Heather
In the course of an evening, BeerBurpDouche turned into Alex. Simply, and a bit endearingly: Alex. He has a twin brother and no pack, he reads a lot and plays the drums, and he actually cooks a meal when he makes ramen. She knows things about him. She thinks this humanizes him, then catches herself and remembers that no, he's not human. It reminds her that she isn't, either.
That's an odd course of thought to have on Thanksgiving Day, helping set the table for a group of about eight people who all met in college or through college friends. None of them know what she is. She is not human, and they all are. It isn't the first time she thinks of it in the time between ramen and the holiday weekend, either. When she got home and her roommates were filled with questions about how it went, she wondered how they would take the news that she was playing Xbox with a lonely werewolf.
Not that she'd tell them. Secrecy was pretty well explained and ordered when she visited 'headquarters'. She goes to work, she does the dishes, she walks her dog, she jogs her usual circuit, and she doesn't tell anyone that she's kin to werewolves.
Are you going to see him again? Julie asked, after Heather avoided mentioning what he was wearing or what his apartment was like or that dinner was ramen or that they played Xbox, which are all unimportant details anyway.
Yeah... she said, brushing Bubby on the floor, his sides moving as he pants with happiness. He mentioned seeing a movie or something after he gets back from Florida.
She smiled a little, even though she really doesn't want to go sit in a movie theater for two hours when she's trying to get to know him, even though her usual idea of a date that involves a movie theater is one with lots of muffled gasping and ignoring the movie anyway. After how awkward things got when she kissed him last time, that's not really on the table in her mind. But still: yeah. She'll see him again. And it makes her smile a little to think of it.
He gets back after the weekend, and he does let her know he's back in town, but then it's just one thing after another for the rest of the week. She ends up having to stay late at work. Then there's Melissa's birthday. And Alex gets into some kind of scrape, but he's fine, he just needs like... a couple of days, and he's really vague about what is so wrong that it's going to take him that long to heal, and it bothers her a little as she hangs up the phone after that conversation that this is something she's thinking about like it's normal. Shakes it off and feeds her dog.
Finally they're coming up on the first weekend of December and it's Friday night, it's America's Official Date Night, and last night he texted to ask if she was actually free tonight, and there was a ! at the end of her Yes, a sort of quick excitement that translated even through a very little bit of text. So they'll go out. And get some dinner, maybe catch a movie afterward, just sort of... see how the night goes. She'll be at his place at 7.
And she is, driving up that little red car of hers with its suprising array of features and getting out, heading up his stairs and down to his door, giving it a quick flurry of hey hey I'm here knocks. When he answers, he discovers that no, she doesn't always wear skirts or Fancy Clothes, as his mind might categorize it. Heather is wearing a pair of dark, slightly bootcut jeans that only seem to accentuate how narrow her hips are, how unbelievably long her legs are. Her shoes -- which, truthfully, he probably doesn't notice anyway -- have a subtle two-inch heel, so she's not quite as tall as he is. They are also quite adorable, which he also probably doesn't notice, all t-strapped and two-toned and a little retro.
Heather grins when she sees him, and really, what matters most to his eyes right now is probably all from the waist up anyway. Underneath a trim gunmetal-colored leather jacket she's wearing a lightly patterned (though mostly blue and white) top with -- again -- a v-neck, but this one has some nifty ruffling down her body, front and center. Her belt is black. So is the bracelet that is a single narrow strip of leather wound multiple times around her wrist. That long hair of hers is pulled over one shoulder, loosely braided. She's got a lot of freckles. Her clutch is white suede.
"Hey," she says. "You ready to go?"
Alex
When Alex answers the door, he's actually dressed up for the occasion. Unfortunately, lacking anything approaching first real date attire, and also distinctly lacking any real fashion sense of his own, he's obviously appealed to one of the Bros at the Caern for help. So it is that Alex shows up looking somewhat awkward and uncomfortable in jeans and a salmon-colored polo shirt with a popped collar.
"Hey," he says. "Yeah, totally."
He's stuffing his wallet in his back pocket, grabbing his keys off a hook just inside the door and - last but certainly not least - grabbing a red motorcycle jacket off a hook on the back of the door. There are hooks everywhere in his little apartment; hooks and cubbies and other little stash-spaces that he needs to keep random paraphernalia from simply swelling up and swallowing him whole.
"You like Mexican?" It's not really that cold outside; not cold enough for a tanned, ripped, heat-shedding furnace like him to need a jacket. He pulls the bike jacket on anyway, seems a lot more comfortable when it covers up that awful shirt. "There's a great little joint just down the street. Killer burrito bowls."
Heather
He doesn't have enough hair to slick into a faux-hawk, which frustrated that Bro at the Caern considerably. Still, he insisted that this would totally drop panties, etcetera, and denied that Alex should wear one of those intricately patterned button-downs that are so popular because then, dude, it wouldn't show off his arms. Gotta show off the arms, man. Bitches love a set of ripped biceps.
Heather notices that he seems a little awkward, but she chalks it up to the way things ended last time they really talked, with the weird texts and her thinking it was his first kiss and his self-disclosure about girls being drunk and being gone when they sobered up. She doesn't realize that these aren't his clothes, or that these aren't things he would normally wear. She is smiling a lot, though, and notices that he grabs some keys, but as far as she knows he hasn't actually gotten a car, so she mentions:
"Did you wanna take my car, or... meet there, or..." Lots of trailing off. Lots of uncertainty. And then, at the end: "I mean, we could just take your bike, too."
Her eyebrows perk at the question. "I do like Mexican," she says, and grins. "Do they have margaritas, though?"
Alex
"Actually it's like two blocks away. Do you mind walking?"
