pat_oreilly (pat_oreilly) wrote in the_dome, @ 2013-06-15 14:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | 04-02-2017, patrick, patrick and reagan, reagan |
Making Good
Who: Reagan & Patrick
When: afternoonish
Where:Out, then the pub
Reagan was a little stunned still that she’d even gone into the auction, let alone bid on not only Jack, who she knew and sort of felt a connection with, but on a man who was literally at least 10 years her senior and someone she had never even met before. What did one do with a man one had just won and who one did not know? She’d made tentative plans to meet him the next day to do something and ran home to shower, change clothes, think, sleep.
Free drinks had sounded good when Chiri had been promising them up on the stage but in light of the fact that Patrick was a complete stranger save for possibly having seen him a few times in the pub... well she was thinking free drinks were maybe not a good idea for this particular instance. She’d play it by ear. She’d gotten herself into a pretty strange situation. Nothing for it but to pull on her best, summery sundress, a short, golden strapless with a thin brown ribbon belt, and slip her feet into brown gladiator sandals... and present herself at their meeting point.
Thus she stood, glancing around now, waiting to see Patrick and figure out what to make of all this. The one thing she did know was she was determined to have fun.
Patrick had considered bailing. The thought had passed his mind but had been vetoed almost as quickly. He didn't know Reagan but he figured she wouldn't appreciate that. And at the very least, Eily would kill him for it.
He hadn't put nearly as much effort into getting ready for this as Reagan had, and he could see it when he came up to their agreed upon meeting place. This was not a date for him. This was an obligation, a fulfillment of his word, but nothing about this made him feel less creepy for having been bought by someone so much younger than him.
He came up to her, hands firmly tucked into his pockets, and gave her the nicest smile he could muster, which was in turn extremely awkward. "Hello again."
Reagan hadn't known what to expect but had some idea in her mind that older guys probably didn't want to hang out with a girl who smelled like lake water and sparkled with glass dust. Though the latter might never be completely absent from her hair and skin regardless of her most concentrated efforts. So it never even occurred to her to notice what he was wearing or anything other than the fact that he sort of looked like he might be in pain by the way he was smiling. What must he think of her? Bidding on an older man.
"Hi, um, Patrick." She almost started to say that if this was too weird maybe they should pretend the whole auction thing had never happened. But then she thought better of it. Why give him an out? She wanted to enjoy this random situation. "I just wanted to say thanks for being such a good sport. And that I really don't expect free drinks like Chiri said." She chuckled and pushed her hair back behind her ears.
She knew his name and all he knew her as was the 'pretty brunette' that Chiri had kept mentioning. "This is gonna make me feel like an ass but…what's your name?" He asked, hands still firmly tucked in his pocket as he looked back her way. "Uh…well thank you for bidding on me. It'll make my sister very happy." Shit, he could use a drink right now. He might even consider giving her one for free if it would make him feel less awkward. Though he wasn't sure it would. "Do you drink?"
Reagan looked slightly horrified that they’d gone through all of the auction and the conversation to meet and she’d never once offered her name. She ducked her head with a soft chuckle. “Oh sorry! I get a little ahead of myself sometimes. I’m Reagan McCartney. I own the Heart of Glass.” She watched him curiously and wondered what he wasn’t saying because his body language seemed to be saying uncomfortable. “That’s important, right? Keeping sisters happy?” she asked in her gentle accent with a small smile, thinking of her two lost somewhere on another continent. “I do drink, actually. There’ve been a couple evenings I thought I might be single-handedly keeping your pub in business!”
“Nice to actually meet you, Reagan.” The accent was a surprise for Patrick, enough to catch his attention and turn his eyes her way again. He listened to her talk and then ended up giving a small laugh her way. “We could go to the bar then, He suggested, thinking that it might make him feel less awkward to be in a place that felt almost as homey as home did for him. Somewhere he felt comfortable.
