Alex loved it when guys took the easy bait. She’d been ready and willing to chat Daniel up a little more before she started throwing out some hints that she was hungry, but apparently just the mention of food had been enough to get him to invite her to a restaurant. As she flashed him another perfected smile, she could already taste the fresh, hot, top-of-the-line dinner that she would most assuredly be ordering no matter how expensive it was. She had to take her reward for putting this much effort into one meal, after all.

“Well, I’d hope so or I’d be a disgrace to all foodies everywhere,” she announced jokingly. In truth, she couldn’t really claim to have ‘good taste’ though. For as much as she loved the gourmet dinners she swindled out of rich, optimistic bachelors, she would take something found in a questionable dumpster just as eagerly. Anything to avoid risking an encounter with NYPD, really. So, when Daniel asked if she’d rather join him at 212 Steakhouse or keep pounding drinks at the bar, she didn’t even hesitate before her smile broadened into a grin.

“Well, I haven’t had dinner yet and all this talk about steak has got me hungry too, so what the hell? I’m up for a last minute adventure,” she said decidedly, taking one step away from the counter. Now that she had a date, she needed to let Caden and Whitney know that she was leaving, so she posed a quick distraction to her newest benefactor: “Don’t forget to close out your tab before we go anywhere. I’ve done that before, and coming back to a bar the next morning to get your credit card is its own walk of shame.”

With the lie, she subtly glanced around Daniel to locate Caden in his booth across the bar. Her friend was already keeping an eye on them, so all it took was a slight tilt of her head toward Daniel and a wink to let her homeless friend know that she’d cast out her line and gotten a bite. He nodded back to her and then quietly glanced at Whitney. Alex followed his gaze to update her redhead friend on her plan too, but as soon as she saw her, she could tell there was no point in even trying. Whitney and her beau for the night already had their tongues down each other’s throats, oblivious to everyone else around them as they made out away from the counter.

Alex shook her head amusedly and turned back to Daniel. They could just fill Whitney in when she came back to the construction site in the morning. “Looks like our friends hit it off,” she noted with a giggle, bringing his attention to the very entangled couple if he hadn’t seen them already. “We should probably get out of here. I can’t tell if they know they’re still in public, and I’d rather not be here to find out if they forgot.”

It seemed it was his lucky night as he watched Alex’s smile stretch into a grin at his suggestion. Her reaction earned a more genuine smile from Daniel, finding himself a bit charmed by her reaction as well as how smoothly things seemed to be going. As she reminded him to close his tab, he chuckled and gave a small nod. “Right. Just give me a moment.” he told her with a small smirk of amusement at her words before turning to flag down the bartender. Turning away from Alex, he leaned casually against the counter as he waited for the other man to step over to him.

Luckily it didn’t take long and the other man stepped over to him. “I just wanted to close out my tab. For Daniel Shen.” he informed the bartender who gave a brief nod before setting out on the task. He soon returned with the card as well as a receipt for him to sign. Finishing up the process, he stuck the card and his receipt into his wallet before tucking that away into his back pocket. With his business at the bar taken care of, he turned back to Alex. Interesting flickered into his gaze as he noticed her shaking her head amusedly.

His eyebrow quirked upward in question but he didn’t get the chance to ask before she spoke and brought his attention over to Eric and the ginger. Daniel smirked at the sight. It was rather typical of Eric to speed things along with any woman who was willing—which was very different than Daniel who preferred to at least hold some type of conversation before rushing into anything—but somehow the former frat boy managed to be even more shameless that usual. “Yeah, I’d rather not stick around for that either.” he mused wrinkling his nose at the thought. He turned his head to look down at Alex, shooting her a smile. “Come on, let’s go.” Daniel placed a hand on her back to help guide her with him through the crowd at the bar.

As they stepped towards the door, his gaze wandered over towards where the rest of his friends were. It was easy to catch a glimpse of their familiar faces despite the many unknown that passed him by on their way out. As suspected, his and Eric’s absence seemingly went rather unnoticed. Well, perhaps not unnoticed, but at the very least, it didn’t seem to hinder any merriment amongst the group as he caught sight of intoxicated grins and mouths opened with laughter. I’ll still text Trevor once I’m home… Last thing I need is for them to think I completely disappeared… he thought to himself as he turned his attention away.

Ever true to acting chivalrous, Daniel was quick to step forward to hold open the door for Alex once they reached the exit. Allowing her to step out first, he followed her out into the crisp night air. The enclosed and fairly packed bar had made him forget the slight chill outside. He looked down at Alex and smiled. “So, I was thinking, we could either having a sobering trek there since it’s not too far or we could hail a taxi. What do you want to do?” he asked.

It really was too bad that Daniel was just her chance at dinner for an evening. He was one of the most handsome men Alex had conned recently as well as the most interesting by far. Most of the time, the guys she left the clubs with were at least ten to twenty years her senior—sometimes more—and they all had a penchant for talking about themselves until she wondered just how far she could shove her fork through her ear. By contrast, the businessman beside her was obviously successful, but he was so good at downplaying his accomplishments that she found herself in the unfamiliar territory of actually wanting to ask him more about himself. It was a strange place to be, but for those eyes and that smile, she wouldn’t mind if he wanted to tell her about how he’d gone from wannabe rocker to the wolf of Wallstreet all night long.

…Platonically, of course. Her two whiskey cocktails on an empty stomach may have been demanding otherwise, but she wasn’t as impulsive as her friend, Whitney. She’d made a vow to herself that she would never go home with any guy she just met, and damn it, she was going to keep it, even if his chaste touch to her shoulders tempted her to reconsider her convictions.

