|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 12:35 pm
The tall man was illuminated by the glow of the jukebox, tinting his hair pink and swirling his eyes with oranges and yellows. He was reading over the contraption studiously, picking through songs of interest until he found one he wanted to hear. Slipping the coins through the slot with a blunt thumb, he nodded to himself and swiped the beer off the top of the music box, moving towards a table in the back.
Brad was at his wits end to get away from everything, and it seemed the only way to do that was to go to a place similar to his work. Who would want to go to a bar when a perfectly delightful one was at the Club, manned by an equally delightful tender? He figured this would nearly be fool proof...but only nearly, because quite frankly, he knew better than to think he was in the clear.
He wound through tables empty and full, wearing faded black jeans over black work boots, his typical off-green button-up shirt only closed to his chest and sleeves rolled to his elbows. He slumped into a seat against the wall, not near the crowds or the immediate blare of the music. Brad put the beer on the table in front of him, untouched, leaning backwards and resting an arm along the length of the booth.
Comfortable, easily lost in the smell of smoke and booze, he closed his eyes and waited for his song.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 12:52 pm
Melody, age 28, single, manager of a nearby factory, biggest target of negative gossip around town these days (or so she believed), didn't earn her reputation if she wasn't a bar-addict and an alcoholic (or so she claims) that can't drink for more than 3 cans of beer without getting drunk as pile slumber (that she would never admit). She knew practically every bar around the area where she worked or lived in, and practically every bar owner knew her (save for a few newer ones, such as the strange host club place that was run by some kid younger than her). Some welcomed her, other avoided her like a plague. This did not bother the woman a bit (nothing really did these days), and she went to every single bar on a routine every night, drinking her hearts out (less than three cans, mind you), and talk to random people until the unfortunate other started to get sick on her from too much listening.
Today, she has scheduled herself to be walking into this particular bar, and order the same kind of beer (the bar was specially known for this), and went and sit in the same corner and the same---hey!
Melody's already mediocore mood had dropped to 20 degrees under 0 when she was shocked (so shocked she almost dropped her beer) to find out that someone. some stranger had taken her seat.
Some NERVES!
Blushing in anger (without even drinking a drop of alcohol), the red-haired woman stomped through the small pathway like a mad ox (cow?), and particularly threw the can of beer onto the table, making a loud sound as the metal clashed against the wooden but hard surface.
"YOU, get out my seat."
Short and clear. May this man scramble out of her beloved throne (it's just a wooden chair...) like a beaten dog if he was smart.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 1:12 pm
An indigo eye cracked open slowly at the woman's voice. It wasn't even the racket of the can being heaved or the dangerous way the table lilted that made him pay attention. There was something familiar, like a sinking feeling in one's stomach, that came with the sound of that voice.
Oh. Her.
Brad opened both of his eyes to regard the woman in silence, unmoving for a handful of seconds. After brief consideration, he pulled his lumbering height from the seat, not affording her a second glance as he moved to the table near by. He idly picked up his own beer bottle, still untouched, putting it in place before slouching into another seat. "Be my guest. Not very comfortable anyway," he yawned, shifting his position until he was content.
He didn't care if she wanted the seat or not. It was a bar, and there were plenty others. He would have moved further away but those tables were slightly more occupied or not quite clean, and he didn't really want to take pieces of the bar home with him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 1:21 pm
Melody blinked as the man moved out of her way. Well, he did move...although he didn't move the way she liked. The woman snorted to show that she was displeased, but didn't say anything else other than to sit down in the chair that was previously occupied by the other, ignoring all the strange looks that was casted in her direction.
"For the record, the seat was perfectly comfortable."
Melody took several mouth full of beer before she started looking around at what other people were doing. She didn't care about what others thought of her, but that didn't stop her from having opinions on what others did. At a side glance she noticed the man was still sitting at a table near her. Had she seen him somewhere before? Melody thought about it for a while, but could not pinpoint where exactly, so she gave up thinking and took another drink, meanwhile making herself more comfortable by resting her legs on the edge of the table.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 4:02 pm
The man his hand and gave a two fingered salute. "Then by all means," he drawled out, managing to keep his sarcasm to a minimum. Of course she'd think it was comfortable, it was probably contoured to her butt. Brad may have not been a nice person, but he was not stupid enough to say something like that out loud.
Instead, he grabbed his cold beer by the neck, using one long arm to reach across to her. "You want it? They said it's the best they got. Not my thing." That was about the extent of his peace offering, and she could take it or leave it. Hell, she could take it AND leave it and it wouldn't mean anything to him. It was just beer, and it wasn't anything the man wanted in his system. The smell and stains on the wood were probably enough to get drunk off osmosis.
Why did he come here, again?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 4:32 pm
Melody was humming a random tone from a random song that she had heard from earlier when the man who originally intruded her seat suddenly reached back. The woman was startled, and leg her legs fall to the floor to sit up to see what the man was doing. After she figured out what he was doing (which took a good amount of time, for Melody was trying to also figure out why he was doing it and failing miserably), Melody looked up at the man with a suspicious stare.
"How much are you charging for this? I don't have any extra cash on me."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 5:22 pm
A brief pass of confusion touched his face, and just as quickly, his neutral expression returned. "I already paid, it's not for you to pay for," he returned, resisting the urge to twirl the item in his hand. That would only diminish it. "You have to buy something to be at a bar. So I bought something. Just happens to be an expensive something so they'd leave me alone," he explain simply, rolling his broad shoulders in a shrug. If she didn't want it, that was dandy, but he didn't want to sit there like an idiot all night with his arm out to her.
