niall malone ⚔ kirigaya kazuto (notsolo) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2017-09-30 15:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, * jamie, * kit, c: eve malone, c: niall malone |
WHO: Eve Ritter & Niall Malone
WHEN: September 25, 2017; Afternoon
WHERE: Black Swordsman Games
SUMMARY: Eve brings food!
WARNINGS: None.
It had been an early day for Eve, which she knew she ought to have been grateful for, but it meant that she had too many hours of her day with a whole lot of nothing planned and she didn't do well with nothing. About a half an hour before she was looking at being relieved, having to leave her truck in the care of underlings that she had learned to trust at her step-sister's insistence, she decided to make some lunch to go. She filled three containers with the special of the day (the Loaded Triple Cheese Burger, a half-pound patty with fontina, American, and cheddar cheese, topped with bacon) with a healthy portion of their pan-fried mac and cheese and fries, then took three sodas from the cooler before she was dropped off at her car and the truck went off toward DC for the afternoon and evening route. It was a short drive to her brother's office, but everything was a short drive from anything else in Dunhaven. Eve found that part of the town's charm. In would have taken her an hour to get the same distance in New York, something that she didn't miss in the least. While living in the city had its upsides, she realized that she missed it less and less with each passing day. Not even bothering to lock the doors of her car, she slung her purse over her shoulder and picked up the three lunches. Noah's car was missing, which Eve realized probably meant that she should have texted ahead of time to let him know that she was bringing him lunch. He was a bit of a bottomless pit, though, so she had a feeling that he'd eat this on top of whatever it was he'd ran home to get. She just hoped that Niall was still there or she'd have three meals to eat on her own. Balancing the food with one arm, Eve opened the door to the office and let herself in. She hadn't actually brought food before, but after Niall and her had discussed spinach, she had been thinking about dropping by. Though nothing she had brought today had any spinach in it, she thought he would ease him into her cooking. As far as she was concerned, it was pretty good -- but she knew it was from a lot of work and learned instincts for her to get to that point. "Hi," she announced herself, her voice a bit louder to make sure she was heard as she closed the door behind her. "I brought lunch!" The thing Niall loved about having his own company was that it was often that he had the office to himself. They didn’t currently have much of a staff as they were just starting to get off the ground and Noah was often out and about doing things that Niall didn’t ask about for fear of being asked to come with his friend and business partner. He supposed it would have been to his benefit to get out into the small town occasionally. After all, it would be helpful to know where everything was. He’d grown so accustomed to city life, though, where he just looked up the appropriate bus route whenever he needed to go somewhere, plugged in his headphones, and let the bus driver take him everywhere. With the office empty save for himself, Niall had taken the opportunity to lose himself in testing the game he and Noah had been working on developing for several months before he’d even moved to Dunhaven. With his headphones covering his ears, he’d turned his own music of preference up high--the game didn’t currently have a soundtrack and Niall needed some kind of sound to help him concentrate. And, as such, he didn’t hear the front door open or the soft jingle of the bells letting him know someone was coming it. He also didn’t hear Eve’s reasonably loud greeting. As he navigated his character through a particularly difficult level, Niall started singing along to the music, his noise-cancelling headphones not clueing him in to just how loudly he was singing. There was no immediate response to Eve's announcement of her presence and she panicked for a moment, thinking that maybe no one really was there -- and then she heard the singing. It wasn't Noah, that much she knew immediately, so she assumed it had to have been Niall. Curious and more than a bit amused, she navigated her way through the office, following the sound of his voice until she'd found him. His headphones were in and he was clearly working, leaving her feeling a bit bad for interrupting him, but... Eve knew she was still just out of his line of vision, so she moved, setting the food on the desk and then leaning to catch his eye. Her hair fell over her shoulder, hard to miss given its bright red hue. She smiled, then lifted a hand in a wave. Niall jumped at the sudden appearance of another person, pushing his headphones off his ears in haste. He closed his eyes and let out a breath. “Jesus,” he said, opening his eyes to take in the new visitor. “Is this how you welcome everyone to Dunhaven, Eve? With a complimentary heart attack?” He wasn’t upset at her arrival. On the contrary, he’d always looked forward to seeing her, even if only through a quick cameo appearance on Noah’s video chat. He was going to have to get used to the fact that surprise visitors were something totally different in Dunhaven than they were in LA--he didn’t have as much reason to be startled here as he did there. He pulled the headphones off from around his neck and tried not to look as pleased as he felt that she was there. “Noah went out to run some errands. Did you need him? I can text him and tell him to head back, if you want.” Unable to help herself, Eve grinned brightly when Niall jumped, though she did manage to scrunch up her nose in some variation of a silent apology when he spoke. She hadn't really meant to surprise him, but she had a feeling that given how in the zone he clearly had been there wouldn't have been any other way to get his attention. Hopefully he'd forgive her when she gave him food. "No, it's fine," she replied, taking one of the boxes of food and holding it out to him. "He will just have to suffer, thanks to not being able to read my mind and know exactly when I was going to drop by with lunch." Eve paused, pulling the box back just a bit and raising an eyebrow. "Though I'm hoping you haven't eaten yet? Otherwise I'll be pretty put out that both of you can't benefit from my selflessness." Niall took the box from her but eyed it with mock wariness. “That depends on how many vegetables you’ve hidden in here, really. I’m on a strict all carb diet.” He didn’t wait for her answer, though, and instead pulled the box toward