Who: Lidia and Gus When: Backdated to October 25th, Evening. Where: Mimi’s. Rating: PG-13. Summary: Date Night Two, The Datening. Warnings: Nothing too objectionable, suggestion and language.
After some discussion, they decided to pass on the bar scene that night and go with a place they could actually sit down at. Some of the places had fairly lofty dress code requirements, but Mimi’s wasn’t one of them. Gus put on one of two ‘nice’ shirts he owned, nice in that they had collars and buttons and a pair of jeans that didn’t look like he’d been wearing them since he was a teenager - not that the jeans he wore as a teen would fit him, but he did tend to wear things until they were practically falling apart.
He was making an effort tonight, if only in the spirit of changing things up a bit.
“I know one of the cooks here,” he said as they got our menus, “Pretty intense dude. Wonder if he turns that up or down in the kitchen?”
Gus glanced in the direction of said kitchen and then down to his menu, although he couldn’t help but notice all the other couples. Maybe it wasn’t free date night, but it was still relatively busy. He smirked a bit to himself, keeping many snarky comments to himself. Lidia probably wasn’t interested in his inner monologue, which was, quite frankly, vaguely chauvinist and less than progressive. Seriously, though, he couldn’t help but think they were the only couple in the entire establishment that wasn’t playing a part in this fucked up sitcom.
“I think I’m just gonna get a damn hamburger,” he commented, “Don’t want to get too cultured, my mom won’t recognize me.”
Lidia sat across from him, sipping at the glass of water that had been waiting for them as part of the scenery. She’d opted for one of her ‘classier’ camouflages, that is, a quite feminine A-line skirt of flowy fabric that dusted a few inches over her knee, and a matching tank top. Her hair was even smoothed to a tame, light curl. Not it’s natural slightly savage wave. At his comment, she snorted lightly, and swallowed an ice cube.
“I like American food best. Remind me to expose you to borsch sometime.”
“Ohh, borsch,” he parroted, “Sounds dirty. I’m into it.”
“Is stew of raw horse meat.”
Gus couldn’t help a short bray of laughter, covering his mouth after a minute, “Hell, I’d try it. Tonight, though, I’m sticking to beef I think.”
There were a few hamburgers on the menu, which meant his decision was already made, and he set it down in front of him, peering around and sipping his water. Hopefully the waitress would be back to ask them what they wanted to drink soon.
“Tell me I’m not alone in feeling like everyone’s going to burst into song or something,” he grinned, lowering his voice so only she could hear, “Everyone else has scripts instead of menus.”
Lidia’s pale eyes shot to the couple to their right, vaguely apprehensive about how close they were. However, Gus’s imagery was too entertaining to ignore. Her lips tugged into one dimple, studying the man in a new light. He hunched at the shoulders, and his left heel kept bouncing like he was plugged into an electrical socket. He kept folding and refolding his hands as he talked. There was a lot of nodding, too.
“That one,” she said low and dangerous and meant for Gus. “Always a bottom.”
Gus nearly choked on his drink - not because was offended, but because he hadn’t expected Lidia to be on his exact wavelength. He coughed, cleared his throat, and his grin took on a boyish quality.
The nervous man’s date was chattering non-stop, heedless of his nerves, perhaps barely even recognizing that he was there.
“She only does missionary,” he said in a low voice, “Showers for two hours afterwards,” he paused and added, leaning in even closer to Lidia, “Then she waits for him to go to sleep and masturbates to a sexy fireman calender.”
He paused once more, and added with deadly seriousness, “The calender belongs to him, though.”
Lidia snickered just beneath her breath. It was still in her tone when they ordered drinks from the waitress who’d slinked up to the table, a little wild and distracted in the eyes. Lidia watched her with an intensity born from their new, impromptu game, which was much more enthralling than ordinary dinner date conversation. Harder to tell when she wasn’t interacting with her supposed ‘partner’, or any partner. A suitable challenge.
She waited until the girl left to fill their order, then eye-balled Gus with a predatory challenge in her eyes over the rim of her water glass. “Do her,” she prompted toward the server. “Then pick one for me.”
“Game on,” Gus grinned at her, shifting in his seat a moment, watching the waitress bustle around. She was bubbly enough, but the second she wasn’t facing her charged, the expression fell into something closer to a scowl than a bright smile.
“She’s been here since opening day,” he guessed, “Hasn’t been laid since she got here and she’s probably going to start flirting with male customers until she’s the first person to get fired for starting a fight in the middle of dinner service.”
Not his best work, but he couldn’t exactly stare at the waitress for too long without causing problems. He looked for a suitable challenge for Lidia, and nodded at a nervous looking couple that was just now being seated.
“Mister and Missus Newbie,” he said, “All yours.”
She had to hand it to him; not only were his ‘guesses’ in the same ball park as her own would’ve been, but he took it a step further with an obviously entertained imagination. Lidia found herself watching Gus’s face more than the target of his dissection, finding the unhindered expression collide with his attempts to be subtle. Before they’d spent so much time together, she would’ve attributed it to being a ‘dumb breed of criminal, unable to cover himself’. Now, she found it rather endearing. In a strange sort of alien sense.
She maintained her smirk and glanced to the new couple in question. The woman; impeccably pressed; shoulders straight under even straighter hair. Lips pressed into what was supposed to look like a natural little rosebud-bow. Her napkin was folded perfectly in her lap before she’d said a word.
