dock: atticus and mal
Mal was near the dock for his own melancholic reasons, and he wasn't expecting company.
He didn't smoke, so there was no flicker of light to guide the eye toward his silhouette in the murkiness at the edge of the water. He was pulling a good old-fashioned Gatsby, staring across the lake at a distant point, at the gleaming hulk of a mansion, set back from the water and half-shrouded with old pines. This mansion, though, was empty - all dark windows that shone faintly in the light reflected off the water. He wore a soft old hoodie, head shrouded in the hood, hands stuffed inside.
He had a little bit of a buzz on. He was engaging in an indulgence. He was away from the vital work he ought to spend his night hours on, between running the shop and catching an hour of sleep here or there. He was outside the bounds of his responsibilities, morose in the summer gloaming. The boat that pulled up to the dock, not thirty feet away, glided into this moment of quiet out of a dream, playing music and rocking over the placid lake like a messenger from across the water.
He calculated for a moment. He could sidle awkwardly away, and leave another person to their own quiet nighttime contemplation. Instead, on impulse, he made what was probably a bad decision - something of a habit of his. "Hello," he said.