Maybe his car - or motorcycle - is so embarrassing that he doesn't want her to see it. Or maybe he actually thinks motorcycle jackets are acceptable outerwear even when not riding a motorcycle, much the same way he apparently thinks popped collars and salmon-colored polos are acceptable shirts.
"They totally have margaritas," he adds as he's taking the steps down at a brisk trot, a spring in every step. "And mojitos. Mango mojitos. Friggin' awesome." He jumps the last three steps, landing with a solid thump, then turns to make sure she gets down the rest of the way okay. Glances at her shoes, too. "Oh and. We don't have to walk if your shoes are uncomfortable or something."
Heather
She smiles; shakes her head. "I don't mind walking."
He bounds -- hops -- down the last few steps and that smile flashes into a grin. She does not hop off, but gives a little graceful swing of her legs when she meets him at the ground level, which is when he tells her about the mango mojitos and notices her shoes. "Nah, they're pretty comfy. For a couple of blocks at least."
So they walk. Or start walking, at least. And she doesn't let any weird awkward silence last long before she asks him: "So how was your Thanksgiving?"
Alex
"Cool," he responds, and tucks his hands into his pockets and - after a moment - sticks his elbow out at her invitingly.
"Thanksgiving was awesome," he answers. Enthusiastically - not at all the way people who really hated Thanksgiving with their folks might grind out an 'awesome'. "Saw the parental units, saw the sibling unit. Didn't see any cold weather." He grins, his teeth a flash in his tanned face. "What about you? You stick around, or go home?"
Heather
She grins -- again -- at that, reminded of the whole 'joke' of taking his elbow from ramen night and how that was how he finally caught a clue and asked her out. Heather takes that elbow, since she was already thinking of maybe holding his hand. Maybe. The elbow is a little less intimate, a little easier when it's only the second time they've hung out that didn't include a ton of booze or a fight scene.
"I stuck around here. A bunch of friends, you know the drill. We potlucked it, drank wine, played Apples to Apples, that sort of thing. I'm going home for Christmas, though. That's when all the cousins and so on and so forth show up, too."
Heather looks around, noting the way they're going, how dark it is, how... it's actually kind of sketchy. But she doesn't see perturbed. She just looks back at him a moment later. "So you're okay, right? You're not still hurt or whatever?"
Alex
It surprises him a little that she even remembers he was hurt. He glances at her, and then he waves his hand in a pfft way, as though he were far too awesome and invincible to stay hurt for long.
"Oh yeah," he says. "Been fine for days. I'm tougher than nails."
The way they're going is kind of dark and sketchy. He's sticking to the main road, which at least has streetlights, but even so some of the storefronts have bars on the windows and there are junky cars parked on the curb. His neighborhood isn't bad per se, but Alex doesn't really live in the best part of town. If their relationship starts going places he might actually think about moving or at least buying her police-grade mace. Even if the walk from the parking lot to his apartment is about three minutes long.
Tonight, though, he doesn't worry about it. She's with him, and he's tougher than nails. Anyway, the place they're going - SURF TACO, it's called - is close. Even if it, too, looks like a hole in the wall, what with the whitewashed stucco and the cheap-ass sign.
"I know it doesn't look like much," Alex says as they get close, "but I swear, the burrito bowls are out of this world."
Heather
Human, human, human, human, kinfolk.
That was Thanksgiving, in her mind. Like Duck, Duck, Goose. Of all the people there that night, she was the one most likely to bring down some kind of fomori or Spiral or god knows what, just by being what she is, by being valuable to the Garou, by being -- in her own special way -- essential to the survival of their race. She felt a little like she was in a Terminator movie. She hasn't had any Garou baby heroes yet, but she might. And that potential makes her precious. That potential puts her at risk.
He isn't human. Tougher than nails. He'd forgotten, almost, that he got hurt, even if it stopped him from going out with her for a night or two. But she hadn't forgotten. She doesn't forget either, walking towards this burrito bowl place that is supposedly so very awesome, that he is not human. Human, human, kinfolk, Garou. Get up, run, one chasing the other around the circle.
"A lot of great places don't look like much on the outside," she says with a shrug. Then a smile, right at him.
Alex
Alex doesn't see the way Heather's thoughts turn toward who-what they are. He doesn't, oddly enough, think of himself as Garou, her as kin. He thinks of himself as tougher than nails, but one suspects even if he were born kin, even if he were born human, he'd think the same thing.
He thinks of her as... well. He doesn't really have words for it yet. Just a general sense of yay-happy-good. He likes her. He likes being with her. He likes that they're getting burritos from Surf Taco, he likes her hand on his elbow, he almost wishes he hadn't put on his jacket because then her hand would be on his skin. She seems not to mind that he's sort of taking her to a dump on their first official date, and
he's pretty confident that she's going to love it, anyway.
So they get there, and he pulls the door open for her like a gentleman, and inside this enormous dude in a Surf Taco t-shirt greets them with an enormous grin - greets Alex by name, actually, and then looks at Heather with unabashed curiosity. The place is hopping tonight, most tables full, a lot of conversation in the air, English and Spanish and sometimes both, a group of surfers over in the corner disagreeing over whether Insidious was awesome or sucktastic, a large flock of kids out with a couple parental chaperones, likely for some birthday party or other.
Alex asks for a table for two and they get led into the back - not outside, because this time of year San Diego is cold, or at least what would be considered cold if your entire wardrobe consisted of t-shirts - so; not outside, but in the back away from the noisy kitchen and the single questionably clean bathroom, in a little nook where they have a little privacy and warmth. They even get a little tealight set on their tiny little table, which is really a cafe table, barely large enough to hold the huge platters of food they get.