him, opening the top of it. Almost instantly, the smell of the burger and the sides wafted toward him and he groaned in anticipation. “I take back every criticism. This looks delicious. And I’m sure it tastes delicious, too, unlike the food I’ve had my character make in the game,” he laughed and then set the box to the side before lifting the burger out and taking a bite. After a moment of chewing, Niall nodded in appreciation. With his mouth still full, he said, “I think we should tell your brother your forgot about him and let me eat his burger, too.” Although she tried really hard not to, Eve watched Niall expectantly, waiting for his reaction to the food. It was one thing when she was making food and giving it to a customer, but when she made something for another person, she was always a step away from holding her breath as she awaited their reaction. And though she wasn't about to admit it out loud to him, Niall's opinion of her cooking felt very important. She didn't know why, but it probably added to the reasoning for the sheer wattage of the bright smile that crossed her face, especially when he suggested he keep Noah's lunch as well. "Knowing him, he'll have already eaten somewhere fast food anyway. Your secret is safe with me," Eve replied, pulling three forks that were wrapped in napkins from her messenger bag and setting them down for the macaroni and cheese. Then, she tugged the nearest chair over to him, making herself at home as she opened up her own box. A bite of her own burger later and she let out a content sigh. Oh, yeah. That was good stuff. Sometimes even she had to pat herself on her back. "The best part is the ground up spinach I put in the beef," she said evenly, then immediately ruined the delivery as she looked at him a grinned again. Niall eyed her warily, holding the burger away from his as a frown deepened on his face. “Have you just poisoned me?” He sniffed at the burger and added. “If you’ve defiled this burger in any way, I’m not sure I’ll be able to forgive you.” In truth, Niall didn’t actually hate vegetables, nor did he specifically hate spinach. It wasn’t his favorite thing, but it was fun teasing Eve about it even so. Regardless of what was in the burger, though, the first bite had been delicious and all he really wanted to do was inhale the rest of it before moving onto the sides. He shrugged and took another giant bite of the burger and grinned. "You'll forgive me around the time you get to the macaroni and cheese," Eve replied, still smiling as she arched an almost challenging eyebrow. She paused her teasing to take another big bite of her burger, glad that she'd thought to get the food before leaving. For as much as she loved cooking, she wasn't very good at keeping her apartment's kitchen as well stocked as it could have been. In fact, she was more used to the kitchen in the restaurant or the food truck than she was her own kitchen at home and she'd been living in it for a while now. After finishing her bite, she crossed her legs and asked, "So how are you liking Dunhaven so far? Everything you dreamed it could be?" Niall shrugged. “I didn’t have a lot of expectations to begin with, really. Though I wasn’t expecting, ‘We didn’t see you at church on Sunday,’ to be the official Dunhaven greeting.” He wasn’t used to small town life, and he knew it was an adjustment for his sister, as well. Still, he’d dragged her here with him and he was determined to at least fake liking the town until he actually liked the town. He picked up a fork and took a big bite of the macaroni and cheese, which was closely followed by an mmm of pleasure. The food was good, better than good. Looking up at Eve, still chewing another bite of the burger, he said, “You’ve been here a couple years now?” "Two," Eve agreed with a nod. "Almost exactly. And I'm sorry to tell you, but I'm still given a hard time about not going to church. I was almost tempted to go, just to get them to stop bringing it up, but I figured that wasn't exactly what church was about, so... instead I continue to sleep in on Sundays." Pausing, she took another bite of her burger before she let herself continue. As annoying as the gossips and busybodies could be, she had come to love Dunhaven and, given that she had transplanted from a city even larger than the one the Malones had come from, she had faith that Niall would at least find reason to not hate it with time. "It's not all bad, though. The community events are always fun and the weather is nice. This is the best time of year in my opinion, though. I like it when the leaves start to change and I can start wearing boots and scarves and drink pumpkin flavored things." She scrunched up her nose. "It's not until this very moment that I've realized how typically twenty-something I apparently am." Niall laughed. “You’re in good company, though. As it happens, I’ve lived on the most hipster coast in America my entire life. Unfortunately, I rarely had occasion for scarves in LA,” he said. In truth, he had no idea what to really expect from the coming seasons in Dunhaven. He was half expecting to deal with ten feet of snow persisting from November to March. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to actually go clothes shopping for the first time in five years so that I don’t freeze to death.” Eve smiled at that assessment, scrunching up her nose a bit as she nodded. She had lucked out in that she'd moved south, not that it was too drastically different between Dunhaven and New York City -- weather-wise, at least. "Yeah, you're probably going to want to do that," she agreed. "At the very least a warm coat. It's definitely worse further north, but it gets cold. How much snow experience do you have?" Niall shrugged and took another bite of the burger. The food was too good to leave too much time between bites even if a part of him thought that he might do better to savor what he was eating. "None? Unless you count worlds of ice and snow in video games," he replied with a small, embarrassed laugh. "No, I don't think those count," Eve advised after swallowing another bite of burger, her hand coming to her mouth to cover it for a brief second out of fear of something in her teeth. "Until we have some kind of equivalent to a resistance to cold potion, that probably doesn't count as real experience." She set the burger down, picking up a french fry instead. "It really doesn't get too bad here, but if it's not something you're used to, it'll be a change. We'll just make sure you're well stocked. The last thing we want is for you to turn into a popsicle during your first winter in Virginia." “It’s a good thing I have you here, then,” Niall replied with a smile. “Clearly, I’d be lost in some snow drift without you.” |