"I'm at your door," Cassian let her know through the commlink.
"Copy that. I'm on my way." She turned to the hallway which led to the bedrooms and refresher, where Peg had just disappeared. "Peg! I'm going out!"
The response, muffled by the walls, came quickly. "Have a good time! And tell Cassian to take good care of you as well, or I'll do more than pull his ears, like when he was younger! And don't make any noise when you come back, a dodderer like myself doesn't sleep like a log anymore!"
Jyn rolled her eyes at the lady's antics. "Okay! Sleep well! And you're not so old, stop pretending that you are!," she almost shouted back, and after chuckling at Peg's loud snort, she walked back to the apartment's entrance door, went down the stairs and headed for the back door which led directly to the street. That way she didn't have to cross the shop to go out of the building.
Cassian was waiting for her with his hands inside the pockets of a coat which looked different and more new than the one he had worn the night they had met for the first time. The rest of his appearance was the same, with his dark hair a bit long, his roguish facial hair, the same spark in his deep brown eyes and the subtle smile on his thin but expressive lips. Jyn herself was wearing a new set of clothes she had acquired, in the Ferrixian style, comfortable and functional. She had added a new coat too from the used clothes shop (the old one was too worn-out to wear it for their night out, everybody dressed simply in Ferrix City but tidying oneself up a bit never hurt anyone) as well as a scarf and a pair of gloves, and had let her hair down. She didn't miss Cassian's quick appreciative glance, and she felt her cheeks burning a little. Again, that strange sensation invaded her in his presence and set butterflies in her stomach.
"Evening," he greeted her. "Had a good dinner? That old bat's feeding you properly, isn't she?" He made a gentlemanly gesture with his hand and started to guide her through the street, in the direction of the bar where they had agreed to meet Bix and Brasso.
Jyn huffed in fake annoyance. "You can say that. At this rate, I'll be so round that it will be easier to roll than walk."
Cassian laughed. "Yeah. Almost everybody is too thin in her estimation. She always tried to stuff me with treats when I was a boy, every time I came to the shop."
Jyn giggled in heartfelt acquiescence. "I can imagine that." Then she added: "She never allows me in the kitchen when she's cooking. Not that I care. I'm a terrible cook."
"Then it's a good thing that she's obsessed with feeding people. She hasn't had anyone to stuff since her grandniece left. I think the poor girl found herself a husband so she could have an excuse to escape and stop the fattening up she was being submitted to," Cassian joked.
They chuckled together and kept walking at a good pace. The night air was cold and Jyn wrapped herself better in her coat and tightened her scarf around her neck.
She could tell that Cassian was thrilled about whatever he wanted to reveal to her and his other friends, but he was doing a good job at restraining his excitement. She sensed that under his apparent restlessness, he was a patient man, a trait Jyn herself didn't have in abundance.
She had given up on trying to memorize the maze of streets. At last their destination was in view, a bar which looked like the rest of the buildings in the city, with nothing out of the ordinary, but Jyn liked the cozy, homey atmosphere of the place. The sounds of low music and people chatting inside reached her ears. She hadn't ever been in a bar or nightclub as a customer, but as a worker, either as a waitress, or both as a waitress and a prostitute. So many things were new to her since she had landed on Ferrix that it was almost dizzying.
Cassian seemed to sense her hesitation, and turned to her with soft eyes. "You sure you want to do this? We don't have to go in there or meet Bix and Brasso if you don't feel like it," he offered thoughtfully.
Jyn nodded firmly. She had never run from a challenge and wasn't going to start right then. "I do. I want to meet your friends, truly. They can't be so bad," she added in an attempt at teasing to encourage herself and show that it wasn't such a big issue.
"Well, you'll see for yourself," Cassian assured, also teasingly. "They're arriving right now." He pointed at two figures getting close to the bar entrance.
One of them was quite tall and almost bulky, and the other one was much shorter and slender. Cassian waved a hand at them and they returned the gesture.
"Hey, Cass," the newcomers said almost at the same time. "Hi," they greeted Jyn, and offered her their hands in turns in a welcoming handshake. "We are Bix and Brasso," the woman introduced politely. She had long, wavy brown hair she wore partially braided and big brown eyes in a comely face scattered with small freckles on her nose and cheeks. Her skin was slightly tanned in a pretty way that enhanced her beauty. But she gave off a toughness, a strength that belied her delicate appearance. Even if that young woman hadn't gone through the extreme hardhips Jyn herself had (and Jyn was glad for it, Bix looked like a good person and Jyn had no reasons to wish her any harm), Jyn by then knew that life wasn't easy to anyone on Ferrix. Most people there worked hard and any form of luxury was a foreign notion.
As for Brasso, he made Cassian look almost skinny in comparison. He too had dark hair wich was beginning to turn grey, and he wore it shorter than Cassian. He also had a seemingly perpetual five o'clock shadow on his cheeks and on his square, strong jaw. His eyes were green and kind. His large hands were heavily calloused. Jyn had noticed their roughness when shaking hands with him.
Jyn instantly liked the pair of them. "I'm Jyn. Glad to meet you."
"Well, shall we?," Cassian prompted. "Before we freeze out here."
The others chuckled and nodded in eager agreement, and the four of them crossed the double doors into the warm and packed interior.