Hannah J. Flynn (hannah_flynn) wrote in low_tide, @ 2010-03-19 11:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | hannah flynn, joseph tropiano |
A Gamblin' Man
The weather was a pleasant seventy-one degrees and sunny. It was mild rather than hot, with only wisps of clouds in the azure sky. In the afternoon, Hannah opened all three windows of her stuffy garage apartment, but that wasn't enough to invigorate her. She changed into white capri pants and a yellow top with spaghetti straps. With sandals on her feet and ponytail swinging, she left the property and rode her bike to the public beach a few minutes away. After chaining it to a palm tree, she kicked off her shoes and walked onto the beach. The sand was coarse here, with a rock jetty on the left to prevent erosion. Water lapped at the shore rather than broke against it.
It was March yet, so she only dared to roll her pants up to her knees and dip her toes in the cold water. Some people could swim all the way out to the breakers in this weather and not bat an eyelash. Hannah didn't have the constitution for it. Gulls circled overhead. Using her hand as a sun visor, Hannah tipped her head back and watched them dive and float on the currents of air.
The water was cold, very cold, Joseph Tropiano could testify to that. He’d foregone the heated pool in his hotel for the not so welcoming embrace of the open sea: some would call that madness, but the space was what Joseph needed, and the clarity.
Whether he liked to admit it or not, the conversation with Rhiannon had shook him up a lot more than he’d let on. Surreal or not, the idea of another him (a different him) in another place was a little much to take in, especially from the woman that he was apparently married to in this other life. Key West was trying him that much was true and as a result Joseph missed the familiarity of New York, he really did.
Clad in nothing but a pair of black swimming trunks Joseph emerged from the water, running his fingers through his hair to comb it back and out of the way. Feeling the cold more now than ever before; particularly as water ran down the length of his back and escaped down his legs.
He shivered quite visibly as he reached down, removing a small stone that had somehow managed to get wedged in-between his toes.
The gulls swooped leftward and Hannah pivoted to follow them with her eyes. Another person came into view. Luckily she had on her sunglasses, or else it would've been painfully obvious when Hannah's eyes bulged in the sockets. "Holy mother of god..." She covered her mouth with a tight little fist and faced the ocean again. Do not gape at the half-naked man. It is rude and unbecoming, no matter if his chest is the color of toasted almonds. It was like he had pointed a loaded weapon at her or something. "Whew," she said. "Warm out here."
She cleared her throat and walked a little ways farther into the water. The cold water crept up to her calf muscles, which were pale. Whenever outdoors, Hannah put on so much sunblock, it was practically a layer of clothing. She watched her toes wiggle in the silt.
Joseph’s eyebrow arched and his head turned, gaze first taking in those ever so pale calf muscles before it finally found its way to the cute blonde’s face. “Not so warm in there,” he remarked with a disarming smile. “But I’m guessing you knew that already.” His hand gestured at where she stood all calf deep in water.
He took a couple steps away from the water, snatching up a towel from a nearby chair, his chair to be more exact. The towel went over his chest first and then into his hair, catching wayward trickles of water in the cotton.
“No idea how those surfers stay in there for hours on end.”
"Wetsuits," she said nonsensically. Really, she was wondering how much he heard, or rather how much she said out loud. "But even so, you'd think their feet would get cold." The sandal straps hung from the crook of Hannah's finger. At least he was friendly and didn't preen the way some guys did. Beach volleyball players, for instance. Hannah didn't appreciate ego on a man, even when he deserved to have one. She kicked a small spray of water above the surface and waded a little. She split her attention between a sailboat on the horizon and the ground underfoot. Bits of coral or rock could cut her feet, if she wasn't careful where she stepped.
"You seemed to handle it okay." Hannah brushed a lock of blonde off her forehead. No matter what, pieces always slipped the rubber band.
Joseph finished drying his hair and simply bent down, using the towel to dry off his legs. “Until now,” he remarked with a chuckle. “It’s not so bad once you’re in it and moving. The real bitch is when you come out of it and hit cold air.”
His hair flopped forward again and was shoved back before a now dried hand was offered to the blonde. “Joseph.”
He secretly found himself hoping for a normal regular conversation with somebody who didn’t know him.
