三角関係!

[paper_animals]

Who: Maggie, Howell
What: Howell, he gonna play
Where: Staff Break Lounge
When: Monday at lunch (slightly forward-dated)
Warnings: Howell is a player.

Comments

[hywelincymru]

Howell wasn't in the habit of taking his lunch in the teacher's lounge, but there were some times where he simply had to escape his students. Some of them were particularly enthusiastic about learning - and some of them were particularly enthusiastic about him, something he attempted to stop before it started. America was not forgiving about that kind of thing legally.

But he disliked sitting alone, so when he saw a pretty woman with her nose buried in a book, he took the liberty of sitting down at her table. "Not exactly the type of reading I would have expected, Ms. Mui," he said with a smile. His own thick, leatherbound volume got placed on the table next to his lunch.

[hywelincymru]

"You're having me on," Howell said, surprised. "A detective agency, really? That sounds like a tidy bit - wouldn't have left it myself."

He leaned back in his chair a little. "Good old stuffy Wales isn't someplace I miss," he said. "Although I suppose it is as far as all that, when you mention it."

[paper_animals]

She grinned a little. "Big sis called it a detective agency, but really all we were ever hired for was to find lost books or cats. It wasn't as fancy as the detective stories make it out to be." When he talked about Wales, though, he sounded like he wasn't exactly telling the truth. Briefly she thought about her copy of A Small Country by Sian James, wondered if Howell had ever met her. "Do you have any family back in Wales, Howell?"

[hywelincymru]

"My awful nag of a sister," Howell said lightly. Truth be told, he did miss certain parts of Wales, but it wasn't worth going back - not when he would have to put up with his family's incessant jabbering about his career and all the scandal he had brought to their family. "My bloody successful father and my awful nag of a mother. Nobody worth missing at all."

He gave her a smile, attempting to direct the conversation onto something that wasn't his family. "Sounds like you've done a lot of people a good turn," he said.

[paper_animals]

Somehow she got the hint-- Howell was not too fond of his family, though his homeland would occupy a place in his heart.

She shrugged a little. It wasn't a really successful job, and it covered for when she had to go out for the collectors' requests, so she would not argue. Honestly she wasn't really fond of having to work at all-- if she could just curl up in, for instance, the British Library, and read forever, she'd be content with life.

"I guess you could say that..." she said after a little awkward pause.

[hywelincymru]

Awkward was something that Howell tried to avoid at all costs. "Ah, well, the past is past and that's what matters," he said brightly.

His attention directed back at the book - back at Maggie's fingertips resting lightly on it. His mouth quirked into a bit of a smirk. "Would you like to borrow that?"

[paper_animals]

Her eyes widened for a second, and then looked down at her hand, which was still on Howell's book. Somehow, just by touching it, she was able to enjoy it a little bit. She shifted in her seat, rubbing her knees together slightly. "Could... could I?" she asked, sheepishly, and ran her fingers again across the leather surface, felt the deep, heavy stitches under her fingers.