damn easy to get along with already and he didn't want to ruin the fun by turning something into what it wasn't.

Come tomorrow—hungover and exhausted—would she even think of him at all? Would he not just be some blond blur? He wasn't worth the trouble—Damen D'Arthe had told him so. Lower class farm boy with a field so weak it may as well have been a glamour. Wasn't that who he was? Nothing. No one. No good. Not wanted.

He was staring, fingers on the shot glass, watching the Bastian lift hers before he immediately followed, a bit of the thick, strong-smelling liquor sloshing over the edge of the shot glass and trickling down over his thumb,

"To friendship."

He waggled his eyebrows rakishly and then knocked the stuff back, pausing to lick his thumb and the side of his hand to catch every last drop. It was like swallowing something worse than a hot coal and he growled, low and deep and wetly in his chest, slamming the empty glass upside down on the bar when he finally managed to take a breath,

"Oh godsssss. That's—that's something." He gurgled, tears stinging the edges of his already bleary eyes and his insides on the kind of glorious fire he'd been chasing at the Singing Badger before he lost all those same insides over Marcellos' cheap imitation fancy-ersed shoes.

She liked it and he laughed, catching a glimpse of her lip between her teeth and feeling that Chrove's Erse warm glow settle lower in his sweaty, inebriated body than was at all proper for someone who definitely wasn't a date, "Clocking hell, yeah. Another—oh—" The tall blond looked surprised when the wick behind the bar slipped through his little wooden door and snatched his unsteady, flushed self by the sleeve with the slightest of sly smiles, "—alright."

He sort of melted into the seat with a slow hiss of breath, watching as the barkeep set four small shot glasses on the table and topped them off with such exquisite skill that he didn't spill a drop. The lanky teenager couldn't make the same promises at all, reaching for the second shot while the wick wandered away with the bottle, his laughter drowned by the pub's noise and his grin hidden from the two students pickling themselves in one of his booths.

"This could've been a date—" Rhys hummed from behind the rim of the glass, giggling stupidly. He winked before gulping the second one down, this time not wincing as much as he had the first. He rolled the liquid fire around between his tongue and the roof of his mouth and slammed the glass down on the tabletop, teeth pressing into the lower curve of his lip while he inhaled a ragged breath, "—but I hadn't formally met you before tonight—if you wanna call how we met formal—"

His words slurred, interrupted by loud, raucous laughter, his hand sliding toward the third shot,

"—fuck polite conversation." He nodded sagely, the teenager practically drowning in Chrove's Erse, swimming in some strong-odored haze of dark liquid bravado, "Waiiittt. Wait. Strip? Stripping? Like taking your—oooh—oh—no—striping. Stripes. Striiipe. Like a tiger. I get it. I mean, being Hurte an' all, both are appropriate maybe? Inappropriate. Whatever. Shit."

The teenager laughed more, feeling the strong alcohol settle into every capillary and every pore of his existence, reaching up with one hand to run a palm over his face and curl fingers into his hair until knuckles grazed his scalp. Straightening in his seat as best his wobbly, unsteady self could, attempting to stop from smiling so damn much so that the muscles of his well-carved cheeks would stop burning from the wide expression. Once he'd at least marginally composed himself, still giggling, he put on his best Bastian accent, slurred like everything else, and taunted her,

"I am soooo striping guttered right now."

He winked, snorting, raising the third shot between them with a coy sort of salute, still pretending at the other kingdom's particular affectations,

"By Hurte, did I get it right, Nicco?"

He drank the third shot, groaning at the end and setting the glass down without the same force, wiping the edges of his eyes with his thumb and dissolving into more inebriated, totally sloppy giggles all over again, "Godsdamnit. That burns. Begads, I might like that chrove's piss—no Chrove's Erse—too. Listen, would you object if, sayyyyy, a few days from now when I'm not clocking hungover, if you still remember who the clocking hell I am of course—"

Rhys blinked, sinking a little more into his seat, melting not because he was at all afraid of the answer—he was too intoxicated to really care either way—but because his whole body felt like it was meant to become more sticky ooze on the patched up fabric. Just now. For this moment. He wasn't afraid at all—what did he have to lose anymore, anyway?