She considered for a second before crossing the distance to dry land and shaking, making sure to keep the contact brief. His fingers were still cold. "Hannah. Pleased to meet you." Once she let go, she got a keen idea of what he was talking about. The breeze felt like ice cubes on her calf muscles and she was glad she hadn't ventured farther. She dug her toes into the warm sand. Since they were close to a hotel, it seemed natural to ask, "Are you here on vacation? You look tan enough to be an islander, but your accent's... kinda northern." Hannah gathered the end of her ponytail over her shoulder to keep it from whipping around in the wind.
Joseph gave Hannah another smile and then withdrew his hand, turning his fingers to latching the cotton around his waist, unconsciously flashing a hip at the same time. "Vacation? Yeah, I'm enjoying some much needed time off from New York." Joseph dropped down onto the nearby chair and reached into his discarded jeans to pull out cigarettes and a lighter, tilting his head to peer up at Hannah. "How about you? You here on vacation or are you a native?"
He slid the cigarette between his lips and cupped his palms around the lighter's flame so he could actually get his fix.
"Neither," Hannah said. Suddenly, she was glad to be upwind of him. Smoking looked really sexy, but the smell was hard to get out of your hair. "On Key West, they don't call you a 'conch' until you've lived here seven years, and I'm only up to five. Even then, they call you a 'freshwater conch' to put you in your place." She crossed her arms. The sandals swung back and forth from her fingertip. "Where I'm originally from, nobody's in a hurry to distinguish themselves as a native."
Joseph lifted an eyebrow and turned his head, exhaling smoke away from Hannah. "You know that just begs the question." His lips quirked into a smile before he rubbed a hand over a tattoo on his bicep. "Where are you originally from?" He looked away but only briefly, taking note of a dog off the leash that was apparently making a break for freedom across the shoreline. Cute, in a frighteningly domestic and normal way.
He didn't think he'd be in Key West long enough to be called a 'conch' considering he moved a lot, opening up new territory.
"Oklahoma," she said. "Where the wind comes sweeping down the plains, or so says the song. And by sweeping, they really mean spiraling." Hannah saw the dog too and thought of her Dachshund, whom she'd left sweltering in the apartment. It was kind of mean, but sometimes untangling him from her ankles was a pain in the ass. "So." She searched for the right way to put it. "Do you like New York? Lots of people seem to go there for vacation and you're... going the other way."
Joseph chuckled at Hannah's question and lifted his shoulders, taking another drag from his cigarette, slow and even. "It's a different story when it's all you've ever known, you know?" He raked his fingers through his damp hair and pulled it away from his face, meaning he could have a better view of everything going on around him. Joseph might have looked relaxed, but he was vigilant, and packing heat.
"I needed a change," he finally said after a moment's pause. "A figurative and literal fresh breath of air."
Hannah nodded. She tipped her head, thinking it over. "Sometimes I think I'd like a figurative and literal smoggy breath of air. I guess it's a grass-is-always-greener situation. Don't get me wrong, I love it here," she said, brown eyes widening, as if saying otherwise out loud might doom her to Oklahoma again, "But a vacation in New York would be pretty darn cool." She pressed her sandals together, heels facing towards one another. "It's weird. I always think of New Yorkers as being investment bankers and all. You don't really..." Hannah winced. "I mean, you look... less like an investment banker."
"Uh huh," Joseph muttered as he regarded the blonde. "So, what do I look like then?" Curiosity killed the cat, but you never got anywhere in life without asking questions. He lifted the cigarette to his lips and took a drag, waiting for Hannah to fill in what she thought he looked like.
He held onto the smoke for as long as possible before it escaped the corners of his mouth.
"Uh..." Crap! Hannah pressed her lips together and considered the long hair, the tattoos, the cigarette, the scars, the near-nakedness. A male escort? Good lord, she couldn't say that aloud, and besides, it wasn't strictly true. She imagined them as looking more like strippers and he didn't have the huge, greasy, gross muscles for that. A tattoo artist? "A professional gambler," she said. Did they have those? She sort-of pictured him in smoking rooms playing cards.
Joseph could practically see Hannah's brain working to try and slap some sort of career on him and he resisted the urge to smile. She was pretty close to the mark when she revealed what she did and he gave a nod of his head. "Nicely done. You got it in one." More or less. "It's a fun way to make a living."
He flicked ash aside and reached down into his bag for his t-shirt, unfolding it to pull it on over his head. "What do you do here, Hannah?"
"Really?" The note came out higher than Hannah would've liked. She just couldn't believe she got it in one guess. "Wow! Remind me never to play cards with you. Which, I mean, would be bad no matter what you did for a living, since all I know is Rummy." She watched his head disappear into the t-shirt. Hannah felt oddly childish around his raw manliness, like she'd just gotten off the plane from Mayberry. Which was ridiculous, she told herself. Mayberry had no airport.
