jdcartwright (jdcartwright) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-03-18 00:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | jd cartwright, ~wilson grady |
Meeting by accident
Who: JD & Will
Where: Mall car park somewhere in Vegas
JD had been spending almost every night at Moon Doggie’s, waiting for Tim/Micah to show up. One thing he didn’t want was word leaking out that he was looking for him. Best way to get a photo was to do it himself, especially given why. So basically JD hadn’t eaten at home for weeks. Probably closer to months when he looked in the fridge that morning. But it was when he only just managed to squeeze enough toothpaste out of the already depleted tube that he knew he’d have to go that day.
He’d wandered around his apartment making himself a list of what he needed. If there was one thing that made shopping worse, it was going through the exercise of doing so. Of navigating the malls and carparks, wrangling with supermarket trolleys, choosing from the exhaustive quantity of brands and their various offerings, ignoring the insidious muzak, then negotiating with the check-outs and their machines only to find the next morning that there was something he’d forgotten.
And he doubted there’d ever been anyone who’d said they felt inspired after going through that exercise. He backed out of his parking space, squinting a little as the reflection of the sun off a windscreen hit him in the eyes, and reached for his sunnies, foot hovering over the brake pedal as he pushed them onto his face, car rolling forward slowly along between the rows of parked cars.
The plan had never been to linger long term. Will knew that finding Tal was a long shot; he had not expected to have the man drift into his life at random when he had been looking so diligently for years. Many days and nights had been spent tracking clues like a gumshoe on a cold case. In between jobs and for a while when he was doing time in prison, he thought of more routes to search. And those routes had led him to Vegas.
Whatever small motel he was staying in wasn’t the type to offer room service. Hell, it didn’t have much of anything substantial but then he preferred keeping his business to himself. Though that ultimately meant taking care of the essentials: going to the laundromat, grocery shopping, picking up supplies. He wondered if there was anything Tal needed. Will was tempted to text his brother and check but decided against it.
Suddenly, now that Tal was in his life, Will felt more protective over the older sibling. Maybe it was the near lifetime of failures, the struggle to find him. He wasn’t looking to lose his brother again so soon.
His Tesla sat idly in the parking space. He needed to get back to the motel and finish up some work, something he was assisting with for a fellow hacker. The car eased into reverse. Will thought deeply about the task ahead and didn’t pay attention to the beeping sounds resonating through the vehicle. The camera on the bumper showed the obstacle clearly. He eased back enough to get out of the space and into the aisle. When he felt the light jostle he blinked and sat up straighter. The last time he had been in any sort of minor vehicle incident was back when he was still new to the driving experience.
A heavy sigh of irritation and Will turned the Tesla off. The door on the drivers side would be thrown open and a leg swung out, producing the tall, blue-eyed young man who went to take a look at the damage.
JD blinked when he saw the expensive electric car ease back, thinking it had to stop, wasn’t that what those cars were all about? They did the thinking for you? But either it had decided to teach its driver a hard lesson, or it was offline. Whatever it was by the time JD slammed his foot on the brake pedal and swung the nose of his car away to try and avoid the advancing albino the two fenders had met. It was a sound that always sent a shiver through JD’s body, after the accident. The sound of metal on metal, one of the slowest sounds in the world as far as he was concerned. The type of sound that was delayed in reaching the part of the brain that recognised it, the eyes taking all the calculating power as the body tried to find a way to escape the inevitable, the inexorable arrival of the sound of impact.
It took him a moment to swallow hard and take a deep breath, to compose himself as he started to unhook his fingers from the steering wheel, and eventually open his door. As if recognising the sound his leg ached, his shoulder throbbed and his mouth was dry. Taking another deep breath he composed himself and climbed out of the car, looking across the hood to where the two cars had met, his front passenger-side fender now pressed up against the right rear bumper of the Tesla. The bumper would be scratched, except it couldn’t be seen. The fender would be crumpled, except it was hidden from view by the other vehicle.
“And what would you be doing that your electronic whizz-kid car couldn’t get you to stop?” he asked the other driver who’d appeared from his vehicle’s luxurious cabin. He had a half grin, knowing that it was always a challenge reversing out of a parking spot without x-ray vision to see if anything is coming.
JD had driven one of the Model S at the academy during recertification for high speed pursuit a few years back. They’d all been impressed with the vehicle, both its performance and price, but most of all with the comfort of the cabin. “Damn I could see myself doing stakeouts in one of these!” one of his colleagues had said as he’d sat in the luxury leather set, his butt being warmed by the in-built heating. “And can you imagine going after those bastards with this ‘Ludicrous’ mode?” he’d laughed in reply. It was in that mode that the vehicle had claimed the ‘fastest production car in the world’ title, managing to go from standing still to 60 in less than two seconds. “Give the headrests a good workout!”
