Park watched the two go with a faint smile on his face, deciding if this 'Josey' character was even half as intimidating as their head of security made him sound...well, maybe it wouldn't hurt to stick around and scrub a few dishes. It was some time yet before he was to meet with Pauline, and the quiet familiarity of soap and bubbles was somehow more soothing than anything else he might have hoped for in the moment.
--
Deli couldn't remember having seen Pauline during the briefing, but that was hardly unusual. The young demolitionist was forever getting little details like that, and she was notoriously hopeless putting names to faces in the first place -- hence her penchant for nicknames, as with Curmy and Blue.
She had not, however, named Reece anything, and while she was more or less oblivious to Pauline's labored breathing, she hadn't missed the bit about being hired. Deli tilted her head to one side rather like an inquisitive bird, rolling an orange gummy bear around on her tongue as she tried to figure out why the simple line sat so strangely with her. Not bad, of course. Deli didn't dislike many people at all (she had been downright rude with Dr. Park, and she only "nothing'd" him), and certainly not anyone who was so willing to eat more than her fair share of the yellow gummy bears.
But it was strange. And she couldn't, for the life of her, place just why.
"He hired you?" Deli asked outright after a moment, her expression somewhere between awe and disbelief. "Wow, Reece must like you. Or you're real good at your job," she added with a grin, suddenly more curious than suspicious. "Hey, if you work with the training programs, maybe you can -- oh. Hi."
Deli dropped the sentence as abruptly as a child might drop an old toy for a new one when the newcomer walked up. She'd never been very shy, so she spared him only half a glance before getting back to the matter at hand -- her new friend, and her new friend's talents -- and then did a double take as her brain registered everything else about this stranger.
This absurdly, magazine-center-fold-of-the-year handsome stranger.
"...oh," said Deli again, and went abruptly, uncharacteristically pink. "Guay..."
She only barely registered that the newcomer was speaking to Pauline, or at all, and it was as if from a great distance she heard him ask after Pauline. Curiosity piqued in the back of her mind again, but it was quickly overwhelmed by the desire to keep staring at the new kid.
And to speak. She knew how to do that. Didn't she? Yes. Sort of.
"Do..." she stammered, then swallowed and tried again. "Do...you...bears?"