"Were?"
"Which subject were you studying," Raez clarified for the scientist after swallowing his water.

"Oh, you're a mathematician?"

"What do you do?" came the other question. One after another, it seemed.

"What are you planning to do?" Wiley looks interested. No telling if that's a good or bad thing.

"Maybe?"

"You don't think they want you?" Wiley was slightly smirking.

"Then take off the maybe. Employers aren't gonna hire someone with no confidence." Wiley smacked his glass with the straw lightly.

"I dunno, sometimes you seem snarky and sometimes you just seem underconfident. They don't like the two ends of the spectrum there."

"Don't need analysis to see snarkiness," he said.

"Exactly," he said with no further context.

"Need a refill?" The same waiter was around again, his brown eyes cheerful.

The waiter pulls Dion's water cup over to him and pours the water in quickly but carefully. He pushes it back thereafter.
"Here too please," Wiley said. "If you could, could you try to get some more ice in?"
"Please no, sir," Raez said.

"No problem!" the waiter called back after making the decision to give Wiley his ice water anyways.
Wiley looks happier than most people would be at a waiter giving him his mixed-solidification H2O.

(Withotu?)

(Thank you for your contribution)