Joe's Tavern Had Come To Serve A Very Specific Purpose For Zahra. It Was Dark And Dingy, And The Drinks

My era rn is uncategorizable. The the way I am living is unheard of

Zahra watched as Ryan went to pick up the bag, quietly grateful he had happened to be there and didn't seem to be in too much of a hurry. "I guess this is my sign to hit up the gym," she muttered, slightly jealous just how easily the bag had lifted. "God no", Zahra spurted as he acquired whether she had actually read the books, "but I can't be paying overdue fees on all of those." Doing a postdoc in humanities wasn't exactly the most lucrative of jobs and there were far more fun ways to spend a good chunk of money. She nodded as Ryan spoke. "Okay, good. There's certainly a lot of flammable material there," she mused, following him quietly. "I'm okay. Work's keeping me busy." It wasn't a lie, not really, even if she hadn't really achieved much in the past few weeks. "I guess you must have been equally busy?"

—those were a lot of books to actually be any lighter than they looked, which made him smirk a little at her argument. “hmm,” was the only eligible response he could give. lifting the bag with ease —contrary to her he has been doing a lot of heavy lifting, daily, and the bag basically weighs nothing for him— he looked at her, a little amused. “you’ve actually read all these?” he questioned before nodding a little to her query in turn. “just a routine check.” Ryan responded as he reached out to pull the library door open, and gestured for her to walk in first. “how have you been? it’s been a while since I’ve been around…” they usually met at unholy hours, that’s how he had ended up meeting her, but his work schedule had been busy lately, plus he wanted to spend more time at home with Neva when he could; it left little time to venture when he couldn’t sleep.

Zahra was glad Matt seemed to be comfortable with keeping the conversation flowing, meaning she could take a backseat and concentrate on listening. It suited her just fine. She could remember her first few weeks in the city, how exciting and big it had felt. She had worn down her very favorite pair of shoes with the amount of walking she had done, completely in awe of her new home. "Those are still good places to visit. Although I guess the glitz and glamour wears off eventually." She glanced at him quickly. "What do you plan on doing now that you live here?"

"Oh..." Matt brought his fingers to his own lips and closed them with an imaginary zip. "You got it." He smiled kindly and started walking out of the library towards the hot outside. "That's all I know about New York, places to eat." He chuckled. "Whenever we visited with my family, all we did was go out to eat and visit all the parks and museums and... well, libraries." He gestured behind them. "But the tourist life is behind me now."

"But wouldn't that be a beautiful way to go? Being flattered to death. That being said, I would very prefer if you were to stay alive." While making friends had always been somewhat of a daunting task to her, Zahra valued the friendships she had immensely. Yes, she still struggled to open up and share, but that didn't mean she actually wanted to push people away. She was making a conscious effort and luckily Vismaya seemed to appreciate it.

The undeniably delicious smell of the pizza reminded Zahra that while seeing Vismaya was definitely her main priority, she was also quite eager to eat. Having come to realize she hadn't remembered to do a real grocery shop in days, she had raided her snack cupboard earlier in the day, but the pizza in front of her certainly seemed far more appealing than the Goldfish and trail mix she had inhaled. Her head snapped up as Vismaya informed she would paying be paying for the evening. "No way. Can't allow it," she replied with a firm shake of her head. Her father had taught her many important life skills, and somehow fighting over the bill was certainly at the top of the list. Admittedly he was far more creative, often faking toilet breaks in order to pay when others least expected it. "But if you insist, you will have to let me pay for the next two times we go out to eat or have drinks," she added, not wanting to draw out the conversation when they were about to have a good time. Not that Zahra was all that eager to talk about herself.

"I'm okay. Having kind of a writer's block," she admitted with a sheepish smile, "but I'm sure it'll pass. Has happened before." It was true, she had struggled with inspiration before, but somehow this time felt different, more final in a way. "Honestly, haven't been doing anything too exciting stuff since I moved back. But I'm happy to be properly back in New York." That was at least true. "How are you? Hopefully your life is more thrilling than my current existence."