Walking with Daniel out of the bar, Alex noticed that he continued to play the role of gentleman by holding the door open for her. She thanked him politely and stepped through the opening first, realizing belatedly that she probably should have brought a jacket. The night was brisk, and it was difficult to stay warm for someone who had almost no meat on her bones. The light breeze cut through her like a knife, but even when her “date” asked if she would prefer to hail a cab, she shook her head. “A walk sounds nice,” she lied. “No point in wasting the opportunity when our restaurant is right around the block. Let’s go.”

Really, sitting in the back of a taxi would have been far more comfortable, but two motivations compelled her to say no. The first and most prominent was that her drinks had gone straight to her head, and she needed to sober up a little, so she wouldn’t do anything stupid. The second was that vehicles were dangerous. As a rule, she tried to avoid them unless she absolutely had to climb into the back of a car for some reason. Once inside, she would be at the mercy of the driver, and she was aware that cabbies could be bought. Her past demons followed her wherever she went, so she couldn’t risk getting into a car and finding herself being whisked away to somewhere that she did not want to go. It was safer to walk, so she could run if she needed to get away quickly.

Hoping to distract from her subtle shivering, so Daniel wouldn’t notice and wonder why she’d picked the less comfortable mode of travel, she clasped her hands behind her back and casted him another smile. “So, where do you work?” she asking, selecting a topic that she felt certain he’d be interested in chatting about. There wasn’t a single person on the face of the planet who dressed as smartly as he did and kept his occupation to himself. Well, unless they were FBI, but the odds of that were so low that she’d take her chances.

Her choice didn’t make much sense to him. Daniel raised an eyebrow at Alex as she said that a walk sounded nice. It made him wonder if he had miscalculated her interest in him as she seemed a bit unwilling to consider the cab option. A cab would have given him a decent excuse to get a little closer to her during the short ride and it would have been more comfortable than walking out in the cold. The decision threw him off momentarily but Daniel was quick to recover. Biting back a small sting of disappointment over the decision she made, he smiled at her and nodded his head. "Alright." he said as he moved to fall in step besides her.

As she went on to ask him about his work, he smirked a little. "I'm a field director for a campaign firm.. Basically, I'm the guy who oversees events, canvassing, and managing the people who call to pester you about voting for their candidate." he explained with an amused glint in his expression. Daniel gave his shoulders a small shrug as he thought about his job. "We mainly run small local elections.. Anyways, my work's really not that thrilling but it pays good so I can't complain. But I can promise you that's the most boring thing about me." he added with a flirtatious wink. He kept the fact that his job was just a mere stepping stone to himself. Largely because he wasn't sure what her opinions on politics, or more specifically politicians were. A good amount of people didn't find them very trustworthy and that wasn't quite the label he was looking to have at the moment.

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants as the cold night air began to make them grow a little cold. Daniel snuck a glance towards Alex, wondering how she was faring. Surely she had to be at least chilly. Off handedly, he wished he had a jacket to offer her but since he hadn't planned on being outside on this late adventure, he hadn't bothered to bring one. Still wishing to offer some form of warmth, he shifted to walk a little closer to her. It obviously wouldn't help much but Daniel still hoped the close would bring her a little warmth.

"What do you do for work?" he asked, throwing the question back at her. While he doubted his career goals would come up if he kept speaking about his work—it was a fairly easy subject to avoid in his opinion—Daniel truly didn't find the contents of his career thrilling enough to discuss or dive into further. "Assuming that you aren't just a revered food critic, of course." Daniel joked with a small chuckle.

Campaign firm. Politician. Suddenly, Alex didn’t feel quite so bad about using Daniel for a free meal. Most people weren’t fans of the men and women who got involved with politics, but her opinion of them was even lower. To her, they were just the puppets of whoever needed an eager pawn to do their bidding, and she’d seen firsthand just how easily they could be bought. Her ex-boyfriend, Matt, had taken advantage of many a desperate campaigner in the past, offering to fund their tours or tamper with the votes to ensure their victories in whatever office they were vying for. They were almost as bad as the people she was hiding from, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from letting her disgust show on her face.

Easy does it. He doesn’t know what you know, and he doesn’t know who you are. Maintaining her composure, she plastered on her usual coy smile and laughed lightly at Daniel’s joke. At least now she knew why he hadn’t jumped at the chance to tell her where he worked. It was probably a good thing that she’d asked too, because the knowledge knocked her interest in him down a few pegs. Now that she was aware that he belonged to the army of minions of every damn mob boss in New York City, it was much simpler to look at him as just a man that she would hang out with for the night and never see again in her life.

Still, his unappealing occupation didn’t take away from the fact that he was handsome as all hell, so she didn’t have to pretend to enjoy it when he sidled closer to her.

When he asked what she did for work, Alex replied almost reflexively, “Well, if you really must know, I’m a model with Wilhelmina.” She flashed him her most stunning grin to really sell it. The answer was a lie, of course, but it was closer to the truth than most other jobs she could have picked. Wilhelmina was one of the two agencies that she had been approached by in the past. If she hadn’t been trying to keep her head down, she probably would have ended up working for them for real. Sometimes she regretted turning down their offer, since being a Wilhelmina model would have granted her access to some of the most prestigious runways in the western world, but alas, she wouldn’t last two months without taking a bullet to the head if she tried.

“I mostly do magazines. Fashion, swimsuits… lingerie,” she winked at Daniel suggestively. A quick Google search would reveal that there wasn’t a single catalogue with her photo in it, but that didn’t matter. She wouldn’t be sticking around long enough for him to start asking questions anyway.

The temperature around them was steadily plunging, but luckily, the steakhouse was right up ahead, so they would be free from the cold soon. As they walked towards the door and the sweet relief of central heating, Alex picked another trivia question to ask her companion, “So, have you always lived in New York or did you move here from somewhere else?”