Re: [Webster's Vinyl: Holly & Dietre]
Holly watched with that same deadpan ease as Dietre flushed angrily and glared. He laughed. I mean, it was a small laugh. It was nearly nothing and almost not there, the laugh, but it was entertained to be sure. Holly was impervious to angry glares, and he didn't give up his easy lean when that look was leveled at him. "Hey, I'm just saying," he added, assuming it was the tail end of his comment that Dietre was referring to negatively, "it sounds entitled. Just some advice, you know, for your future human interactions: Don't ask someone if they hate their boyfriend. And when you're sizing them up? Do it without, you know, asking them if they suck." As for wanting to steal Noah? He thought Dietre sounded like he was close to the guy and like he, Dietre, maybe knew better, knew more about Noah, which rubbed wrong, sure.
Anyway, Holly was crazy jealous by nature, and he was a blunt, deadpan kinda guy. The empathy? That was all Noah. He didn't really possess much of his own. But Dietre was doing this weird shield thing with the records, and Holly's brow quirked slightly. "Chill. I'm not going to get blood on the floor," Holly offered, because Dietre was over there stumbling over explanations, and Holly wasn't totally Mean Girls. Of course, Dietre's denials sounded guilty as could be, but Holly would follow up on that later, right? Right. Poor Noah.
"Okay, you can pay," he offered, and he walked toward the register. It was no skin off his back if Dietre wanted to feed the till. "I think you talk to my Gramps too," he said, just because. "On the forums, I've seen you talk poems with him." He rang up the records, and he put them in a brown-paper sheath, and he handed them over. "Take the piano music on the house, at least. Gramps would approve." He'd already learned that Gramps liked to baby his favorites in this really weird way. But, whatever, 'twas the season. Holly didn't manage a smile, because he didn't feel like smiling, but, yeah.