Few people made the cut of occupying Vismaya's extremely limited free time as of late, and Zahra would always be one of those people. Though, Vismaya didn't entirely consider her own company a treasure as of late, feeling like she had formed a habit of monopolizing the conversation just to talk about workplace fusses and, as always, her mother. However, tonight, she wanted to truly catch up with her friend, as she thought of Zahra often and fondly, and had a vested interest in the girl's wellbeing. "Z, I swear you are going to flatter me to death one day. My blood will be on your hands. My beautiful, beautiful blood," Vis teased, her nose scrunching as she giggled at her own lame joke. "Pizza is always the perfect place to start. And it's damn good, too." At that, Vis gingerly placed one of the small ceramic plates in front of her friend, and then helped herself to another slice. "So, firstly, order whatever you want, tonight is on me, and I'll be having no arguments about that, so, shh. Secondly, please tell me how you've been doing. I know I saw you a few weeks ago, but it still feels like it's been a full calendar year."

Zahra couldn't count the amount of times she had been chastised for being too direct or straightforward, but she honestly could not understand why it was such a problem. She had just saved herself precious time and energy by deciding they would leave at that very moment and head elsewhere. Somewhere with better beer, no doubt.

"No. Midwestern. Went to university here, though." Explaining she had done her doctorate in the city sounded awfully pretentious and she didn't care to discuss the subject in the slightest. She reached into her pocket for her cigarettes, holding one up in the air. "You mind if I smoke?"

Theo was pleasantly surprised that the other took their offer so quickly so they flagged the bartender, pulling out their phone to pay for both their drinks and jumped down from their stool. "Lead the way, love." They followed after the brunette out onto the New York streets they are still so unfamiliar with. Manchester is far from a small town but nothing compares to this, not even close.

"Are you a proper New Yorker, then?" they asked, curious.

Zahra studied them briefly, eyes intense as she scanned them from head to toe as if trying to come to a conclusion of some sort. "Plenty of pubs in NYC as well. You just have to know where to look. Some of them are real tourist traps," she replied with a shrug. What couldn't you find in New York City? It was easily one of Zahra's favorite things about the city, the sheer scope of options for activities, food, and drink. "That's fair." She had never liked those places either.

She fell silent for a moment at their question, then reached for her bag and stood up easily. "If it's good beer you want I can think of few places in the neighbourhood."

Theo turned to her a little, leaning closer to hear her better and paid attention to her every word. "In England, a place like this would be exactly where you'd find the good beer." They explained after hearing her. "The specialty places are usually full of posh twats that don't know what good beer is."

They gave their tumbler a last swirl before they down the rest of the whiskey, putting it down but their fingers linger on it, thumb stroking the edge. "Can I buy you a beer sometime in one of those specialty places, then?" Theo turned to her again with a bit of a cheeky smile.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT TASK #002

a zahra hamed moodboard

"I can imagine. Did you like LA? I mean, I feel like it would be vastly different from New York. Never been," she admitted. While she had nothing against he West Coast, California or even Los Angeles, she had never had any real reason to visit. The family she had in the states lived mostly in the Midwest, and she had spent her adult years in the Southeast and East Coast. "Different vibe, right? I guess you could say the weather is nicer."

Zahra didn't have to open the menu to know what she wanted. She could be a creature of habit, often frequenting the same restaurants she had once deemed good. Still, she took a look as if trying to make recommendations. "All of the pasta is pretty great. Can't say a lot about the meat since I don't really eat it."

They took a turn around the corner and he followed her to the place she knew as they continued chatting. He found it really easy to talk to her even though she seemed very serious and wanted to shake him off at the beginning, she warming up to him apparently and it felt nice. Uncomplicated. "I've lived in LA so I'm pretty used to having options of things to do. Too many options actually. When I first got there at eighteen, I wanted to do everything all the time. The last couple of years I was in bed by ten." He laughed at himself. Thirty-nine hit pretty hard.

Once inside the place, he rubbed his hands together, looking around. "Okay, what's good here? I'm actually starving." he chuckled.

She grimaced visibly before nodding. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine," she hurried to assure despite feeling anything but fine. Still, it was none of this stranger's business and not something she wanted to burden him with. "It's just hot. It was quite the way to get those books here." Despite her resistance, Zahra did eventually sit down, the physical exhaustion catching up with her. "Thank you. I'm Zahra, by the way. Thank you for you help."

The change in her demeanor worried him immediately. He frowned and stepped a little closer but not too much as to invade her space. "Hey, are you feeling okay?" he asked, looking around the library. "Do you want to maybe sit down?" made a move to lead her to one of the chairs nearby, not able to actually grabbed her because his arms were full of her books that they hadn't returned yet.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT TASK #001

a zahra hamed playlist