When it came to work, Alex tended to dress down because when she was a younger reporter, she'd experienced more than her fair share of people discounting her simply because she was pretty when she was actually rather good at her job. So, it was trousers and blazers and scarves. Her fashion sense had gotten better here, or at least Alex was inspired to wear more things like dresses and less things like armor. That was the good part about Riverview having that small community feel: it meant that she knew a fair amount of the people here and they knew her and that she was actually both nice and a good reporter, neither of which had anything to do with how attractive she was.

Still, she couldn't help herself from laughing at the comment, because well, she didn't think it was at all true. After all, Alex knew herself, and she knew what a complete pain in the ass she could be at times, and that was tarnishment enough.

Her eyes moved over him, and what people sometimes forgot in all of the Alex-is-niceness stuff, was that Alex was a trained and skilled reporter who was good at reading people and knowing when there was something more going on than what they were saying. More often than not it was a skill she just used and then let go of, but sometimes it was harder for her to do it. Like now. So, once she was settled into the seat across from him, she just dropped her elbow onto the table and planted her chin into her hand (you can take the girl and put her in a fancy dress, but you can't change who she is.)

"Really, because I'm a good listener, Dorian. And it seems like you need someone to listen to you."