megansmanymisadventures:
Megan beamed - point one on the side of this maybe being a date. “Thanks! It’s good to see your face. See you.” Offering to pay for food? Point two. Just create a mental mind map to decide how things were going and things couldn’t possibly go wrong, right?
Alternatively, she could just be reading into things because a cute guy was being nice. They ordered their food before Atticus led the way over to a table, settling in to wait for their food and have a chat. Atticus launched into questions, leaning into the conversation. Point three, maybe?
“I mean, if I was going to drop out, I probably should have done that during undergrad,” Megan said, “so as much as I want to bury the profs under the textbooks-” she held her hands out to demonstrate how thick some of the textbooks were, “-I’m toughing it out. Only a bit more of classes and then the board certification exams and, voila, legal drug dealer. But not.” There were, of course, added complications. If she dropped out her parents would probably actually murder her. And she’d probably wind up being her friend’s human-translator instead of doing work that was meaningful just to her. Megan did not do excellent life choices, but getting murdered by her parents or getting murdered by someone pissed off by an obtuse scientist were life choices she knew well enough to avoid.
“How about you? How is the job? And-” nope don’t mention any connection to the whole Tumblety mess, “-yeah, how are things?” Excellent recovery. Sticked the landing.
Atticus listened quietly, nodding along as Megan spoke. Although he’d been considered a prodigy, he knew the struggle personally. The amount of times he’d considered dropping out, for a multitude of just south of slightly inconvenient reasons, was inordinate.
Atticus cocked an eyebrow at her last sentence before smirking, “Well, I can confirm you would make more money dealing drugs illegally.” Okay so maybe that wasn’t the most convincing argument to stay in school. She doesn’t need to know that. Or question why you know that. “Although, perhaps, there are more important things than how much you get paid. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble on your exams at all. You’re smart.” Not so smooth save but good enough? Yeah this was definitely harder than talking to executives about investments.
He hadn’t really considered that Megan would turn the question back around onto him, hardly even noticing her slight stumble in speech. Humming in contemplation, Atticus sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Well, the wealthy of Harris are collectively losing their minds over this threat on Mr Tumblety. Apparently an attack on one of them is the equivalent to an attack on all of them,” he chuckled half-heartedly, thinking of all his clients who were currently scrambling to protect their wealth, his own parents included. “Do you know what I mean? How does that saying go? Something about birds and flocking. Almost like a rich people hive mind,” he continued, making flapping motions with his hands. He’d never been particular good at english idioms but hopefully he was getting his message across.
Okay, this isn’t exactly “pleasant” conversation Atticus. “Maybe we shouldn’t about this today, though. It’s a bit too unsettling for casual conversation, isn’t it?” he asked, dismissing the topic with a slight wave of his hand, even though he’d been the one to bring it up in the first place. The topic wasn’t exactly casual date friendly. Perhaps he should have made up something else, something more vague, like he usually did when others inquired about his life. There was just something about Megan that made him want to be honest. Like he could be honest.
“Ah, perfect timing, food’s on its way,” he said, nodding to the server heading towards their table, silently thanking whatever good karma sent this distraction his way. After their food was settled on the table and he’d thanked the server, Atticus turned his attention back to Megan. “Everything look okay?” he asked, “I can ask them to fix it if anything is wrong.”
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