Thorn arrived at the café and went inside to get her coffee; she rarely relied on the waitress and would much rather irritate Valerie instead.  She purposely made sure her hand touched Valerie’s when she handed her money over knowing that as soon as she turned her back Valerie would scowl and pump out a quarter-sized glob of hand sanitizer.  Shadow and Thorn had no idea why the woman bothered working with the public if she was such a mysophobe.<br/><br/>She stepped back outside and looked around for a place to sit, but of course all of the tables were taken.  Weekday mornings from 5am until 9am always brought great business for the small café.  Thorn was about to settle on a bench near the sidewalk when he offered her a spot at his table.  Hesitantly she glanced around once more then smiled as she placed her cup on the table and sat down across from him.  “Thanks,” she replied in a soft voice before pulling her laptop out of her bag and turning it on.<br/><br/>She looked over at him as her computer was starting up and noticed that he was very tall, and quite good-looking.  A quick peek at his left hand told her he was also single.  Dismissing her evaluation of him she turned her attention back to her screen and took a sip of her coffee.  An alert popping up on the bottom right hand side told her of new emails and she clicked her inbox icon to get to work on replying to them.