And they get a lot of food, because everything looks so good. They share some lime-mango-calamari and chips'n'salsa to start. They get margaritas and mojitos, and they make each other try their drinks, and in the end they agree that the other's choice is fine and dandy but they'll just stick to what they got, and by then their shared chicken skewers are coming, and with them come their burrito bowls, which are huge, which are humongous, which are washbasin-sized things full of mexican rice and beans - not healthy black beans but big ladles of the refried stuff - full of chunks of juicy steak and crispy lettuce, tomatos and salsa, topped off with guac and sour cream and a bit of cilantro on top.
They don't even talk for a while, they're so busy scarfing. And then they look at each other across the table, faces half-hidden by burrito bowls, and burst out laughing. Alex manages to laugh a chunk of steak right out of his mouth, which kind of mortifies him, but then she doesn't seem overly disgusted, just amused, and
they start talking while they eat, often through full mouths, and he tells her about the long sprawling crosscountry trip he took from Miami to San Diego, and how it was really more like going to a new town and settling in and helping out and moving on again when it felt right or he felt bored or whatever. That's why, he says, it took him literally something like two or three years to get from coast to coast. He's been here over a year now, though, he says, and he likes it. Thinks he might stay.
And what about her? he asks then. And that's how he finds out about going to school at UCSD, and being in a sorority, and doing pretty well in classes, and graduating, and getting a job, and somewhere in there is surfing, and Bubby, and the girls she lives with.
They're on their third or fourth drink by now. They've eaten about as much of their burrito bowls as they're likely to, and the Surf Taco dude brings them dessert on the house, and it's these surprisingly delicate little coconut-cheese flans topped with a bit of pineapple. Their bill comes discreetly with it, but they're urged to stay as long as they like. Alex pays, insists if Heather tries to split it, and then
they're spooning at their flans, sipping the last of their margaritas and mojitos, and
Alex smiles across the table at Heather.
"It's nice seeing you again," he says.
Heather
Heather doesn't mind. The other night she came over and he was dressed sloppily and he made ramen of all things, and more and more she's sort of thinking of that like a date even if they didn't intend for it to be. It sort of takes the 'first date' pressure off, even if all that means is that Alex is feeling a bit of it. Look at his popped collar. Just... look at it.
When he opens the door for her it does mean she has to let go of his elbow. Alex wasn't the only one thinking about the fact that her hand would be on his skin if he hadn't put on that jacket, but now she's not even touching the jacket. She's giving Alex a quirked brow and an amused look when the guy greets him by name and checks her out with curiosity -- and maybe surprise. It's busy and crowded and loud and she likes that, she likes the energy and liveliness and the big voice of the enormous dude and the Spanglish and the table of ten year olds being very very noisy because it is Manuel's birthday.
There is a table open. It's kind of amazing. It is enough out of the way that they can talk. Heather keeps her jacket on for awhile, at least until after they order and are waiting, at least til after they have had some of their margaritas and mojitos and her skin feels warm. Then she sheds it, hanging it on the back of her chair. Her arms are bare, except for that wrapped leather bracelet around her wrist, her top turning out to be sleeveless. They pass drinks back and forth, and she admits she cannot really 'do' calimari or most seafood, which is when he finds out that she's from Kansas of all places, and he teases her a little for it, and she just crunches into a chip while giving him a faux glare.
"This is too much," she keeps saying, laughing, as Alex orders just about everything on the menu. No, she'd be fine with just this, and this, but he gets everything that he thinks looks good, and he keeps offering some to her but she laughs and says if she eats that, then she won't eat her actual dinner. "Oh god," she says, when that actual dinner arrives, her eyes a bit wide and intimidated, even if
she ordered hers without sour cream, and chicken instead of steak. Still. It's a monstrous amount of food, and she does not scarf it. Heather eats with -- perhaps not surprisingly -- good manners, chewing a lot, never talking with her mouth full. She keeps her elbows off the table and all of this seems very natural to her, probably isn't even worth noting. She even uses her napkin to wipe her mouth. But Alex bursts out laughing, and she starts laughing. What? she wants to know, mid-laughter. What!
Oh, she lets out an Ew! God, Alex, but she's still laughing after he spits out the steak, and shakes her head. Better out than in, anyway. Wouldn't want to choke.
He talks through full mouths, unless he notices that she never does and stops himself. She eats more slowly, doesn't eat as much, and he asks her a few times if it's good and yes, it is, I really like it -- around the third time he asks she laughs at him, says: "God, you're like a dog with a bone. Here, will this make you feel better?" and she starts shoveling forkfuls in her mouth, loudly going MMM! and SO GOOD and chomping down on a few bits of steak even from his own bowl, til he's laughing and saying okay, okay, he gets it.
"So," she says after that, daintily wiping her mouth with a napkin and reaching to pick up her margarita, "you were talking about your road trip?"
And so on.
When it's her turn, it's partly because she cannot eat another bite. She doesn't mind talking for awhile, finally leaning on the table and telling him about how she got into UCSD partly because her dad knew a guy. Her dad is a mechanical engineering professor. Her mom illustrates children's books. Her sorority has a yearly surfing competition to benefit First Book. She tells him about how her first major was actually Vocal Music, but when the economy went downhill, she changed programs -- "and lost all semblance of a social life for a couple of years," she adds wryly. She got her job at a job fair, actually, where she went all dressed up and had her card and some resumes and got to talk to people and yeah, she's pretty sure she didn't get some of the jobs she applied for because so many men in their thirties and forties unconsciously have trouble grasping that a woman could understand technology.
Heather rolls her eyes and shrugs, moves on. He asks and she nods: yeah, of course she still surfs. Not as much as she'd like to, but she totally does. Julie surfs, too, that's her roommate, but Melissa usually stays on the beach with Bubby, and -- it turns out Bubby is not a chihuahua or anything like that, he's a big floppy happy golden retriever that is getting pretty old by now, but he likes to go on the beach and play frisbee still.