“You could send the car after the crooks on its own, just drive it with your phone!” one of the other officers had declared. “That would be the way to go! A right proper KITT! Always wanted me one of those when I was a kid.”
JD looked the other man up and down from behind his sunnies. He certainly looked the part.
Will looked shocked at first - the guy wasn’t wrong at all, he should have been paying more attention. “I am so sorry,” he began, looking wide eyed at the damage to both vehicles. The Tesla didn’t seem too bad but the other car. Ouch. “I was a little bit distracted. My mother’s birthday is coming up,” he lied, lifting those eyes back to the man whose car he inevitably squished. “She’s one of those particular types and I guess I was caught up in trying to decide what to get her.”
All of the Grady children were good at something involving technology or things that were motorized. His eldest brother was an engineer for a large airline company, Tal worked on vehicles and had aspirations for more, and he was a computer wizard, though not only on the internet. Working with their hands had always come naturally to be boys. Cars fascinated Will. He couldn’t really find his way around an engine the way Tal could, but he did appreciate the aesthetics.
Not only was the Tesla luxurious and quiet, many more people were driving them now so the car didn’t stick out as much.
“I don’t think I even heard the beep.” Will shook his head at himself.
Mentioning his mother wasn’t going to win the guy any favours. “Lucky your mother wasn’t walking behind your car just now,” JD pointed out calmly. The cop whose mother had been killed by a hit-and-run driver, and whose swimming career had been ended by the same accident, wasn’t affected by sob stories. And he’d interviewed enough liars in his current career that his ‘bullshit’ detector was bending its needle.
“You wouldn’t have to worry about what to get her.” He pulled out his wallet and took one of his cards from it, grabbed a pen out of his pocket and handed both to the younger man. “Put your details on there,” he asked, adding “I’m Jason Cartwright,” as an introduction. “And I hope you figured out what to get your mother.”
It had been an honest mistake. People could get deep into thought while driving. Accidents were prone to happen. The comment about his mother strained Will’s smile a bit but he only nodded. This guy was a real character, or at least he thought so. Out of all the people he had to back into…
As Jason’s needle began to throb, so did Will’s. He’d been around enough law enforcement to have his own radar begin to beep. He couldn’t say for sure, but this guy carried himself like someone who really enjoyed upholding and enforcing the law.
“Cool.” Will replied. He took the little card. “Jacob Masters,” he would offer, himself, as his own introduction. That was the name he had purchased the vehicle under, and the same one he’d been using around town.
The rectangle-shaped paper would be set into Will’s right hand, and he began to jot down his information with the accepted pen in his left. One of the offer skills in his repertoire was being ambidextrous. That came in handy for forgery.
When the information was completed Will offered the two items back to Jason. “I think I know just what to get her.”
JD looked at the card. “And what’s that Jacob?” he asked as he slipped the card back into his wallet and gave the man another, clean, card with JD’s details on it.
Will smiled, accepting the card. “A nice card and some flowers,” came the reply. Or maybe a better son. Not that she deserved the sons that she had. He couldn’t be mad solely at her - there had been good times with his parents together and individually - but she had played a role in abandoning a child. He couldn’t forgive her for that. “Mothers love that stuff.”
He suspected that Jason would either call about the insurance, the vehicle, or he wouldn’t. Will would be fine if he didn’t, but life was never that lucky. “Sorry again for the inconvenience, sir. I hope your day gets better from here.” Offering a nod, Will lifted a card free hand in a bit of a conclusion.
JD nodded . “I’ll give my insurance company your details, they can contact yours, and get this sorted.” He turned to check that the two cars could be separated without causing any further damage, sliding his phone out of his pocket and quickly taking a couple of photos of the cars. As he’d been practicing for the last couple of weeks of hanging out at the bar to get a photo of someone without them noticing, he managed to get a photo of Jacob without the man noticing. There was something about him that was making JD wary, though he knew it could just be the circumstances. Vehicle accidents, no matter how benign, were still something that put him on edge. Fender benders that an expensive vehicle was built to avoid made him a little curious and he wasn’t really interested in forking over money for the excess for any reason.
“Great,” Will replied. “No problem.”
Giving Jacob a final nod JD got behind the wheel and waited for Jacob to move the Tesla. While waiting he leaned over and put his pen Jacob had used into a spare envelope in his glove compartment.
Though he was already turning to get his own pictures - part of the usual routine in these types of situations - and once he was satisfied with the photographs he climbed back into the Tesla. As it brought itself to life the lights flickered on and slowly Will eased the vehicle forward, back into the space, to let Jason continue on his way.
JD pulled away, listening intently for any tell-tale sounds of rubbing, relaxing once he’d turned the corner at the end of the aisle and hearing nothing. A few minutes later he was already thinking about what time he’d go to the bar that night.