He eyed her with a cocked eyebrow as the waitress left. "Maybe," he said with a touch of finality. Quinn began gathering the dishes and stacking them neatly - a thing he had learned to do back when he was living with Rachel and she was working as a waitress herself. She'd look over at other tables and remark on the mess and how people were so rude to leave shit everywhere. Since then he had always made sure to stack the plates in the most secure manner, keeping the trash on one stack and the silverware on the other for easy washing, depositing, and garbage removal. Quietly he thought about what he would text Mal about.
They were friends, of course, and they had had each others' numbers for more than a year. Occasionally they would send each other texts about dumb things - memes, funny things they saw in person that reminded one of the other, or updates like parking spaces when there was a show or event afoot. But they didn't really talk - that was too personal. Every conversation they had in person began a bit tense for Quinn and relaxed instantly and became easy. He liked Mal - he was easy to talk to, to connect with, and he had a great sense of humor. They had bonded about aquarium fish, Jerry, and other small things, but everything was always relaxed - once past Quinn's initial nervousness.
The waitress came back just as Quinn finished stacking the dishes and dropped the boxes and the check on the table. "No rush, whenever you're ready," she said warmly and took the stack of dishes from the table. Quinn, having the better angle to see the waitress coming, was prepared to snatch the check off the table the second it touched down. "Aha!" He said as he beat Rachel to the punch of getting the check. "Haha, I'm getting this one," he decided, already with wallet in hand. The last time he had this opportunity with her it had been years ago and he had significantly less money to his name. "We'll call it payment for allowing me to have my bitchfest."
He took out enough cash to cover the bill and the tip - 20%, because these bitches worked like servants and needed to eat too, dammit - and put the server book on the edge of the table. "Now, do I get to have you for the rest of the day? Because there's tons of trouble we could get into today if you were down."