Who: Wren and Evie What: Catching up Where: Bellagio When: During the Evie-sponsored vacation Warnings/Rating: Nope!
Evie didn’t spend all of her time in the offices at the Bellagio, she had other properties to worry about and other facets of the business to manage from her corporate office in town. But today was a special occasion, she had several private events taking place and she wanted to see them go well. As the owner with several management partners underneath her and hotel managers even further underneath, and every other employee of the hotel she was sure everything would be fine. But she wanted to feel involved. There were parts of the business she was still learning, and things she was afraid she might not ever understand, but she did like being a part of something. It was something she learned from her Papa who worked hard every day of his life and knew absolutely everything that was going on in all of their sister corporations, their smaller businesses, their property management...He knew it all inside and out. The company had been his other child and he had not been remiss in taking care of either of them. She wanted to do it right.
She had a lot of help, people who had known her father for longer than Evie had been alive. People who had helped look after Evie from the minute she was born and who had been instrumental in returning her back to Benedict when times were scary. They still looked after her, no one wanted to see her fail. And she had that going for her and she was grateful for it.
Evie had just stepped out of watching the event staff at the hotel conduct their morning meeting and she was so impressed with the well oiled machine that was running at the hotel. It was hard work and she was pleased that they all did it so well. She certainly wasn’t necessary to keep around to make decisions and she certainly didn’t want to intimidate them, she just wanted to watch. They were tolerating her presence pretty well all things considered. She was in the cafe grabbing a cup of coffee when she saw Wren out of the corner of her eye and she grinned stepping out of line and crossing the distance to where she saw her friend. She sidled up next to her and grinned, her pinstripe suit and high heels making her look more like a woman than the clothes everyone knew she preferred. The comfortable kind with bright colors and fun earrings. No one had to know but her socks were definitely hot pink. “Hey you,” she said nudging her a bit. “Enjoying everything?”
Wren was breathing. Really, that was her entire reason for being in the cafe - to breathe. She'd spent four years wanting what she had just then, wanting time with her son, with Luke, for life to slow down enough that she could figure out what it meant to be a mother. But now that she was there, she was overwhelmed, and she really wanted a cheatsheet, something that let her know what to say, how to say it, when to say it. None of that existed, and Luke was as nervous as she was about this vacation, and she had slipped away to breathe.
Breathing entailed a very sweet espresso and, in contrast to Evie, Wren looked very casual. She wore a jersey sheath dress, soft and grey, baring arms and knees. She had sandals on her feet, and her pale, pale blonde hair was loose around her shoulders. The sunglasses tucked up on her head were decidedly designer, and even the dress looked like it had walked off a runway. Long gone was the cinnamon haired girl in the thrift store clothing, leaving behind a quieter looking woman that was icy in her pallor.
Still, seeing Evie made Wren's expression brighten, and the change was immediate. She looked Evie over, up and down, all those pinstripes making Wren realize just how much they'd changed since Seattle. She set her coffee aside, and she touched one of Evie's colorful earrings, and she smiled brightly. "You look beautiful, and very, very professional," she said truthfully. "It's so very good to see you, Evie," she said, and she'd never meant anything quite as much as she meant that. Evie had always been so much wiser than the rest of them somehow, even when they were kids, and having that kind of calm wisdom in Las Vegas, now, when she needed it most, was unbelievably reassuring.
Wren stepped back, and she picked up her discarded coffee. "Tell me everything."
Evie hugged her back, and definitely didn’t want to let go. That was the last thing she wanted to do. Things felt right for a change, or as close to right as they had in months. She put her hands on either side of Wren’s face and smiled at her adoringly. “You’re beautiful, I feel like a phony in this get up,” she said and hugged her again just because.
“Everything? Well I don’t know if either of us have time for everything, but I’ve got time for most things,” because she’d stick around as long as Wren wanted her to do, as far as she was concerned her schedule was effectively cleared until Wren had somewhere else to be. “Do you want to go for a walk?” she said and looped her arm through Wren’s and started walking anyway. “So everything. Well first. I picked up Will a couple of weeks ago, he just showed up out of nowhere, I should have brought him with me all along.”
"You're capable," Wren said of the clothing Evie wore, of Evie's new role and new life, and she touched both of her hands to Evie's cheeks and smile. "And you're not a phony. You've always been so strong, so don't ever think that."