Near the end, Alex is on his third or fourth drink, and Heather has finished two margaritas and a glass of water. She looks at the dessert that shows up and -- of all things -- a slightly unhappy look crosses her face, sort of sad and worried, but it passes quickly. She ignores the bill when it comes. She insists on nothing, and doesn't even mention it in conversation. There's a flan in front of her, and a spoon in her hand, and she's sort of swirling the tip of the spoon in the sauce when he speaks. She looks over at him, smiling. "Yeah," she agrees, quietly.
Alex
He notices. Even though the alcohol, and the food, and the carb coma and the general happy of the night, he notices that she doesn't touch that awesome flan, and she looks a little bit unhappy. So he pays the bill and Taco Surf Dude takes a while picking it up because he doesn't want his guests to feel rushed, he wants them to keep coming back here with their birthday parties and their friends and their families and their first dates.
In the little bit of quiet that ensues, Alex crunches on some ice from his last mojito. Then he looks at Heather for a while, reaches across the table, and touches her hand. There's something shy and not-quite-sure about that touch, like he's not quite sure if it's precisely allowed to do this on a First Date.
"You all right?"
Heather
Heather looks over at him, blinking. "Huh? Yeah!" she says. "I'm great," she says, smiling, but looking a little confused at what he's getting at. She does not move his hand away, or move hers.
Alex
"You just seemed a little sad," he says, and his hand does not, in fact, move away either, "just now."
Heather
It takes her a second. 'Just now' isn't quite it, because 'just now' she felt very good indeed, very warm because of the way he looked at her and the way his voice changed a little when he said it was good to see her again, and she's trying to think of what on earth seemed sad, and --
Heather blinks again. "Oh!" She looks down at her flan, then at him. She glances over to make sure the big dude isn't around, then says quietly: "It's just... I don't really like coconut. Or pineapple. Or, um...flan. And I'm also just... so insanely full. But I feel bad if I don't at least eat some, because he brought it over on the house and everything, and I don't want to be rude or ungrateful. I was just a little 'ack'."
She smiles after that, and actually moves her hand so she can squeeze his. "I'm okay. It was just a little 'onoz' moment."
Alex
And totally without embarrassment, awkwardness, or even really greed, Alex says, "I can eat it for you."
He is quite earnest about this.
Heather
Something about that -- the earnestness, the seriousness, the way he's holding her hand and looking into her eyes and telling her not to worry, he can eat it for her -- makes Heather just... lose it. She cracks up suddenly, covering her mouth with her hand after the first burst, her eyes squinting, her shoulders shaking. "Oh god," she manages to get out a few seconds later. "You're just so... oh my god."
And a new set of giggles hits her, her cheeks pink with hilarity, and pleasure, and liquor.
Alex
And this is when - drawn by her laughter, or her pink cheeks, or just the simple warmth of her happiness - Alex, with one hand still on hers, leans across that little table and kisses her over the remains of their enormous dinner.
It's a soft kiss. Rather gentle, really, but not chaste; deepening even as the corners of his mouth spread in a smile. Because he's happy too, warm and happy, because he's kissing her, and they just had dinner at his favorite place, and she liked it, and
just, everything.
Heather
Quite suddenly, Heather understands how Alex felt when she kissed him. She's shocked, caught mid-giggle, and for a moment she doesn't do anything. She's stunned still, while his mouth touches hers. Her eyes are still open for a moment or two, and even so, she doesn't see or notice the people a couple of tables over that are looking at them. It's no quick peck of affection on her lips, either, meant to be light and cute and fast. Alex is kissing her, and she can feel him smiling,
as she closes her eyes and smiles, too. "What?" she whispers, as though his smile is somehow at her expense, but it doesn't really matter. There's a lower note in that soft word, more of an invitation than a question somehow. She kisses him back, also gently. Also deeper, perhaps, than is strictly appropriate in public. It really is right on the line.
She's still smiling.
Alex
"I'm just happy," he whispers back, and their lips move against one another's, a language of their own. When she kisses him back, when they meet in the middle that second time, it's right on the line of what is and is not acceptable for public consumption. Particularly with ten-year-olds a few tables over,
a few of them giggling about cooties already,
so then they draw apart and Alex laughs and takes her hand in his, holding that one hand of hers between his two and looking at it, smiling.
"We could watch a movie back at my place instead," he says.
Heather
At first it's a very delighted sort of kiss, urgent with happiness and met with surprise and humor. And very, very quickly, it deepens to something heavier, something hotter, something that almost crosses the border between sweet and inappropriate. It's close to the point where their heads start moving, where their mouths start opening, when the giggling gets to their ears and they separate. Heather's cheeks a little pink, her eyes flicking downward and then over at him again, a lopsided and slightly embarrassed smile on her face. Slightly embarrassed. Mostly pleased.
He's holding her hand in both of his, which is just as amusing as anything else he does. Granted, the thought flickers through her mind that this guy really is very, very lonesome and so very happy, so very eager to have a friend -- but that thought's conclusion is that word, itself. He's attracted to her. He likes her. He wants to kiss her and he was a little mindblown to realize that she wanted to kiss him, too, the first time. But the eagerness, the sort of... tail-wagging happiness, comes from a slightly different place.
Some text of his told her that story plainly enough: he can get women to sleep with him. It does happen. It isn't exactly sweet and she doubts names and phone numbers are exchanged much. There's a lot of alcohol involved. She imagines most of them are terrified of him when they sober up and hope, as they leave, that he doesn't call. But he can get sex. He can, even if it's just for the space of an hour, connect with another living, breathing, thinking being -- or at least get the release. These are not happy thoughts, but neither do they bother Heather much. He's sitting at a table with her, and not for a single second does she think he cares only about the sex, the release, the grunting, the sweating, the orgasm.
