Met her once previously, then spent an evening with her and some mutual friends at an art thing. Gravitated together all night, had a huge range of banter & deeper conversation, and some flirting & mild kino.

She lives near me so I walked her most of the way home, and when we split I said something along the lines of "hey, I quite like you, want to get to know you more, let's go do blah." Her response was mixed; her facial expressions seemed to show interest/attraction, but she was verbally hesitant because she "just got out of a 5 year relationship, haven't dated in a long time." I played it pretty relaxed, joked something like "that's okay, you can practice with me" and said goodnight.

How should I proceed here? Of course I'm romantically interested, but I'd also be totally down for something super casual. Even just friends would be fine, I'm always looking to surround myself with more great people. I've only really spent one evening with her, so I guess my main goal is to just hang out a bit more and see what happens.

What's the best way to a) make another hang-out happen and b) communicate the above to her?

Or do you think her "just got out of a relationship" thing was just a polite rejection and I should completely move on?