She’d been thinking perhaps drinks weren’t the best idea but with the way this was going, she felt like she could use a shot of something or a beer to give her hands something to play with. And if it was his pub, they’d have something to talk about too. She smiled and nodded. “We could do that. Will you make me your signature drink? Or maybe just your favorite of your beers? I’ve heard you have a couple good ones.”
“Signature drink? I don’t...I’m not good at that. But I can pour a beer,” Patrick said, trying again for a smile. He wasn’t doing very well at making this not awkward, but he was actually trying now. Nodding his head in the direction of the pub, he started walking. “All of our beers are good,” He said, a more real smile there. “But I have a couple favorites. What kind of beers do you like?”
Reagan smiled in return, feeling her shoulders loosen as they began to walk. She liked the sound of his voice and thought a moment before answering him. “Well, I’m no connoisseur, but I tend to like bitter, more hoppy flavored beers. Someone once told me there used to be such a thing as IPAs and that I would have loved them. You don’t happen to make an IPA, do you?” Considering all the ways this meeting could have gone, talking about beer was probably one of the best outcomes so far.
Patrick smiled. He always appreciated a girl who knew what she was talking about when it came to beers. "You're in luck, we do have an IPA and you probably would love it. I'm a fan of it." He looked back at her again, now even more curious, more confused as to why she'd bid on him. He was a grumpy man a lot older than she was. "So…why bid on me? There were plenty of guys out there to bid on…"
Reagan smiled and nodded her head. “I’ll bet I will. I look forward to tasting it. How many different beers do you actually make?” The more they talked like this, more at ease she felt with him. She was glad she’d bid on him. It was a brand new experience, if a little left of center for not just her but the both of them, she guessed. And when he asked why she’d bid, she knew she was right about that. “There was something about the way you looked, I think,” she answered truthfully. “I hadn’t even planned on being there, let alone bidding and you just intrigued me. I kind of wanted to know your story. That and the pink haired gal gave you quite the introduction.” She grinned and ducked her head.
"Which she shouldn't have." He and Chiri had had a strange encounter and she'd been really…well, she'd been a good sport during the auction and it made Patrick half want to seek her out again, but it was an idea he kept buried. "My story?" He echoed an earlier part of her words, wondering again if anyone really genuinely wanted to know anyone else's story. She seemed to even if he didn't think he'd be spilling his guts anytime soon. "Gonna be honest here, I'm not real interesting so you may have wasted your money. Aside from the five or so beers we have that we could try, there isn't a lot much more interesting about me. Bet you’re pretty interesting, though. Tell me about your story?” At least it would get him off the hook, for now.
Reagan quirked a brow at his statement. “No? What should she have said instead?” Her brow furrowed with curiosity. He was going to have a hard time shaking her idea that he had a story she’d like to hear. “I don’t think I’ve wasted my money. You’re already interesting whether you think so or not. I mean, you’re an O’Reilly and who doesn’t know that’s a big family around the dome? You make beer. You’re self-deprecating. You survived a zombie uprising. And you were up there in that auction for some reason. See? Pretty interesting stuff, mate.” She smiled a bit playfully at him in a way that said she wasn’t letting him off the hook, her lips pressed shut.
"Not that," Patrick said, but didn't say that she made him sound too appealing. He was pretty sure that Reagan could see the awkwardness in him and she didn't necessarily need to be reminded of it. She was saying a lot of nice things about him and he was pretty sure he didn't agree with her. But still, there he was, listening to her saying things and frowning when she called him self-deprecating. "I'm just a realist," He answered, shaking his head. "I was at the auction because my sister signed me up. Said I needed to get out of the house and into society again. I would rather listen to your story."
She couldn’t help but giggle silently, just a shrugging of her bare shoulders at his succinct and pointed answer. She decided to let the subject drop for now since he was so disinterested in it. She didn’t want to push so hard that he started to find her annoying. But if charm wasn’t getting it out of him, she could wait. “Ah, well, remind me to thank your sister for signing you up and enabling me to have a little bit of an adventure, hm?” Reagan thought a moment, trying to think of where to start. “Well, like Chiri said, I own the Heart of Glass. Mostly it’s windows and lamps but I do really terrible glass menageries and some of my vases and baubles have regular customers. Which is less interesting than making beer. But I did just help someone clean up a house to prepare for a brothel and I discovered that I’ve been in the same dome for a year as someone I knew in high school, which considering that was in Australia, is pretty weird.”
