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Post by Teja on Nov 10, 2019 13:59:54 GMT -5
"Sounds like something someone in a cult would say," she said. Traffic light might have changed, but not her focus.
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Nov 10, 2019 14:01:14 GMT -5
"I wasn't," he insisted. "Come on-"
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Post by Teja on Nov 10, 2019 14:33:55 GMT -5
"There's a lot of caffeine in politics," she warned him, half serious. "What will you say the first time someone cracks a joke about cops and coffee and donuts and you don't know what they're talking about? Your image will never recover."
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Nov 10, 2019 14:51:25 GMT -5
"How fortunate that I already have you, then," Ashton said, beaming down at her. It was a little damp outside, and his hair was already beginning to escape the confines of how tightly it had been slicked back, forming little clusters of tentative curls instead.
It was warmer in the coffee shop, albeit with the same pervasive heaviness to the air. Ashton insisted on paying for Teja’s tea and stumbled over the pronunciation of most of the espresso menu, settling on something he continued to pronounce as a caramel latty and practically cradling it between his hands as he brought it to their table.
“To your health,” he offered, holding his cup out to toast.
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Post by Teja on Nov 10, 2019 15:59:15 GMT -5
Much as she wanted to find a reasonable explanation, his complete ignorance about anything coffee seemed somehow...too large to be waved away. She tried to imagine telling someone else about it though and fell short. 'Well, you see, he doesn't know what coffee and tea are - I mean he's heard of them but doesn't appear to drink either of them,' she pictured telling Adrian Veidt or Megan. 'But you said he was homeschooled,' she imagined in response. 'Maybe he was really sheltered.' Megan's voice, doubtful: 'I give you that it's weird, but is it like, invasion of the body snatchers weird? I don't know about that.'
"To your campaign," she countered, smile unwavering.
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Nov 10, 2019 16:04:48 GMT -5
Ashton took a sip of his drink and made a startled face.
“Oh- oh, that is delightful. Mmm. How’s yours?”
He immediately took another sip and then set down the cup at a distance, pushing it away from himself as though he needed better pacing. When he smiled at her again, it was more reserved and sly than before.
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Post by Teja on Nov 10, 2019 16:25:43 GMT -5
"It's very good," she said. It was beginning to sink in she had left a party to drink in a coffeeshop with a technical stranger, and she had started to regret it.
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Nov 10, 2019 16:30:58 GMT -5
"I'm sorry for taking you away from there- I only thought... we might be able to have a better- ah, discussion of what you hope to see. We can call it research, if we must."
His smile widened awkwardly.
"I'm sorry," he said again. "I'm not- back where I came from, I didn't have much in the way of... friends, you could say."
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Post by Teja on Nov 10, 2019 16:31:41 GMT -5
"Homeschooled, you said?"
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Nov 10, 2019 16:32:18 GMT -5
"Private tutors. And my mother, I suppose. Father took more of an interest in my brother."
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Post by Teja on Nov 10, 2019 16:37:17 GMT -5
"Weird environment, for you to not even know about tea and coffee," she said. Her tone wasn't judgmental - far from it. She was coaxing.
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Nov 10, 2019 16:50:15 GMT -5
“I knew of them!” he protested. “Is it- it can’t be that strange. I've only never had it before now- and it is, I might add, delightful-"
He looked doubtful now, though, and sighed.
"So I suppose that's not what the people want to hear, is it?"
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Post by Teja on Nov 10, 2019 17:01:34 GMT -5
"Have your campaign assistants put together how weird you are? Or is it an open secret?" She was having a hard time getting a picture of his campaign - not only his motives and plans, but what it even looked like.
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Post by Loki Odinsson on Nov 10, 2019 18:09:00 GMT -5
"No one's ever said anything about it, so I suppose it could be either," he reflected, perhaps a little glumly. "Though most of them are rather young-"
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Post by Teja on Nov 10, 2019 18:11:26 GMT -5
"And has tonight been a success for you?" she asked politely.
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