“I won’t be booting you just yet. Money is money. Besides, I like to prove the quality of my goods before I get snooty and turn away clientele.” He taps his trusty pocket again, another nod of promise to what he has ready for her. “And now you’ve made it a game. An interesting one at that.” The grin on his lips fades to a ghost of amusement, the kind that fails to reach his eyes. It’s an expression that promises there’s more behind his words, something there he will not say.
The ease of their banter dies sudden and Ezra finds himself listening. He listens, telling himself it’s what he’s meant to do to keep this transaction clean, that it’s the way to gain her trust and make his cut. But, if he were honest, he’s interested in her as well. He’s sat across from the blond for months, dealt with his fair share of frustration as her tutor. This is the first time he’s found himself genuinely intrigued by her. Sober, masks down and ego stripped, the nightmare pupil has become human. He wonders for the first time about this green eyed doe spilling fears like a wound from her lips. It makes him wonder when he lives to be removed.
“I get why the Margot and you are so close,” he comments softer, as if to himself. He’s not sure he wants to address her demons, not sure where it will put them. He mentions Margot to sound contemplative, to seem less interested even though the comment is honest. There are shades of them in one another and he thinks again how like calls to like. “Not stupid,” he stops walking, “You don’t want to be seen. Least of all by the rat.” His gaze is careful, effortlessly empty as he offers her a padded hand. “Correct?”
"Does that mean you've agreed to play?" she lifts a brow expectantly, mouth hosting the phantom of a bend, swaying in step to bump shoulders with her company. "If so," she starts, allowing a moment's pause for dramatics, "does that mean I get to cash in all past passes now? I think that'd earn me, like, three whole truths."
The mention of her counterpart prompts a neck to bend to meet the male's gaze, as though a floret twisting to steep in the sun's rays; Margot's name is enough to coax something luminous to the onyx of pupils, fondness pressing light to lungs. The pair of girls had similar demons, those who stretched feline between ribs with a penchant for similar vices. But it had always gone unsaid, causing Ezra's quiet proclamation to stir intrigue, and she nearly asks, but instead remains quiet.
His syllables snare a thread of truth, though her head tilts in contemplation, "no, Ezra, it has nothing to do with you being the rat," the notion causes the angles features to soften, "it's because I feel seen for the first time in ages by someone who doesn't even know me." She meets his gaze, shoulder lifting to a shrug, "and so I'm afraid, of you, of what you're thinking."