Thorn was busy with replying to her emails when the man across from her spoke.  Seeing that he had extended his hand, she took it and replied, “I’m Thorn,” with a polite smile before looking back down at her screen.  She stared at her screen for a few moments to see if anyone would reply immediately to their emails and when no one had, she sighed and pushed the laptop over to the side.<br/><br/>Taking a sip of her coffee a conversation caught her ear and she frowned; seems Valerie was being her usual crotchety self and reprimanding the waitress for being too talkative to the customers.  “God, doesn’t that woman ever stop being so damn nasty to people?” she said mostly to herself then looked back over to Dino and smiled.  “I’m sorry…my friend and I have dealt with Valerie…that’s the woman behind the counter…for years now.  She just keeps getting nastier.  You would think that by now someone would have told her off…but it seems that everyone is afraid of her,” she said apologetically.<br/><br/>“So Dino, what kind of accent is that?  Where are you from?” she asked attempting to make small talk.  She had wanted to give Shadow some time to herself with Stine before heading back and for once, it was nice to be out alone…nice to be normal again.