Listening intently and laughing gently at her jokes, Page had by now finished his tea, setting his mug next to the still half-laden plate of cakes. As he glanced down, the electronic courier came into his view.
Hmmm, I suppose that'll be why she's so distracted, Thomas thought, I don't even know if I could stomach a cake with news like that hanging over my head... it's good to have a chat and a wind-down though.
"I didn't realise how hard it was to get the proper training in Liberty - a lot of hoops to jump through. You don't seem to have gotten too snagged on any of them, and look at you now on the Ravenswood. Not to mention some fairly decent fighter skills, and from what you've said that's a massive improvement from how you started off in the Air Force," he said with a teasing grin. "You definitely seem to have had an interesting career so far, hopefully plenty more to come. And if you pick up a few culinary skills on the way, all the better." Thomas laughed at his own joke here, remembering some of his mates at uni who had no idea what they were doing with the simplest of meals.
Thank goodness my mum had me helping out before I flew the nest. Useful to fend for myself, and for impressing any house-guests... he thought.
Page was interrupted by Christy, who had come over to refill his mug. She seemed to have been paying attention the whole time and was being as kind and helpful as usual.
"Here you go Tom, saw you were out of tea. Let me know if either of you two need anything else," she said before retreating back behind the counter.
"Thanks Christy, will do." Turning back to Mel, Thomas got back to the topic at hand. "Anyway, eh... ah yes. Things were a lot easier for me: I'd been getting lessons from my grandfather from 14. This was after years of pestering him of course - growing up with a senior-ranked policeman in the family fills a young boy's head with fantastical ideas. Stories about his adventures had kept me interested all my life, now I have a few to tell. There are always adventures to be had as part of the student lifestyle too, but I think Gallic battlefleets trump drunken shenanigans any day."
Since he had maintained a similar level of attention on Tyler as he spoke, Page had still left his tea the whole time. Thinking it a good time to start on that, he moved the conversation back into her court:
"I think I've talked enough about me for now, so what about you presently? How do you cope with being based from a carrier in foreign space like the Ravenswood? I would assume it's fairly different from me and my appartment planetside at any rate..."