"I've got two jobs. I run an arts and crafts stand in Mallory Square, and I write novels. I've been published." She couldn't help but add on the last part. She was proud of it.
Joseph pulled the t-shirt down and settled it around the now towel-clad hips and reached up to smooth unruly strands back into place, ignoring a trickle of water that hit his temple and escaped over his profile. "I'll be sure to do that. I'll keep you away from things like poker or the ever scandalous strip poker." He bared his teeth at her and winked before settling into a warm laugh.
"Published?" He repeated, taking another drag of his cigarette. "That's pretty cool. I can't write to save my life." Not that he'd had to, thankfully.
Hannah's tongue pushed against the backs of her teeth. "Wait... do people really play strip poker?" She had always thought it was an urban legend, like streaking naked down Main Street or gaggles of teenagers going skinny dipping in ponds (if it had happened in Hannah's hometown, she didn't get the invite). "If the answer's yes, you've just given me a great idea for a plot... In which case, I'll have to start researching poker immediately." She reached down and started brushing sand off her feet the best she could in order to put her sandals on. She wasn't terribly successful.
"Yeah," Joseph answered with a smile. "They really do." He let out a stream of smoke and reached across to stub the cigarette out in a makeshift ashtray, he didn't believe in ruining the beach with the tail end of his unhealthy vice. "It's pretty fun." Even if at the beginning Joseph had lost more clothes than he'd kept on, but that was half the fun.
He noticed her struggle with sand and just crooked a finger, gesturing for her to hold a foot up.
What did he want her foot for? Hannah's forehead rumpled in confusion, but she lifted her leg anyway. "Sounds like it'd be..." Fun? "Hard to concentrate." She decided she could picture him playing it, though. He had a bit of a mischievous vibe and besides, he was near-naked out here anyway. Add a deck of cards and he was halfway there. It seemed to her that in strip poker, women had more clothes to take off, but also more ways to lose, considering their breasts.
Joseph chuckled at Hannah's take on strip poker. "Depends on who you're playing with. The prettier the women the harder it is to concentrate." He picked up a nearby bottle of water and uncapped it, tipping it towards Hannah's foot. A short squeeze and cool water hit the foot itself, washing away any traces of sand. "And also depends on the stakes, it's remarkably easy to concentrate when you've got money to lose.
"I haven't played it in a while."
Hannah sucked air through her teeth. "Cold!" She hopped to retain her balance in the sand. It was a little challenging to put a sandal on a damp foot, but far more comfortable than strapping it over coarse grains of sand. She let him rinse off her left foot, too, and slipped her shoe on. "Thanks. Hope you weren't thirsty." Now with nothing to do with her hands, she set them on her hips. "Well. One thing's for sure. There's probably plenty of women in Key West willing to play strip poker. How many of them are any good at it... I dunno." She wrinkled her nose. More to the point, there were plenty of women in Key West willing to strip, period. Forget the card game. "I'd say it's almost better for you if they're bad at poker, but what's the fun in that?"
Hannah shrugged. "You look like a man who appreciates a challenge."
Joseph chuckled at her reaction to the water and swallowed what was left, stowing the bottle in his bag a few moments later. "Yeah, I'd get bored otherwise." He rubbed at his hair and then simply scratched at his collarbone. "Poker's always better when there's more at stake and lots to lose." Then and only then did it get both fun and interesting.
"Not for the faint of heart."
Hannah nodded. "I'll remember that." Make heroine of novel boisterous and brave. Maybe slightly stupid. Check. "Well... it was nice meeting you, Joseph." She leaned forward and stuck her hand towards him. "I'm sure I'll see you around again, if you're here for a while. Small island."
Joseph gave Hannah another smile and took a hold of her slightly smaller hand, squeezing it firmly before ducking his head to press a kiss to her knuckles. "You too, Hannah." With a wink he let go of her hand and sat back, reaching for a pair of shades. "And if you ever fancy giving a card game a go, you oughta swing by the Lucky Toss." The same pool hall he inhabited on a frequent basis. "I promise to go easy on you." Joseph chuckled and then slid his shades on, reaching over for his hands free kit as he had a call to make.
"Okay. Maybe I will." She wagged her fingers and moved off along the beach, contemplating card games, story plots, and why the place was called the Lucky Toss.