Jewel Calderón sees right through you. (lovelyesque) wrote in theinvincibles, @ 2015-08-14 12:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | grace o'phelan, jewel calderón, lionel rosa |
Who: Jewel Calderón [Doppler], Lionel Rosa [Einstein], Grace O'Phelan [Index]
Where: Mini-golf course.
When: Friday, August 14th; evening.
What: The first official date! And some errant balls.
Warnings: It's very splendid.
Status: COMPLETE
In the weeks following the encounter in the commissary, any plans to map a date with Lionel Rosa tended to hit roadblocks mostly thanks to Jewel’s odd work hours and her brief stint in post-heroics headache land. It also didn’t help that field teams were continuously facing a barrage of attacks in the Chicago area. Despite her otherwise bubbly attitude about the Gold team’s success, she voiced her concerns to her girlfriend. The night of strip poker, however, was a great filler, and after Grace’s solid hour of discussing all the various hands played and how she couldn’t get the mapping of the decks out of her mind, their thoughts lazily sank into the topic of their fellow players, including one Mr. Rosa and his very naked self. It was decided then, as they found themselves drifting to sleep, that if he intended to date them, then that could only happen if there were dates. Cosmo was of next to no help, but anyone who depended too heavily on that magazine was a fool. Google provided more extensive answers to their inquiry, and it was at last settled upon - with verification from the potential Damsel - that mini golf and dinner would more than suffice. As per usual, Jewel still dressed up in what was mostly not appropriate for hitting little balls in grass, but she sing-sang, “We’re going on a date!” as she bounced around their suite, throwing her hair back and digging out a bracelet from her jewelry box. The ride to the golf course was, for once, happy, and there was an infectiously positive energy between the three of them. Once there, Jewel decided that the pink golf ball was hers, and garnered a few befuddled looks for her outfit, but she was just too thrilled to care. A few feet away from her, tossing the regular old white ball in the air, Lionel briefly (very, very briefly) wondered if it was appropriate to let his eyes linger on Jewel’s calves, before reminding himself that this was, after all, a date, and lingering away. Even he, who was already a relaxed sort of person, found himself with a certain cheer that day, even though he hadn’t played mini golf in a long enough time to make him feel old. He straightened, and smiled. “Ah, I see what’s going on here,” he said knowingly, referring, of course, to the outfit, and then turned to lean in conspiratorially to Grace. “This is clearly the same strategy as the other night, except now you’re not on her team. She’s trying to distract us.” There was a certain risk in taking much of anything Outside. The ‘this could lead to’s and ‘what if’s multiplied exponentially. But she’d admit that watching Jewel flutter around their closet like she was jetting off for Paris Fashion Week and not for shores surrounded by miniature windmills had it’s own charm. And there was a certain delightful silliness in watching their reluctant babysitters loitering in their periphery like unhappy parents at a child’s birthday party. “You just wait until she starts leaning over dramatically to get her ball back,” she returned, tipping her own head to appreciatively (if a bit showingly) take in the view for herself. Grace liked to think that she wasn’t nearly as much of a distraction - dressed sensibly in jeans and a tank-top (not to mention slathered liberally in suntan lotion, thank you Jewel) with her hair tucked into a messy braid. “Or batting her eyelashes all coy and tryin’ to get you to do it for her.” Her smile quirked upward at the corners, gaze cutting over to meet his, “In which case, I am very much on her team.” Grace was absolutely correct. As dolled up and eye-catching as Jewel made herself, her tricks were not so original, and even less so when the person who was most experienced with them was standing right next to the new meat, revealing her tactics prematurely. The novelty of retrieving balls would soon wear out. For now, she would take her brief advantage of it. It wasn’t as though Jewel could be dismayed by this turn of events. After all, she had the benefit of looking over her shoulder and seeing the two of them standing together, themselves incredibly fetching. Grace might - always - argue that point, but Jewel didn’t think there was a prettier girl in the world. She exuded natural beauty. “I suppose all of this conspiring means that I am to go first,” she smiled. “So that you two may continue gossipping about me as if I am not here and winning.” There was also the trick of pretending she didn’t know how to hit a ball, but she wasn’t in the business of dumbing herself down around the two most intellectual people she knew. But if Lionel wanted to help reteach Grace how to put, then that might be quite acceptable. Jewel tapped her ball and it rolled about four-fifths of the way down before creeping to a stop nearly a foot away. She sighed. “I have to get a feel for it.” “Is there such a thing?” Lionel replied, a bit of cheek to his tone, as he stepped over to take position himself, rolling the club between his fingers. “It’s not instinct, it’s physics.” He paused. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that.” Yes, technically, his ability meant that he could look at the ball and the hole and know exactly where to put his club, but it also granted him no special control over his own body, and knowing exactly how something should be done was an entirely different thing to doing it. Lionel could remember, at fifteen, being frustrated to no end on the soccer field, realizing that he could understand, could visualize the perfect shot going into the corner of the goal, numbers flying out like wind around the ball, momentum and air resistance and gravity at his mercy… and being utterly incapable of getting anywhere close. This was much the same. Unlike Jewel’s, his ball went rather close to the hole… only to pass it entirely and roll to a soft stop on its other side. “Alas,” he said wryly, but smiled as he moved aside and gestured for Grace to take his place. Lionel tugged at his collar. He was somewhere in between the two women in terms of how he’d dressed, going for a nice pair of jeans and a button-up shirt, but had underestimated the summer heat. “Your turn. Play well for our audience,” he gestured towards the three agents watching them from a distance. And Grace - Grace had memorization. Which was only really good for her if she had gotten a hole-in-one on this particular part of the course before. She had the next one set right