He seemed to calm a bit as the music changed, finally playing the song he had chosen. As Enjoy The Silence started to play, he simply looked at the woman with a very dim smile.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 6:04 pm
Melody snorted and waved at her own beer. "I know that. I mean what do YOU want as payment? I don't take things off of people for free you know, since I'm not that kind of a cheap person." She shook her head and leaned back. She still couldn't remember exactly where she had seen the man, but she was pretty sure she had seen him before. The woman fell silent for a while to try to recollect her thoughts again (urgh, it just keeps bothering the mind...).
When Melody looked up again she found the other still looking at her. The woman frowned.
"Is there something on my face?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 6:26 pm
"I've never seen anyone so intent not to accept a gift," he remarked dryly. "I want nothing. If you must think of a payment, then think of it as not letting it go to waste?" Seriously, was he arguing the schematics of why she should accept a free beer? "You're doing me a favor by not letting me throw my money away?" Brad lofted a brow at the woman, shrugging at her again.
"I can't make you take it. I paid for your last one, so I fail to see the problem this time."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 6:37 pm
"HA!" Melody gave out an abrupt laugh that probably alerted everyone around her. "I don't believe in altruism." Lowering her eyes the woman played with her beer can (now empty) as if she was deep in thought. "The law of the land is that you take something, you are bound to give something back. There's no such thing as a free meal. So with that..." She looked up again with an obvious fake (and she did not try to hide it) grin. "What can I pay you with?"
A-ha. So that's where she had seen him, that new club around the corner. Her facial expression didn't change, but she was quick to catch up his last words.
"And did I take a free drink from you before? All the better! Come on and let's get this over with. I don't like to be in debt."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 6:47 pm
Brad flicked his eyes towards the jukebox; his song was almost over, and he'd spent the duration trying to convince someone to take a free beer. It was more than he cared to take at this point in time. "You don't have to believe in anything," he started, standing and putting the bottle on her table heavily, "but I do. So that's too bad." He wasn't smiling, and he gave no indication if he was angry or otherwise. In fact, his voice was pleasant, despite his words. "So what I'm going to do is leave this here. Drink it or don't, but someone else who is less altruistic will surely come along and make short work of it."
He turned to go, getting a few steps away before he paused, glancing back to regard her once more with cool indigo eyes. "Don't try to pay me back, unless you're trying to insult me. Coming to my work wont change my mind on giving you something, either. You can disbelieve in simple consideration all your want, but that's on your head, not mine." Brad turned again, gliding through the tables without looking back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 7:30 pm
Melody blinked. What the man said was simply too difficult for her to handle. The words itself was easy to understand, and probably sounded normal to everyone else. But to Melody, it felt different, something wayyy different than what normal feelings would be like. Without further thoughts the woman stood up and stomped after the man, her facial expression dark with a suppressed anger.
"Hey, wait up you. Don't think you could just leave and dump your stupid drink here with me like I'm some old garbage can. I'm fed up with that!"
Catching up to the man, Melody shoved the beer back at him, obviously not too happy with how the other had treated her. "If you don't want me to pay you back, then I don't need the beer. I'm not some donation agency where you can just throw some random things at me and I'll eat it up like there's no tomorrow. I don't know you, heck, you took my seat! Now you go and take your beer and give it to some beggars on the street instead of shoving it to my face and pretend it's a gift. You know you don't mean it, so don't pretend like you do."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 7:47 pm
The man calmly took the beer from the irrate woman and put it on the nearest table with a, "It's on me." The guy thanked him with surprise and had no qualms popping it open to enjoy.
Brad stared at Melody as she ranted, shrugging his shoulders as she finished as if shrugging off all the words she dumped on him. "It's not charity, sympathy or pity. It was a beer." He raised an eyebrow at her, almost an expression one would make when telling a child they use the toilet, not the bathtub. "I said take it or leave it. Not chase me down and give me an earful. But if it made you feel better, that's great. Now you're free of the beer and someone else is enjoying it. Fair now?"
He gently tugged at the hand on his arm to remove it so he could leave. Brad decided it was definitely better to put up with the people he knew than the ones he didn't. Arguing in the middle of a bar with a woman he'd met once was not his idea of a peaceful evening.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 12:12 pm
"It's not JUST a beer." Melody was not someone who would easily backdown, although she did feel VERY uncomfortable around this man. It was not because of his looks (he was quite good looking though, mind you) nor what he did. Something about his attitude however, bugged the woman so much that she had the urge to yell at the guy no matter what he did.
He felt like one of them.
It didn't bother the woman that the arguing was getting rather pointless, but she rambled on anyways. "Besides, even if you have gotten rid of THIS beer, there's still the one from the other night." She paused, eyeing Brad with a full degree of annoyance (which she did not bother to hide). "When I say I'm gonna pay you back, you let me pay you back. There's nothing wrong with you getting something in return, so what the heck is your problem?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 5:50 pm
"No? What was it to you, then?" he inquired bemusedly, lifting his eyebrows in a motion that could be considered good natured, if not for the lack of kindness between the two individuals. At her comment, Brad shook his head, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "I was working, it's my job, you're not my employer." The woman was unnecessarily stubborn, and while it rubbed the older man the wrong way, he refused to be harried by her jabs and near cruelty.
He sighed quietly through his teeth. "My problem is your lack of respect to my decision. What's yours?" Again, his words were pleasant and without malcontent or annoyance such as she displayed. "If you must pay me back, then pay me with your name. That way I'll know who not to lavish kindness upon?" His smile was almost his Host self's, but there was a distinct edge of unpleasantness in the line of his brow and angle of his eye that made it his own.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