He's happy because she could be his friend, too. And play games with him. Be close. Be nice. Stay near, and be as happy in his presence as he is in hers. She knows all this, from how he smiles and how he kisses her and how he holds her hand in both of his, and she doesn't think
clingy.
desperate.
weird.
What she thinks is that if she weren't attracted to him, she'd still like him. And she thinks -- she's pretty sure -- that he'd still like her, too, even if kissing her didn't also seem very nice and appealing. If they were kids, and if this were a playground, then he would have shared his best toy, and when she had fun, he would have asked if she wanted to be his friend. And she would have said yes.
It's just that they aren't kids. They're grown up, and he has very nice arms, and she has near-perfect breasts, and she felt herself drawn to him almost all night when she was at his place, and now he's asking her to come back to it again. Lounge on his futon and watch a movie there. Her pulse thumps a little. She huffs a small laugh, exhaling, and grins at him.
"I don't think we should," she says, almost laughing still, but so very softly.
Heather
It's quite possible that Heather sees Alex more clearly than he sees himself. He doesn't quite realize that he's lonely without a pack, without real friends, without human contact outside of drunken bottle-blondes in PB bars. He doesn't quite realize that part of the reason he's so happy is that he likes her. Not just, finds her hot, wants to bang her, any of those things, but - likes her on an interpersonal level.
That's something he doesn't have very often. Or perhaps at all, since he left Miami and became a cross-country semi-drifter. He has it now, and he's eager and happy to have it. He was eager and happy and a little awkward when she came to his place and he was all but bounding in place to make her ramen; he's eager and happy and more than a little excited to be holding her hand right now, hanging out with her, with neither of them ... well, that drunk. Just a little.
He's a little crestfallen when she says no, though. He doesn't quite seem to have the emotional astuteness to understand why. He hears only the no, the we shouldn't; all but tilts his head to one side, confused.
"Why not?"
Alex
Most guys would know better than to ask, or just wouldn't -- wouldn't want to seem pushy, wouldn't want to seem stupid. Alex just asks, letting her see all the confusion, especially after that kiss and all the warmth and sweetness and glee that was in it.
Color rises in her cheeks again. "Just... um." The regular thing she might say comes to mind. She could tell him that she just wants to show him off a little, and stroke his ego. She could say she likes going out, doing things! No fun to just sit at home -- and maybe shame him a little for 'pushing'. But she doesn't think he's trying to push. She thinks of Bubby lying in his sheepskin-lined bed gnawing on one of his favorite toys, his tail thumping while she watches t.v., and how he loves to go on walks but he hops off that leash and trots over to his bed to flop down in the place that smells like him, and decides to just be honest.
So her eyes meet his. "I think if we go back to your place right now, we aren't going to get through a movie," she says, and she's not blushing anymore. "And I'd kinda like to get to know you more before I sleep with you."
Alex
What she says is so blunt that it makes him blurt a surprised laugh. He likes it, though - likes her honesty, likes that she isn't, in the end, afraid to tell him the truth.
Isn't afraid to tell him that she's attracted to him. Isn't afraid to tell him that if she's not careful, if they're both not careful, they're going to end up rolling around his little futon together, and on a first-maybe-second date at that.
"Oh," he says, and kinda scuffs at his hair for a second for lack of anything better to do. "Oh, well." He thinks. "There's a karaoke bar down the street."
[http://www.rockoutkaraoke.com/
I DID NOT KNOW THIS PLACE EXISTED BEFORE I TYPED POST. IT'S LIKE IT'S MEANT TO BE. LOL]
Heather
The laugh makes her blush, even though she got through saying that without so much as a flicker of embarassment. She laughs, too, leaning over and giving him a small, soft kiss that does not -- as before -- grow very heated very fast. Yes. She would totally end up having sex with him, on his little futon, on their first-maybe-second date, if they went back there right now, with tequila in her system. He suddenly suggets karaoke and she laughs.
"That would be awesome," she says. "To tell the truth, I'm not a huge fan of like... movie dates. At least not at first. Because you can't talk or anything, you know? And... I like talking to you." She smiles at him, warm and bright.
Alex
"Here I was just thinking," Alex says, grinning, "a dark movie theater might be more temptation than you could handle."
He picks a last bit of steak out of the remains of his burrito bowl. Truth be told, not a whole lot remains. There's probably more left on Heather's plate, and if she wants to bring a box he waits for her; if she doesn't, he doesn't yell at her for wasting food or whatever. Either way, they leave through the back door, Taco Surf dude yelling a see-you-later after them. The street back here is a little darker, a little shadier, but they don't stay on it for long. They get back on the main road, still walking away from his apartment; hang a left a few blocks down, and there it is, ROCK OUT KARAOKE, with music and howling voices seeping out of the walls, pouring out of the wide-open door.
"So the deal with this place," Alex is yelling in Heather's ear as they go in, "is that they have a live band! And you get up on stage and sing with them! Most of the songs are like, late 90s early 2000s pop and rock!"
Which is, in fact, how it is. A live band, a crowded floor, some tables jammed in the sides but most people up on their feet and dancing. Huge projectors on either side plaster up lyrics in twelve-inch letters, but the girl up there right now ripping through Alanis's ode to bitter breakups clearly doesn't need them.
"Song list!" Alex yells, pushing a flyer into Heather's hand.
Heather
That makes her blush -- again. She throws a piece of tortilla chip at him, laughing: "Oh god, leave me alone."
She decides against a box in the end, though she does waffle on it. If they're going to karaoke she doesn't want to carry it around, and she doesn't want to have to drop by his place to stick it in the fridge, either, though he says that's totally an option, it's not like it's far
but she honestly wasn't kidding. And his teasing was fair: right now, just like last time, the temptation is strong, tugging at her very viscera. She wants him. She didn't, really, the first time they met, and she certainly wasn't expecting to the second time they met, but she did. And it wasn't -- isn't -- the alcohol. It isn't like he's charming or seducing her or even making any overtures in that direction. She just wants him, in this vivid, skin-heating way. She wants his hands on her breasts and his mouth on her neck and his body fitting firmly and hotly between her legs, and a dark movie theater or his place or her car are all very, very tempting to her right now.
