Three's a Crowd || Sophie & Devlin
It felt odd, picking such a public location to "meet"-- really, it felt like an ambush. Sophie didn't have Devlin's phone number, and didn't want to ask Lisbeth for it, in case she suspected something was up (which she may very well have already). She knew where he worked, though, and it felt all the more underhanded for being someplace Sophie genuinely would have gone to visit, and dance, if things had been less... the way they always were, lately.
Still, she went by several nights in a row, altering her route to walk past The Spotted Cat and filter through the mental noise on her way until her mind snagged on someone familiar; and when that day came, she would. What? Go in? Make small talk while Devlin was on the clock? Hey, can I get a rum and coke, and by the way, about that murderer you were investigating, you make any headway on that? It would have to wait until after closing, of course-- way too much shit to fit into a smoke break-- and maybe Sophie would get kicked out of the building before she could get Devlin alone, while all the normal people whose friends weren't going to devil's balls just wanted this nosy customer out of the place while they locked up.
Well... Sophie would work it out when she saw him, then. Devlin would have to talk to her. Lisbeth was braver than Sophie ever would be, so Devlin had to be more pragmatic. Right?
It finally happened on a Thursday. She'd nearly walked past, wrapped in the other thoughts of her day, but still on alert, when she heard jazz-- and, more importantly, that Devlin was the one playing it, memories of music over the actual music and muscle memory going along with the rhythm of the crowd. Sophie swiveled on the spot, grinding her heel into the pavement to avoid being knocked over by the teenagers walking behind as they stumbled to avoid fully running into her, and she ducked into the Club, weaving between patrons to find a spot to sit down near the piano and wait.