It was just like Evie to ask about going for walk, all while making that walk a reality, and Wren smiled and fell into step, her arm looped through Evie and the feel of old Seattle in the air. "Catch me up on Will," was the first thing Wren said once Evie was done speaking. She had left Seattle for Luke and New York, and then she'd run away from everything entirely, and she had no idea where Evie had gone after that, where Will had gone. "Why didn't he come out here with you from the beginning?" she added in case Evie needed more lead-in, but she doubted it; Evie never needed lead-in, and Wren loved that about her. She never had to work with Evie, and she never had to guard her word or wonder what to say, because Evie had this way of just making everything okay.
“Strong yes, professional not so much,” Evie said with a chuckle. “But I’ve got a lot of help, most of my Papa’s staff has been around since before I was born so they’re keeping an eye on me,” she was speaking as fondly of her father’s business associates as others might talk about their family. But they’d been there for her, even as a little girl, and after she was back with her father after everything horrible had happened, they had been there. They were as close to extended family as she had. She loved it.
Will. There was a subject Evie could talk about. A subject Evie had missed talking about, because most of the time she spent talking to Will. It was good to have a girlfriend nearby again. Nell had gotten the brunt of it here and there over the years while her father and not-father helped Evie get her act together. But Wren was a friend from way back. It was perfect. “Will is...Spectacular,” she said with a soft smile. “It hasn’t been easy, but he’s been better in the last couple of years or so than he has been since we met. He’s a little more grounded, and we’ve had a lot more therapy, and he cares more. About him. Caring about Evie is as easy as breathing for him but caring about Will doesn’t come quite so easily. But he’s getting there.”
She shrugged a bit and let out a soft sigh. “I was gonna go home in a couple of weeks. Come out here, get some work done, close the loops and dot the i’s...It started taking longer, Will was working on the house in New York. Taking care of the fur children, giving me something to go back to. But more time passed and here he is. I don’t know if this is going to be good for him, but nothing wrong with a few challenges either.” She worried, Vegas was basically vice city. And as much as Will was put together, she didn’t know if the stress or the doors, or whatever else was going to do him more harm than good. “But he’s here and I feel at home finally.”
"Strong and professional," Wren insisted, and she rubbed Evie's arm as they walked. She knew what that was like; finding it easy to care about other people, but not to care for herself, and she was glad to hear Will had made some progress there. She knew well enough to know Evie deserved a lot of the credit there, just like Luke got most of the credit for her own improvements in self-respect. "I'm glad. He deserves it, and so do you," she said honestly, and it was good to be able to really approve of a friend's relationship. She knew Will had issues, but he'd always made Evie happy, and that counted for a lot in Wren's book.
"Leaving would be hard," Wren admitted about her own situation. She couldn't actually hear Selina in her mind, but she felt like she knew the younger woman, thanks in large part to the notes they'd been exchanging on the phone for the past few months, and leaving meant making her disappear. Wren couldn't do that, and she knew Luke felt similarly about Bruce. "He has you here, which means it'll be fine. Even if things go wrong, or if they're hard, it'll be fine." And Wren almost believed the mantra when it was directed at someone else, and she shook her head and smiled. "It's so much easier to say that to someone else and actually believe it." “You deserve it too,” she said giving her friend a pointed look. She absolutely believed it, and while she didn’t entirely understand the whole situation Wren, Luke and Gus were in. She wanted it to work out into what was the best possible outcome for all three of them. “Are you all finding your feet?” she asked curiously.
Evie chuckled and nodded a bit she knew it would be fine, everything always was. Some days she wanted better than fine, but she would take fine. She wanted calm, she wanted Will happy. She wanted everyone she loved happy. That was all she’d ever wanted. But there was something to be said about all of them back in the same place again. “We’re all here for a reason,” she stated simply. “Papa used to remind me that the Universe knows exactly what we need when we need it. Even if we think otherwise I’m afraid. Even the bumps we get stuck with,” Evie didn’t want to think about bumps. The biggest bump of her life had happened less than a year ago and her entire world was still trying to rebuild. There was an ache and an emptiness inside of her that she wasn’t sure would ever be filled.
Wren hesitated, unsure about what she was about to ask, but wanting to ask it all the same. "What happened?" she asked, in case Evie needed to talk about it, in case Evie wanted to talk about it. Maybe enough time had passed that Evie didn't even want to mention it again, but Wren knew how close Evie had been to her "Papa," and she thought it right to ask, even if she was toeing the line with the question.
