“In more ways than you know that was luck. /I/ might have cleaned it up,” Summer laughed, completing her circuit of the space. Carefully tucking her hands behind her back, she looked over Tony’s shoulder, watching the way his hands moved and trying to stay out of the way of his elbows and the light.
“But then, I’m not a nice person.” She found a clear bit of workbench and leaned her hip on that, fishing a well-loved ereader out of her baby knapsack and turning it on.
Tony quirked a brow and looked over at her. “Not a nice person,” he repeated, looking her over. “From where I’m sitting you seem nicer than most… What makes you think you’re not nice?” He asked, giving her a funny look, honestly a little confused.
“I say what I mean, instead of the polite thing. I tell the truth instead of social lies. I don’t need a man to hold the door for me, I treat ‘hello, how are you?’ as the sentence it is instead of a single-word greeting, and I give short shrift to people who actually interrupt my reading to ask me what’s printed on the spine of the book.” Summer shrugged, tapping at her screen. “I’m not a nice person.”
Tony sat back, folded his arms across his chest, and just looked at her for a moment as she used her device. “You think that makes you mean? I don’t see anything wrong with that, but, well, remember who you’re talking to. You just seem honest—kissing ass doesn’t make someone nice, it makes you fake. You’re strong. You care about people, but you don’t put up with idiots,” he said with a chuckle. “Like I said, I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
Her eyes flicked up to him. “Very few people actually see it that way.” Lowering the tablet, she bit her lip, then went on, “It takes a certain amount of … power, I guess, to be permitted to flout society without being tagged as ‘mean’. I just … know who I am. And sometimes who I am means I end up barging into places I shouldn’t be, doing things I shouldn’t do. Messing with other peoples’ stuff.”