"Does this place have hotel rooms or are you planning to scandalize the patrons?" Bella asks dryly.
Just the two of them. If Bella wants to follow, she can, but he figures this isn't the kind of thing she's going to want to watch in person.
But she keeps up the read.
And orders a milkshake and looks for someone else to pass the time with, because she doesn't think she can read Alice in Milliways if she goes home.
Meanwhile, perhaps that tastefully dressed businesswoman who is just sitting down at the bar and ordering a protein shake would be interesting to talk to.
Bella plops down next to her. "Hi. I'm bored. Who're you and where are you from?"
"Bella, not Bored. Mars, 2005," Bella says. "Nice to meet you."
Roberta's eyebrows lift. "That's definitely new. I'm not sure whether to congratulate you, or sidle away."
"I am a benevolent sorceress-empress," says Bella. "I'm just looking for a way to pass the time while my boyfriend makes out with his psychotic alternate self upstairs."
"That sounds... trying," says Roberta. "The boyfriend part, not the benevolence part. The benevolence is reassuring."
Upstairs, they are in the process of shifting from making out to things involving fewer clothes and more sharp objects. Alice is having lots of fun. So is the Joker.
"I'm a little concerned about leaving him alone with that guy, who is basically my boyfriend with a couple extra decades and not enough friends in high school and a tendency to commit terrorism. But I can read my boyfriend's mind and he's having fun. He has weird tastes."
"Good for your boyfriend?" she hazards, looking mildly unsettled.
"I suppose. When I met my alternate all we did was discuss trade agreements between empires - hers involves more vampires, less Mars, but still, respectable - but to each their own. You ever met one of you in here?"
"I haven't," she says. And, smiling: "If I did, I don't think it would involve making out or negotiating trade agreements."
"You know, I really have no idea. But I don't have an empire and I'm not interested in making out with myself, so..."
"Well, yes, those would be the reasons not to go my route or my boyfriend's," snorts Bella. "What do you do?"
"I manage the family business," she says. "In theory. In practice, other people do most of the managing."
"And you... stand around looking important? Sit in a corner office and stamp your signature on things? Golf?"
"I'm running on pure stereotype. But come on, this is making you sound boring, and I didn't think boring people were invited in here."