Nothing.

"—if I, uh, did ask you on a date?"

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Late Evening, 78th Roalis, 2707
The Whice's Nest, Regrets Way, The Stacks

Niccolette giggled at Rhys’s misinterpretation, grinning at him from across the table. “No! No,” she laughed. “Yes, it’s like a tiger, just like – ” She drew three fingers like stripes across her sleeve and giggled some more, swaying slightly. “Shit,” she agreed, cheerfully, grinning up at Rhys. “I suppose Hurte would not mind to do such a thing,” the Bastian shrugged her shoulders, biting her lip again. Niccolette had never, of course, seen anything of the sort, but she was more than familiar with the general principle. She wondered if men ever did it for women too, and her eyes were drawn back to the little sliver of skin visible on Rhys’s chest, before she blushed faintly and looked away.

Niccolette practically shrieked with laughter, Rhys’s attempt at a Bastian accent a more than welcome distraction. She clasped her hands to her chest, bit her lip, and did her best version of an Anaxi accent (which, in truth, was quite good, if rather over the top – even with her voice slurring slightly from alcohol). “Oh! Good lady! Where has Rhys gone? Who is this – this foul-mouthed Bastian sitting across from me?” She grinned at him, giggled again.

Niccolette picked her drink with Rhys, taking a deep breath, staring at the liquid as if readying herself, and drank the whole thing in a single go. She shivered, her whole body shaking, and giggling again. She couldn’t quite set the glass down straight; she tried, but it ended up on its side. The Bastian snatched at it, and it tumbled over, a few drops of liquid spilling out onto the table. Niccolette pouted at it, stuck her finger in the glass, and carefully brought it back upright. She beamed, pleased with her ingenuity, and sat back, wiping her hand on the already-stained cloth that covered the bench seat.

Niccolette’s throat was still burning, and she wriggled about on the seat again, trying to get comfortable. The whole world was swathed in a haze, and she rubbed her face with her hand, grinding the heel against her eyes a little. Everything was – terribly blurry. Niccolette blinked at Rhys across the table.

Niccolette stared across the table at the Anaxi, brow furrowing, as she tried to focus her gaze squarely on the blond haired boy across from him, on his lips and the hard line of his jaw. Was it the alcohol that made her feel flushed, that made her heart pound in her chest? There was a tingling racing through her, and Niccolette felt oddly at a loss for words. She wanted badly to say yes – she could feel that even through the fuzzy alcoholic haze seeping through her skin – but she was aware of a faint tingling fear that to do so would make it too easy, that to agree would be to lose him.

The Bastian ran her fingers through her hair, unsteadily pushing it back up off her forehead. She brought her elbows back down to the table, resting them against the sticky wood.

“Well – ” Niccolette began, propping her elbows on the table once more, hands coming down to rest on it. “I suppose to hit Marcellos in the face merits one date,” The Bastian shrugged, glancing down at the shot glass, then back up at Rhys, then down again, doing her best to seem nonchalant. “But if a date means you – become very polite then… I will be disa -" Niccolette hiccuped, and kept going. "disappointed.” Niccolette looked up again, a little pout twisting her lips to the side. She teased the edge of the glass with a finger, rocking it slightly and letting it settle back down.

“Clocking disappointed,” The Bastian added after a moment, a teasing little grin settling over her lips again, looking up at Rhys with another wicked smile.

He wasn't perfect, Niccolette thought. There was still very much he needed to learn, but - she hoped he would remember this, the next day. She hoped she would remember this the next day, even though it felt as if she might be sweating Chrove's Erse. She thought of Rhys calling her dangerous, of his laugh, of his soft exhale as she'd licked her thumb, at the warmth of his hard chest beneath her hand. Yes, Niccolette thought - she did hope they would both remember. More than that - she thought they would.