Rae sighed the sigh of the put upon and rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. "Fine, fine. Selfish," she teased with a bit of a grin as she winked at him. She was sure that he knew she was kidding, but she wasn't going to just drop it. She gathered one of the two cans of Coke that she'd stowed in her purse and tossed it over to Eli with a "Heads up!", before cracking her own can open. For a moment, she felt a bit like Mary Poppins, with the limitless stuff in her bag, but she didn't say so much.
When Eli shared his idea for her tattoo, her smile was a little bit more reserved now, but no less sweet. "That's a really good idea. A bright yellow butterfly whose wings are normal on the top but the bottom looks like sun rays? I love that," she nodded, raising her eyes to look at Eli. "Sadly, I doubt anyone really cares enough about tattoos to do something like that anymore. 'Cause now I really want it…"
Her reserved smile turned bright and amused once more when Eli told her the story about David singing in the park when he was drunk. "I… would pay to see that, I'm not going to lie," she laughed. "I'll have to bring a bottle of the good stuff with me when we go find him," she said. She'd been thinking about that promise increasingly often lately, especially since her mother had died. "I've been saving a bottle of Courvoisier for just such an occasion and this seems like it," she said seriously.
"There's a reason I'm wearing pants with this skirt," she said, glancing at the leggings she wore. "I have weird knees. I don't do skirts. Damn. This 50's thing is looking less and less promising every second," she chuckled. "I'll think of something you like. Though it'll be hard to top this," she gestured to their current attire.
Rae would be lying if she tried to claim that she didn't see the half-sadness on Eli's face, even as he tried to keep it hidden. She felt guilty for asking, until he started talking. Well, she still felt guilty, but the story was slightly amusing, and Rae laughed softly in response. She slid down off the table and crouched down in front of Eli, looking up at him with a genuine smile. "We're going. We've talked about it for a year now, but I think it's time," she said seriously. "You miss your brother. And I made a promise to take you to him," she said. "As soon as we can get together a list of who's coming with us? We'll take a boat and go to Liberty to look for him."
She wasn't sure if this meant that she'd have to leave her father, considering the current state of their relationship, but she wasn't going to take her promise back. Eli deserved to be happy. Deserved to be reunited with her brother. And she was going to make it happen. "I think it'll take two weeks tops. But we're going to go. It's time."
She paused, chuckling a little bit. "There's not a hell of a lot to tell. I spent the past two years before this happened working Halloween. Though they did let us dress up," she added with a bashful chuckle. She wasn't sure if she wanted to mention her burlesque costume. Eli respected her. At least he seemed to. And she wanted to keep it that way. "I do remember, though, that my friend Amy had this obsession with Bloody Mary? And my friends and I played a prank on her one year… by having her do the whole schpiel in front of the mirror? And I bust into the room dressed as Bloody Mary. It was all fun until she started pelting me with hairbrushes and toothpaste," she added with a laugh.