Yet: Heather Sinclair has certain standards for herself. It isn't just that she is a Good Girl, and she simply does not lay back and spread her legs for any old bro. It isn't just that she hasn't dated in a few months. And it isn't that she's uncertain. No, she's quite certain: she wants to go to bed with this man.
But she wants to know him first. And she wants to know if this is all worth the potential heartbreak and pain and weirdness. She wants to know if he's going to stick around, and if they could actually turn into something good. She wants to know which spot on his neck makes his eyes close or how he likes his earlobe to be licked. She wants to know that in the morning he won't be a total freak or a jerk, and that after he has sex with her, he'll hold her.
The thing is, though, she's... sort of already thinking that she knows him. That she gets him. That if she likes him and being around him makes her happy, then there's really no reason to make it any more complicated just because he's a werewolf and she's a kin. Heather sort of already thinks that if they were together, he'd stick around, and that it wouldn't always be perfect, but it could sure be great sometimes. She's pretty sure that he would like her hands to stroke his chest and his sides and his back, hold onto his arms, and she thinks he might be the type who wants to kiss her while he's inside of her.
She's thinking that chances are, he would absolutely hold her afterward, and not just to keep her happy. She's pretty sure that in the morning, he'd just want to make or go get breakfast. And that, she thinks, is part of why she is so very, very tempted.
So they go to Rock Out, and she's got her jacket back on but she walks with her arm looped through his elbow as before, like this is just How They Walk now, and as they're approaching she looks with surprise and not a little delight at the live band. "Oh, this is gonna be awesome," she laughs, and takes the flyer, and drags him to the front to sign up. There's already a long list -- they'll be watching for a long while before either of them gets a chance to get up there.
Oh yes. His name is down there, too. Right below hers.
Alex
Actually, Alex's name isn't below Heather's. When she starts to write him in, he protests - but no, not because he doesn't want to sing.
"Put me on the list with you!" he calls. "And if you really really really wanna sing solo I'll kick the drummer off the kit!"
So that's what goes on the list: Heather + Alex, which looks so damn dawww that Alex jokingly draws a big junior-high-style cupid's-arrow-pierced-heart around it, which doubtlessly makes someone somewhere roll their eyes in disgust. Not that they care; Alex takes Heather by the hand and pulls her into the middle of the audience area/dance floor/mosh pit/whatever it is, and
that's where they spend a fairly long time, really, deafened by the live band and the singers, some of whom are quite good, some of whom are quite bad, almost all of whom are belting it out for all they're worth, channeling their inner rock stars. An emo-goth girl who looks like she'd never be caught dead doing such a thing bops her way through Like a Virgin. A skinny white kid who introduces himself as Matt from Rancho Bernardo does a Billie Jean so convincing a few jaws are on the floor. Then there's a very enthusiastic, very off-key rendition of Sweet Home Alabama, but the singer's energy is so infectious no one cares that the poor band keeps shifting key to try to compensate for the out-of-tuneness, and
eventually, an hour or so after they get there, their names come up and they're called up there and the lead guitarist is asking them what they're going to sing.
Heather
She's a bit surprised. And laughs as he scrawls his name beside hers. Laughs again as he scrawls a stupid heart on the page. "They're going to think we're going to sing some sappy love song," she says, as they retreat to find a table. They get a couple of drinks: "Performance lubrication," Heather the former Vocal Music major informs him, and this time she's not doing 'ritas, she's getting Red Stag. And they scan the list, but
she's holding his hand between their chairs, atop her thigh. She never let go of it.
"Oh, this one," she says, pointing to something on the flyer. She looks at him. "You should like... sing backup and do the drums. You know this song?"
Everyone knows this song. She giggles and leans over, kissing him suddenly, a quick one this time -- for once. And it isn't a sappy love song that they're going to sing. She knows exactly what she'll sing next time she gets a chance to come out here. So when their names are called, the guitarist hollering for Heather and Alex to come on, get their asses up here, she squeals and they're heading on stage. Heather goes straight to the guitarist as she's shedding her jckaet -- the crowd whoops -- and
she actually knows a thing or two about music. She tells him their song, tells him what key, and then Alex informs him that he'll be playing drums. And the drummer is a little shocked but doesn't mind a break and the kit belongs to the club anyway, so he yells See ya, suckers! at the rest of the band and goes to get a drink.
The guy who usually does the keyboard pulls out his harmonica and a few of the regulars know what's coming and start hollering and clapping. The guitar gets going, and Heather gets to the mic -- when she claps, several people in the audience do as well, but the song really starts with a
"HEY!"
and the introduction of the drums, courtesy of one Mr. Alex Vaughn. It's high-energy, it's a tight three minute song, and it turns out that the blonde girl up there who had the band change keys to suit her voice, well
she knows how to sing, and more importantly, how to perform for a crowd. She dances across the stage to What I Like About You while Alex bangs away at the drums, and dances when it's the harmonica's turn. Her hair gets whipped out of that braid just before the second verse, her hand wrapped around the mic. She even does the vibrating lip thing before the last set of HEY!s.
In short, she fucking kills it.
Alex
Alex could tell from the moment Heather walked in the karaoke bar that she wasn't going to be one of those wallflowers who sang staring at her shoes with her hands in her pockets. He could tell by the way pretty soon she was the one pulling him through the crowd by the hand, and he could tell by the way she skims the song list and just decides.