Evie took a deep breath and shrugged, “I’m still not sure,” she answered honestly. “I mean, I know the basics of it. He was handling an issue with some of our contractors who were doing relief work in Sudan, he was trying to bring them home. They really shouldn’t have been there to begin with, but we understand that sometimes your need to be safe comes second to helping others...Papa went in prepared, he had security and armored cars and traveled with embassy police, everything...There was a bomb. That was the end of it, that’s all I know.” Evie knew that people didn’t live forever, she knew that there would come a time when she’d have to say goodbye to her Papa. She just didn’t anticipate it would all change so fast. “I never worried when he traveled no matter where he was going, I always saw him as this invincible force that could make his way through anything, it’s been hard. The job, leaving school, Will putting up with my completely erratic behavior,” she chuckled a bit, “When usually it’s the other way around...” It was said fondly but there was no secret among friends that Will and Evie were oddly matched, but fit perfectly.
She got quiet for a long moment as they continued their walk, her grip tight on Wren’s arm. She took a deep breath and smiled at her friend. “So. Now you. Tell me everything. I met Gus. He’s fabulous.”
Wren listened, and she didn't interrupt, and when Evie was done, Wren just stopped walking and tugged on Evie's arm and wrapped her friend in a hug. Evie had always been the hugger when they were girls, just like Evie had always been the one to see the silver lining and the happy ending. Wren hadn't learned so much about being an optimist, but she'd learned how to give very good hugs in Seattle. "I'm so sorry, Evie," she said, and she meant it. Despite all her maman's shortcomings, Wren knew what it felt like to love a parent you adored, and she would have spared Evie that if she could. "And it's good Will was there for you. I would have yelled at him if I found out otherwise." She would have; it wasn't an empty claim.
Wren pulled back then, and she smiled when Evie mentioned meeting Gus. "He's beautiful, isn't he? He looks just like his dad." He smile was bright and honest, her adoration for the little boy evident in every word. "It's complicated, Gus, but I think we're working through it. Everything is complicated with me and Luke, too, but I think it might all work out okay. I hope it does, anyway. You're here now; you've always been really good at talking to him, so that's a plus. And I'm looking forward to us all having dinner together. You and Will are relationship hope, the fact that you two are so good together."
Evie hugged Wren back, she may have been a little surprised by it, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love every damn minute of it either. “Oh he was, I promise. He still is, I think we all would have yelled at him if he hadn’t,” she said smiling and wanting to move on to better subjects. She still didn’t like thinking about Benedict in the past tense, and she hated that she couldn’t pick up the phone and tell him everything that was going on. It wasn’t fair.
Gus. Now Gus was a fun subject. Evie’s new coloring buddy and the most perfect little example of awesomeness she could think of at the moment. “He’s beautiful, he’s so sweet. Complicated isn’t altogether bad, and figuring it out is even better,” she said smartly. She knew all about figuring out complicated. There were times when she and Will were mired in nothing but complications. But eventually something worked out and everything else fell into place. Until the next complicated bit came along. “We’re good together because we work our asses off,” she said with a laugh. “We want so badly to be good together, and we make that the basis for everything. We fight, we cry, we screw up...But none of that is as important as the fact that we want to fight and cry and screw up with each other. Figure that bit out, everything else is like a cake walk,” she paused and scrunched up her nose a bit, “Sometimes a rotten cake walk, but a cake walk.”
Wren gave her friend one more quick squeeze, and then she left the topic of Benedict altogether, not wanting to put more shadows on her friend's face. "He's scared of everything," she said of Gus, but her smile was warm and fond and adoring. "But he's sweet, and really smart. You can just tell that he's noticing every single little thing... and I'm babbling." The last bit was admitted with a smile, but she didn't get to talk about Gus very often, and the people she talked to most actually spent more time with the little boy than she did.
It was nice to hear that Will and Evie had to work at it, and it gave Wren a strange kind of hope to hear that even if things went really wrong, it could be okay as long as she and Luke wanted to work it out badly enough. It wasn't the kind of advice most people gave, but there weren't words for how much better it made her feel. She slid her arm through Evie's again, and she rubbed Evie's forearm. "I think I'd rather have a rotten cake walk with Luke, than perfect with anyone else," she admitted truthfully. "Tell me about where we're going, the four of us," she urged, perfectly willing to walk the length of the hotel and back again listening to Evie's voice.
Evie raised her eyebrows, “You babble all you want, you have every reason to. When I start having babies I’m going to carry thousands of pictures of them and never shut up about them, don’t you worry about it,” she said and she meant it. She absolutely meant it.
Evie smiled brightly, “Then you’re doing it right already,” she assured her with a squeeze to her arm. Because she had to agree. Rotten cake walks with the right person were better than something perfect with the wrong one. “It’s a kitschy diner, there are cheeseburgers the size of my head and milkshakes with sparklers in them. It’s way out of town, the stars are lovely out there...” she continued on as they walked. She was going to keep her as long as she could that day.