The Roof, Late Friday Afternoon

[whenshewasnice]

It was a nice day to be up on the roof. Warm but still not too hot for Natalie's taste. There was nothing weird going on in town, either, from what she could see. It looked almost normal, from up here

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[catchmeifyoucan]

Day five of exploring, and Frank had yet to visit the roof. This was being rectified.

"Hi," he said, stepping out onto the roof and shutting the door behind him. "We're... allowed up here, right?"

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie glanced back over her shoulder, flicking ash off the end of her cigarette. "To the best of my knowledge," she said. "Though I hear it's not as popular as it used to be."

There was no smokers' club. That suited her fine.

[catchmeifyoucan]

"Cool," Frank said, relieved. "'Cause I wanted to see what the view's like from up here, and it's better to do that without getting detention." He set off in the direction of the ledge, surveyed the view, and nodded. "Yep. Definitely better than New Rochelle."

[whenshewasnice]

"And where is that, then?" Natalie wondered, idly watching him. It wasn't entirely genuine curiosity, but sometimes she was still inclined to play nice.

[nottheshoes]

Roofs in George's mind were less for brooding on, and more for viewing the land from. There was something quite enticing about the idea of being able to see all that. At home he might have stuck to climbing trees, but here when there was this option... He would take it.

He wasn't really expecting that anyone else would, and he nodded a little greeting. "Will I be disturbing you up here?"

[whenshewasnice]

"It's a free roof," Natalie shrugged, glancing at him and brushing hair back from her eyes. "So to speak, anyway. I won't mind."

[nottheshoes]

That was close enough to an invitation that George was going to take it, and wander a little closer to the edge of the roof. "I hadn't been up here before, I was curious to see if it was a restricted one," he joked mildly.

"Is it often busy up here?"

[whenshewasnice]

"Not when I'm around, no," Natalie replied with an idle glance around. "But I usually come here early in the morning, or pretty late at night. So, I don't know what it's usually like during the day."

[shestheworst]

Luck would have it that Britta had some new smokes because she figured her employee discount at Turtle & Canary could be five-finger. When she got up to the roof to enjoy her ill-gotten rewards, she was actually glad to see someone else there, because she realized she'd forgotten her lighter.

"Oh, good," she said, spotting Natalie. "I'm not the only one who goes up here for one of these. Got a light?"

[whenshewasnice]

Natalie glanced at Britta, then fished her lighter out of her pocket and held it out for the other girl.

"Here."

Well, she could be nice without being too talkative.

[shestheworst]

"Thanks."

Britta took the lighter, bending over slightly as she took it the cigarette, and then drew in the first inhale before handing it back. She'd been way too long without one since her last pack went empty and she had no money, so she relished in the moment.

"You come up here a lot?" she asked, since she felt it was only polite to be social to the chick lending you her lighter.

[whenshewasnice]

And here Natalie would have done just fine without socializing. Because she could be a borderline hermit like that, sometimes.

"Not really," she said, anyway, even if her tone was a little absent. It was like that often. "Not during the day, anyway."