Patrick didn't consider himself adventurous. Out of all the O'Reillys, he'd never been the one that anyone really needed to gamble on. He was reliable almost always and even when he'd faltered and he'd gotten Molly pregnant, they were married almost instantly after he found out. And then he altogether stopped thinking about himself and turned his attention right to Reagan. "A brothel?" There was going to be a brothel in his town? What the hell? Not even anything else registered, just the brothel, and he could not make seen of it. "...what?"
Reagan flushed at his reaction to her mention of the brothel. “Ummm well maybe I wasn’t supposed to say anything about it? I don’t know. I don’t remember being sworn to secrecy. But yeah, that’s a thing now here. Or will be. I think?” She shook her head, her expression amused. “Let me guess, you’re over the moon at the idea. Imagine the contracts for the pub.” She grinned then and gathered her hair in her hands, twisting it over one shoulder.
This was not at all what Patrick was hoping for. Brothels? He never would have expected this to pop up in the dome and it left him morally torn, which was not a great place to be at any point but definitely not around someone new. "Wouldn't say I'm thrilled at the idea." A brothel would bring in more money, but he wasn't sure he felt great about the idea of one at all in the first place. "Who's running this thing?"
“Ah well, in the interest of not being responsible for a hit being put out on the guy, maybe I shouldn’t say.” She smiled, joking with him, then said more seriously, “I’m not all that thrilled about it, to be honest. It’s difficult enough to try to have a ... normal life in the dome, let alone have to compete with … that.” Was she really talking about this with someone she’d just met? That had not been her intention when she’d blurted out the fact the brothel was being set up. She’d meant it as a funny one-note in her not so interesting story.
Patrick didn't like that Reagan wouldn't tell him the name of the brothel's owner. He was definitely going to be following up with that. As a concerned business owner, he had a right to, didn't he? He listened to her words just as they approached the pub and opened the door for her, still silent as he thought them over. "I don't know about this brothel thing…" She didn't need to know that he'd be doing his own research involving the brothel. He definitely needed a drink after this conversation, though, and went immediately for two cups. "Let's get some beer…"
“I don’t know about it either. I’m kind of distancing myself from it and the people involved. At least, the one I know of.” Suddenly there was nothing to talk about and Reagan glanced at him furtively. She couldn’t make sense of him and the edges of her idea that this was a fun adventure were beginning to crumble inward. Perhaps meeting someone random and new wasn’t exactly the most well-thought plan. “Yes,” she answered with a smile that didn’t quite reach across the entire surface of her face. “Beer is always a great idea, mate.”
Patrick watched her, thinking that he’d done it again and somehow managed to make someone miserable, though he didn’t really know how. He poured them both a beer and brought hers over to her, lifting his up. “Cheers,” He said, trying to reclaim some of the less-awkwardness from before even though his mind was very solidly on one thing. That stupid brothel. “You like card games?” He asked after a moment, looking back at her. “We’ve got a deck that has mostly all the cards in it, we could play a couple rounds of something.” At least it wouldn’t be a giant waste of time for Reagan, right?
Reagan watched him pour the beers and lifted hers up to mirror his actions. "Cheers indeed, mate." She took a sip and her face brightened considerably. "Mm, this is really good." She took another drink and then perked up even more when he mentioned cards. "Definitely cards," she said with a nod, tracing lines in the sweat on her beer glass. "But unless you want to get your head handed to you on a silver platter, best we don't play poker. My family had epic poker games." And the happy memory of her family stayed happy. Perhaps she needed to not give up when there was a hiccup because this could turn out to be a pretty fun evening.