The woman was infuriating. Rob stared as she seemed to brush off nearly all of his comments with ease; it was if nothing he said was getting through to her. Of all the remarks she had to latch on to, the one about her former house was the one she chose to become irritable over? Rob shook his head slightly with disbelief. Did Skyla not remember earlier in the evening, where she had seemed to take such pride in her vindictiveness with the blonde? “As a Slytherin, I have very little expectations of you at all,” Rob hissed through clenched teeth. Immediately, he began to feel some slight sense of guilt. What right did he truly have to judge Skyla? If he judged himself based on appearances alone, he had to admit he would probably loathe his own person.
Quidditch players were, after all, not generally known for their insight or cleverness. Most people probably saw him as a brute with no thoughts other than ones focused on the sport. Rob didn’t much care for that line of thought- he took pride in his job. There was nothing better than the feeling of flying, of the camaraderie of the team as a whole. Skyla really didn’t have any right to use his job as a negative mark against him. Rob remembered the slight conceit with which she had held out her card and talked about her profession, and wanted to remark on this. Before he had a chance to utter a syllable, she asked him a question.
Skyla was right, of course. Rob refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing his agreement in the matter, and stood there with his arms crossed, wanting to see if an apology was in the offing. Reflexively he reached out as she handed his jacket back to him, shocked by the sudden turn in the conversation. She was leaving? Rob wanted to protest, but all that came out of his mouth was a muttered, “You’re welcome.” Skyla walked off around the corner and was gone.
Rob shrugged back into his jacket, noting that it still smelled faintly feminine, although Skyla had only been wearing it a short while. With her sudden departure, it was if someone had poured water over the fire of his anger, quenching it. He winced as he thought over the past few minutes and his actions in them. Where Skyla had at least looked like she was about to try and mend things, he had only dug himself a deeper hole. Rob started to walk the few blocks to his flat, too paranoid of splinching himself to apparate. He felt a familiar object in his pocket, and grinned. He still had her card. Perhaps this wasn’t the last he would see of Skyla. Next time, Rob promised himself, their meeting would take an entirely different direction. He headed off to his home feeling decidedly more cheerful than he had in quite some days.