Even so, when she tears through What I Like About You, Alex is surprised. Surprised, and laughing, and hammering away through the drum line and yelling along to the backup vocals, watching Heather work the crowd and own the stage. When the song comes to its frenetic close the crowdnoise drowns out even the band, and Heather takes a bow and then drags Alex out from behind the drumkit and they take another bow together, and the guy coming up after them is yelling that they owned that shit, man! and they're running-bounding-jumping their way off the stage, someone's highfiving them and someone else is hugging Heather like she knows her, telling her how awesome she was and she should totally come back.
They make it to the bar, where almost as crowded as the front row. Alex grabs them beers and hands Heather hers, asks her if she wants to go another round, and she does, so he signs them up again and since the wait time's something like another hour and a half they go out on the open patio where the ocean's in the air and it's a little quieter.
"You weren't kidding about your music almost-major," he says, clinking his bottle against hers and then gulping. "We should start like a weekend band or something."
Heather
Heather is thrilled. She's glowing with pleasure, obviously the type of person who thrives on performance, who is fearless when she's up on stage, even if sometimes off of it she's terrified. She totally goes behind the drums to get Alex to bow as well, and then they're making way for someone else and there are some high fives and at least one hug and she's just laughing, laughing
but she seems happy, when they go out to the patio, to slip her jacket back on and take the beer Alex hands her and just be quiet for a little bit, too. She keeps her hair down now, finger-combing it back. Their bottles clink. She laughs -- again. "Nothing 'almost' about it, I just didn't get the degree. But to tell the truth, even coming from UCSD, a vocal music performance major has to get damn lucky to really... make a living at it. I mean, how many opera singers or Broadway stars can you name off the top of your head?"
She shrugs, and smiles at him, taking a drink. "What's really going to impress you is that I play guitar, too. A little piano, but not much. It was not cool enough for me when my parents gave me the option of lessons in one or the other."
A beat. A grin. "So we could totally start a weekend band."
Alex
"Dude, let's do it." He's actually serious. "We can play at like, kid's birthday parties and stuff. I don't wanna be famous, I just wanna -- "
he cuts himself off there, because he was about to say something sappy and embarrassing. So he takes a swig of beer instead, his ears coloring. Good thing it's dark enough out here that she can't tell.
Heather
Her eyebrows perk -- she doesn't immediately dismiss the idea as stupid, because she's been to plenty of parties and company events and the like where live bands just like that are hired. She doesn't look down on it. People who want to perform, who are good at performing, and get paid to do so regularly without the hassle of either fame or the work of songwriting? She can get it.
"What?" she asks, setting down her beer after another drink and leaning on the table, looking at him. "You just wanna..."
Alex
A quick lick of his lips - the lower drawn in under his teeth, flicked with his tongue. Then he grins, lip still caught.
"I just wanna have fun with you."
Heather
Heather laughs, and she leans over and bumps her shoulder to his, her head ducked a little so that, for a moment, her brow touches his cheek. It is nearly a nuzzle, animalistic and familiar in a way that they are not. Physical affection, though, gets so much easier with liquor, and pleasure, and... well. Affection. As sudden as it might be.
"Why would you be all mumblemumbletrailoffmumble about that?" she says, as the swing of her little bump to him takes her back into her own space, even if that space is in a chair that is just a few inches from his anyway. Heather takes a drink of her beer. "That's what we're doing now."
Alex
"Yeah but..."
Alex is sipping at his beer almost meditatively, which must be a change from the usual. His brow furrows with thought. In the distance, the Pacific booms. It is so very different from the still, shimmering, hot, and occasionally hurricane-furious ocean of his childhood.
"I just don't wanna come off weird, y'know? Or like... clingy. Or desperate." He looks at her again. "I like you a lot. I don't wanna scare you off."
Heather
This time the blush to Heather's cheeks seems softer somehow. She's smiling a certain kind of smile, though, which perhaps makes the sudden rush of color seem gentler. Few would argue that she's pretty, but it's in a girl-next-door way, a familiar way, a trustworthy way. She has freckles, when she doesn't cover them up with concealer. Her hair is more 'straw' or 'wheat' than gold, and those eyes of hers maybe occasionally striking in how fair the blue is, but mostly, it's just reminiscent of lying on one's back and staring aimlessly at a half-clouded sky. She has a easy friendliness about her that endears most people to her. It is hard to imagine her lying, or slinging a bitter insult.
It is very easy to imagine her just like this, a bit of hair falling across her face as she ducks her head, a blush pinking her cheeks beneath several tiny, pale marks, a slow smile on her face. She's good with computers and that marks her as kin to Glass Walkers, even if they hadn't just... snatched her up, essentially. There's no way of telling what blood she really comes from -- could be Fenrir or Fianna or a mix of both, maybe a few others from long, lost lines of kin that intermingled with each other and with humans. There's no trace of breeding on her. Just a simple kind of beauty, a subtle strength that even she seems partly unaware of, and kindness. A willingness to help, as though once she saw there was a need, there was no question in her of what was right or what was good or what else was out there.
Because the ultimate question would be what she wanted to do with that information. And for Heather, the concept of running away or ignoring it or stomping off to Do Her Own Thing, consequences be damned, doesn't even enter into her thoughts.
She leans over and kisses him again, like they've been doing this forever, like kisses are just another way of talking now. It's soft, and safe for a public space, but it's also intimate, slow and soft and warm, tasting of exhiliration and, yes, the flavors of alcohol she's had. It's a very sweet kiss. When she draws back from it she smiles at him, leaning her elbow on the table and propping her chin on her hand.
"I've been thinking that off and on tonight, too," she says. "Not you, I mean. I mean me." Heather laughs at herself. "I mean: I like you a lot, too. But I haven't really worried about scaring you off, I guess. Every time I start to, I realize I'd be really surprised if that happened."
She gives a one-shouldered shrug. "I know this might sound kinda weird, but I feel like... I kinda just... get you."
