Naomi had seen Nisha around on the Grimaldi campus before they met at the very interesting bar. Nisha was hard to miss and harder to forget.

But this was their first time hanging out on campus, not at work!

No! No, kids hang out! High schoolers hang out! Nisha and Naomi were… They were sitting and eating together on the tables outside the cafeteria. Was it a date? Did Naomi want it to be a date?

Maybe it was just hanging out! Nobody said college students couldn’t hang out, except for Naomi a second ago in her own thoughts!

Geez. The bat was distracting enough in her work clothes, how was she equally distracting in casual clothes? But Nisha’s casuals were a pair of short shorts and a tight tank top. Naomi couldn’t be casual around Nisha’s casuals…

“You’re so dashing in your bartender clothes,” Nisha said, staring Naomi up and down. “Never expected you to be a flannel and jeans girl on campus.”

She thinks I look dashing! Naomi internally squealed.

“You’re about my size,” the bat mused. “I have some outfits that’d look dynamite on you. The boys wouldn’t be able to tear their eyes away.”

And that sounded horrible. Naomi slurped loudly on her soda to buy time to think of a response.

“I… don’t really like being the center of attention,” Naomi eventually said. She’d apparently decided a semi-truth was her best option. “I was always having to dress up for events to make my parents look good and keep up with fashions to avoid standing out in high school… I like just dressing down for college. I can wear comfortable clothes and not worry about looking right or drawing attention…”

“I sorta know the feel,” said Nisha, seriously. She popped the last of her fruit cup in her mouth and licked her fingers. “My parents would freak if they could see my hemlines!”

Then she smiled a very toothy smile and her eyes glittered at Naomi.

“I hope you don’t mind a little attention because you’ve got this bat’s,” Nisha said. She threw her garbage away, stood up and brushed away some errant crumbs. “We should hang out more often, Miss Pretty Kitty.”

Naomi sputtered on her drink. “Come on with that!”

“You come on!” Nisha shot back playfully, walking away from the cafeteria.

Not really knowing where the bat would take her, Naomi nonetheless started following after her.

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I mentioned here and here that Naomi prefers casual flannel and jeans to dressing fashionably.

After the art challenge sketch, I started thinking I should get a picture of Naomi in her preferred outfit.

And ZombieD happened to have sketch pages on offer while I was thinking that thought. And that’s how things work out sometimes.

A sketch page of Naomi in clothes doesn’t need a story but it doesn’t not need a story either. So I gave it a little story of Naomi and Nisha hanging out for the first time so Naomi could explain her aesthetic to her soon to be closest friend.

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Naomi Concolor owned by me
Art by  zombied