Lidia looked to the man, who actually looked drunk. Possibly not to that extreme, but his posture was lax and lazy. His eyes were half-mast, and his expression exhibited a dumb sort of serenity. She couldn’t be sure, but their interaction seemed a little familiar.
Leaning closer toward Gus, Lidia was very careful of her voice’s volume for this one. “He was a virgin when he came here, and she blew him in the parking lot.”
Gus had to hide his laughter behind a hand, shoulders shaking, and he nodded emphatically at her. They definitely had an eerie synch when it came to this sort of thing - in his mind, at least, she was spot on.
He peered around for another couple but was interrupted when the waitress returned with their drinks. Gus offered her a thank you, smirked at Lidia, and raised his bottle of Miller for an impromptu cheers.
“I’m glad I’m not the only one who does this,” he admitted, “Usually I just do it in bars with the guys.”
‘The guys’ were a very, very far way away here, though, and he hadn’t really bonded with any other men. While he wasn’t counting it out, he just didn’t click very well with the average man who came here on purpose.
It was nice, if a little surprising, that he seemed to have more and more in common with Lidia the more time they spent together.
“Is necessity for some things,” Lidia came back just as casually, though the mirthful glint was still in her eyes. She was being honest, too; such observational skills were a great leg-up in circles she swam with, but it was fun to show-off when it wasn’t crucial. She tipped her water at him, almost as a salute. “But you knew this.”
“I guess it’d be handy in other situations,” Gus said, taking a swig of his beer. It was a decent place, Mimi’s. Generally when he went out, it was to eat greasy fried bar food. This sort of going out was a rare thing, but judging by the water she was drinking, they weren’t going to be going out and hitting bars. All one of them.
“Hey, did you try any of those baked pumpkin seeds in that goofy basket in the kitchen?” he wondered, “I saved some for you to try but completely forgot to tell you about them.”
Pumpkin seeds on their own probably didn’t look extremely edible - it struck him how rarely they actually talked. And to be fair, it was probably for the best, but they were out tonight. Maybe conversations only tended to veer towards disaster because of how much went unsaid.
Lidia arched a brow, setting the water glass down. “I had no idea what those were.” Seeds, yes; she had gotten that much, but she certainly hadn’t thought to eat them.
Gus laughed and nodded, “Yeah, they’re edible. They’re really good. Or I think they’re really good, anyway. I dunno if Halloween is a big thing in Russia, but in the States we carve pumpkins up and then use the guts for stuff. Pies. Baking the seeds, that kinda thing. You should give ‘em a try - I’ll eat them if you don’t like them, though.”
Not that he’d left a ton of them, as he’d perhaps hopefully expected her to dislike them.
“You know that house at the end of the block with all the decorations?” he asked, though it was rhetorical since the house was impossible to miss, “This little French girl lives there,” he made a hand gesture to approximate her height, “She made a bunch, and when I went to go pick some up, she’d put them in that basket. She’s like a French Martha Stewart or something - had a damn apple pie waiting when I got there.”
Apple pie, perhaps the holiest of baked goods, had made Gus an instant fan of Michele’s.
Lidia just kept smiling at him, lingering between amusement and a weird breed of endearment. Her first thought was imagining him trotting happily between their neighbor’s houses, swapping recipes and gossiping over coffee. The only thing he needed in that particular vision was a frilly apron; which was enough of a picture to shake Lidia’s head with a soundless laugh.
“French apple pie, eh?” she repeated with a note of laughter that didn’t quite come out in her voice. There may’ve been a little innuendo there, as well.
Gus picked up on the innuendo (of course) and made a face, though it was a humorous one.
“Little young for me,” he said, although he appeared to be vaguely entertained by his own statement, “Sort of a lot of that going around. I’m starting to feel like I’m the oldest dude in the entire community.”
He shook his head, laughing and taking another pull from his beer, “It’s just a little creepy to do the math and find out there’s maybe a one or two year window where I could’ve been someone’s goddamn dad.”
Lidia bobbed her brows and went in for another sip of water, speaking into it casually: “Many women enjoy older men.” The statement was a lot more ascetically acceptable than what she originally thought - something along the lines of sordid daddy issues.
“I have not seen any women older than myself, either. Perhaps it is a mentality; younger women are more--what is it...” she gestured absently with one hand, trying to find the word. “...eager.”
“Yeah, you’re a regular Cougar, Lidia,” he smirked at her moment. He knew it wasn’t what she meant, but ‘old’ and ‘twenty-six’ didn’t really jive together.
“I don’t know if eager is the word I would use,” he added, lowering his voice, “Maybe more pliable. Older you get, the more baggage you have. Usually. Considering what they’re up to, it’s probably on purpose that most people who get selected are really young. Some of us are just outliers.”
Lidia gestured an open hand at him, offering a grateful sort of expression that seemed to say ‘exactly’.
“Thank you. That is what I meant.”
“I’m a Thesaurus part-time,” Gus joked, “Glad to be of service.”
Their food arrived then, and Gus left off talking in favor of devouring the hamburger he’d ordered. Maybe it wasn’t the classiest meal, but he wasn’t the sort of man to put on airs - class wasn’t really his thing. Delicious red meat with cheese and various other condiments, though? He was all over that.
They were having a pretty decent time, but now he’d sort of reached the end of his small talk short list. There were plenty of serious things they could discuss, but he wasn’t sure that would be conducive to his goal of ending the evening on a high note.