Alex
No one could possibly look at Heather and not think her pretty. But that's what she is: pretty, warm, girl-next-door, hot chick. No one would ever call her ethereal or heartbreakingly beautiful or any of those phrases reserved for a more rarefied sort of beauty. It's the same with Alex, really. Nothing about him stands out - not his looks, not his performance in the war or the Nation, not his tribe, not his upbringing. Neither of them are superhuman or elevated above the masses in any great way.
But they are both self-reliant, self-made. For the most part, they are where they are because they have a certain level of drive in them; a certain independence. And maybe that's part of what draws them together. They're similar. They're not mad kings or ravening vikings; not machiavellian warlords, not secret-spinning warlocks. They're strongwilled, kindhearted, and unafraid of most things life has to offer. They're unafraid of this - whatever this is that they've found with each other.
"Yeah," he says, after that kiss, and after that little shrug. He says that, beginning to smile: "I guess you do."
And then he slugs down the last of his beer, straightens up.
"You wanna go back in?" he says. "Maybe dance til our turn's up again?"
Heather
Neither of them are such standouts, in looks or strength or skill, that people's jaws drop to behold them. But when Heather looks at Alex -- at least now, at least lately, though it feels like anything else was just a dream -- she kinda thinks he's probably the hottest guy she's ever gone out with. She has no other explanation than that she's drawn to him, because she can't analyze his facial features or parts of his body and nail down what is so appealing. He just is. He's just Alex, and she feels...
well. Drawn to him. Drawn in such a way that she would simply like to stay. Stay with him, and enjoy themselves, and if anything about him scares her now it's simply the fact that she knows she probably should be at least a little concerned with how at ease she already is, how suddenly it came to her that yes. This is good. This is how it should be.
There is a woman, much older than Heather but not as much older as you would expect, over in Miami who would understand this. No one would look at her and think she's the type to simply accept a wave and ride it, on the shore or in life, but she is. She's actually a very good woman, tougher and smarter and kinder than she gets credit for, and she has made a good life for herself. Not 'the best'. Not always the newest and shiniest or most socially acceptable or easiest, but that is what it is: a good life. A good marriage, two good sons, a good home, a good job, and so much of that has come to her from being able to take what life has thrown at her and not just ride it but find exhiliration and peace in it, both at once.
Heather doesn't know Ellen. Not right now, not yet. But the universe knows, and Alex probably knows, that if he showed up tomorrow and said hey mom, hey dad, I met this girl a little while before Thanksgiving and she's the love of my life and everything that sucked before sucks so much less now, cool?
...they very well might just smile and nod. Cool.
Heather's parents might be a little slower to warm up. Especially since he's a werewolf. No daughter of theirs is going to be breeding stock, no how. But then, no daughter of theirs would be the type to fly off the handle at the first wink from a guy with nice pecs, either. If she says this is good, chances are:
"This is good," she says to him, smiling as he's straightening up and she's... leaning over. Onto him. She's smiling, quite happily in fact, and laying her head against his shoulder, the top of her head touching his clavicle, giving a small breath of laughter at her own appropriation of him as her Comfy Spot. "I like dancing," she clarifies. "I just... like this better, right now." She tips her head up a bit, tries to see him. "Cool?"
Alex
"Cool," Alex affirms.
And she settles against him, and he wraps his arm against her, and she probably doesn't know that she's like his first kinda-girlfriend ever but she is, unless we counted Bianca in fifth grade and Tina in sixth. She doesn't know that, but she can probably guess, and that would mortify him except
it doesn't, really. It's cool. Everything's cool, and nice, and warm, and happy.
So they chill out there for a while - a long time - and they don't talk a lot but sometimes they do, and when they do it's about inconsequential things, but it's still nice. They talk a little more about that weekend band they wanna do. They're serious about it; they wanna do this. They make a pinky promise not to start any Dramuh. They talk about playing at weddings and birthday parties and the sort, but not frat parties, no, because if someone tried to prank Alex by pouring beer in his drum or something he might tear them a new one. No, really. So no frat parties.
And they talk about her dog for a while. And Alex wants to meet him, wants very much to meet him, but is afraid he'll be afraid of him. And he's so old, so Alex doesn't want to, like, give him a heart attack or something. But then the conversation takes a happier turn, and they talk about Heather's car for a while, and Alex says if he ever gets a car, like a real car with four wheels, he was totally thinking about the Elantra. They gush about the awesome feature-to-price ratio. They are very disdainful toward Civics.
They're talking about surfing, and discovering they both have an interest, when someone busts out from inside and yells HEATHER AND ALEX TO THE STAGE. ARE HEATHER AND ALEX IN THE HOUSE. REPEAT, HEATHER AND ALEX TO THE STAGE, and they get the idea and grab each other's hands and run for it, and when they get up they don't even know what the fuck they're gonna sing and they're both a little drunk and laughing and some Serious Karaoke People are getting pissy so they're like fuckit and she grabs the mic and he grabs the drumsticks and
oh god, it's the B-52s.
(Tiiiin roof! Rusted.)
Which is what he yells at random intervals, much much later, when they're finally walking back to his place. And she's a little tired by then, so she wraps her arm around his waist and makes him shh. Be shh. So he shhhs, and puts his arm around her, and they get back to his place and he looks sorta-longingly up at his apartment, but he knows better than to ask her in a second time.
So he walks her to her car, and as she's getting in - the second time she's done this - he leans down through the open window and smiles and says next time she should let him pick her up so he can take her home. And she kisses him, and it's quick but not shy, and he smiles more when she pulls back.
"I'll call you tomorrow," he promises. And then he straightens. She backs out. He stands in his motorcycle jacket and his awfulawful shirt, waving as the headlights sweep across him, waving as she drives away
from their second date.
