Alex loved it when guys took the easy bait. She’d been ready and willing to chat Daniel up a little more before she started throwing out some hints that she was hungry, but apparently just the mention of food had been enough to get him to invite her to a restaurant. As she flashed him another perfected smile, she could already taste the fresh, hot, top-of-the-line dinner that she would most assuredly be ordering no matter how expensive it was. She had to take her reward for putting this much effort into one meal, after all.

“Well, I’d hope so or I’d be a disgrace to all foodies everywhere,” she announced jokingly. In truth, she couldn’t really claim to have ‘good taste’ though. For as much as she loved the gourmet dinners she swindled out of rich, optimistic bachelors, she would take something found in a questionable dumpster just as eagerly. Anything to avoid risking an encounter with NYPD, really. So, when Daniel asked if she’d rather join him at [i]212 Steakhouse[/i] or keep pounding drinks at the bar, she didn’t even hesitate before her smile broadened into a grin.

“Well, I haven’t had dinner yet and all this talk about steak has got me hungry too, so what the hell? I’m up for a last minute adventure,” she said decidedly, taking one step away from the counter. Now that she had a date, she needed to let Caden and Whitney know that she was leaving, so she posed a quick distraction to her newest benefactor: “Don’t forget to close out your tab before we go anywhere. I’ve done that before, and coming back to a bar the next morning to get your credit card is its own walk of shame.”

With the lie, she subtly glanced around Daniel to locate Caden in his booth across the bar. Her friend was already keeping an eye on them, so all it took was a slight tilt of her head toward Daniel and a wink to let her homeless friend know that she’d cast out her line and gotten a bite. He nodded back to her and then quietly glanced at Whitney. Alex followed his gaze to update her redhead friend on her plan too, but as soon as she saw her, she could tell there was no point in even trying. Whitney and her beau for the night already had their tongues down each other’s throats, oblivious to everyone else around them as they made out away from the counter.

Alex shook her head amusedly and turned back to Daniel. They could just fill Whitney in when she came back to the construction site in the morning. “Looks like our friends hit it off,” she noted with a giggle, bringing his attention to the very entangled couple if he hadn’t seen them already. “We should probably get out of here. I can’t tell if they know they’re still in public, and I’d rather not be here to find out if they forgot.”