The slight frame of the woman teetered back from the second run-in, a wash of realization stirring the dazed expression. Her jawline lost its tension and a smile of prim even teeth were bared against the obscure lighting. When he leaned in to speak she caught a whiff of bile and immediately understood that Gabriel, her old friend, was past the point of no return. He had popped the cork on his happy hour, and Nadine crinkled her nose at the smell. “Yep! I need a drink!” she agreed, her meticulously penciled eyebrows arching with visible concern. "And I'm guessing you have a fast-track ticket to the bar here?" In jest she pulled on the hem of his shirt, tongue flicking out flirtatiously in the change of events.

It hadn't been her intentions to run into somebody like this but it made her feel bolder in the luck bestowed. As they made their way up to the island counter serving as a generous self-pour station, Nadine's consciousness was plucking up memories whose details wanted to ask more out of him. Gabriel seemed a jaded kind of novelty, seemed off his rocker, he had been off her radar. Despite being a self-admitting hermit, she kept a vice grip out on the pulse of some parts of town. She was avid on putting out her artwork on campus at the university and setting up inside of every coffee shop, restaurant, pub, hole-in-hell places, selling them to keep the bills down with her full-time lifestyle.

"I seriously thought you took a powder, Gabriel. Where the fuck have you been? Did you bring your sister?" She swiveled around him, hand out eagerly for that little cup of awesome sauce. For a moment she flinched, timidly eyeing over his shoulder, trying to remember if Gabriel's sister was even old enough to drink.