Alex saw the waitress's sly smirk and shook her own head, just as amused.  Even when she worked in customer service she tended to assume every man and woman eating together was on some sort of date unless they looked related.

She listened attentively to Cole's talk of his stories.  They seemed interesting and she would be willing to read them if he were willing to share.  But she let him continue to talk about his poetry.  "Oh yeah, relationships ending bad are... Well it's the worst."

Since Cole gave a bit of his own history, Alex figured she'd give some of her own.  "I had a nasty breakup a couple months ago.  My ex, we were going really strong, you know?  We'd been together for such a long time, we even played around with the idea of getting engaged.  That was all until I found out she was cheating on me the last year or so of our relationship.  I had no idea!  I never saw her as the type to cheat but oh well."