up, yes, but this one was rather up in the air, really. They’d moved the little wooden block round-about a centimeter and the turf had been fixed sometime between the last time they’d been here and now. Which was just plain rude of them. And, honestly? Neither athletics nor mathematics were strong points in general. But she waved gamely to their panel of judges all the same, smothering a laugh and a fond (“Aw, duck.”) as the youngest of the group started to raise his hand before abortively tucking it back into his lap. And her shot? Well - “That was awful,” she laughed as her ball veered rather unimpressively, bowing with a flourish. “Seems I’m set to be on par with the average toddler.” Lionel’s comment about physics earned him a squinty-eyed look once his back was turned, but the game kept rolling and Grace continued to be the sweet bee she always was. At least they all three wielded some skill, but certainly none had any home court advantage. Which meant that the competitive operative stood some chance of winning. As for the judges, little duck got a wink, but she was fair to pay them limited mind. “Nonsense, toddlers have parents who nudge the balls into the cups for them. They are some of the best mini golf players because of this.” She grinned. “I am not touching your balls, mi cielo.” But she scooted over to knock her pink ball into the hole, and it made it in, if barely. It didn’t matter. She threw her fist in the air anyway. “Ah! Soy la mejor!” “Bien hecho,” Lionel laughed a little bit at her enthusiasm, a little bit of influence from Italian slipping into his Spanish words. As he moved around to get to his new spot, he noticed that young agent surreptitiously watching them, likely wishing to be participating himself instead of sitting around with a couple of his coworkers with nothing to do and not even allowed to mess around on his smartphone. Not that Lionel felt any pity for him whatsoever. He watched his ball approach the hole, and stop cruelly close to it. “Are we arranging a prize for the winner, between the three of us?” While the agents weren’t always her favorite people, Grace would freely admit that she had something of a soft-spot for the little ones. They had so much (too-often wasted) potential to not be utterly horrid one day. But the matter of agents, small or otherwise, wasn’t really of any great matter at the current moment, so she settled for walking herself over to where her own (light blue) golf ball had found itself, tipping her chin upward and declaring a very prim: “My balls, I’ll have you know, are quite happy without your assistance, thank you.” And if there was a joke to be had there, she certainly wasn’t going to be the one to have it. “Are we?” she inquired, all poorly concealed grin and liltingly artificial indifference, her go-around knocking Lionel’s ball in and leaving hers a far more manageable distance from its destination. (Which was easy enough to take care of with a second, far neater, stroke.) After all, there wasn’t any sense in playing a game that couldn’t be cooked the way she liked it. Jewel giggled both at Lionel’s accented Spanish and Grace’s response to ball touching. The bad joke was already had, as far as she was concerned. “Grace knows this already, but I am very competitive,” She warned, tilting her head, impish smile about as subtle as a lilac-breasted roller. “And also sure never to say yes until I know what the prize might be. What are your thoughts?” “My question, directed back at myself,” Lionel mused. “Is this a test, I wonder?” He paused for a moment where he had been rolling up the long sleeves of his shirt, and then continued again. “An obvious suggestion is the winner gets dinner and drinks paid for. However, this is a date,” and the word rolled off his tongue with ease, pleasing him though he hadn’t had to use it in quite a while, “and I always find arguing over who gets to pay at the end kind of enjoyable. Unless you two have a system?” He raised an eyebrow, questioning. “Otherwise, there’s always the winner getting to choose the restaurant for next time. Or we could get a little more creative.” A pleased smile stole across her face at the easy implication of an already anticipated ‘next time’ - it’d been quite some time since they’d done this themselves and Grace was hardly immune to her own, quieter version of Jewel’s bubbly excitement. Their system, while still an undoubtedly favored one, had lagged itself into the lazy contentedness of familiar habits. And it could certainly go for some stirring up. “I do feel that it’s important to encourage creativity,” she mused, letting her golf-club spin thoughtfully on the pavement. “Don’t you, love?” “I do!” Jewel bounced, finger to lip as she pondered. “What are some classics? Acts of public embarrassment? Not humiliation, that would be just unkind. Like crazy dancing in a classy setting.” “Loser could let the winners dress them up? Have them walk around the facility looking maybe a bit like a fool,” Grace added, somewhat pointedly, eyes crinkled at the corners. “Do you even remember any of the eighties, sweetheart?” Jewel flipped her hair. “No, but I would still look gorgeous.” She giggled. “Hmm...what about randomly asking people in Capers to slow dance with you? Or Brewed Awakening. because maybe too many people would be okay with this in Capers.” “Or we could not humiliate anyone at all.” Grace offered, to counter - because it was always pleasant to have options that didn’t seem like casual torture. “And the loser could cook. Winners pick the meal.” “I said embarrassment!” Jewel reminded her with a nudge. “Humiliation is if I said we do any of these things naked. Although...after the other week, perhaps not so humiliating.” A furtive glance to Lionel, who barely swallowed his smile. “I like food. I say we do this one. Because I like to be fed.” And it left an opening for a second date. Lionel nodded, his first expression of any sort since the girls had veered off onto their shared frequency: happy to wait and observe, he’d placed both hands on the handle of his golf club and leaned on it, watching. “I, too, like to be fed. To make sure there’s incentive to win and not just evade losing, why don’t we say loser prepares dinner chosen by the other two, and second place prepares dessert chosen by the winner? Is that fair?” There was an immediate, cheerful consensus following Lionel’s suggestion, both women declaring that settled it and if they were to find out a winner, they might as well get going. Fifteen holes down and the trio was neck and neck (and neck). They found themselves at the dreaded windmill, which had the chance of being a huge game-changer. By now Jewel had removed her heels and shoved them into her purse, giving it to Grace’s duckling agent to hold for her because she could “recognize a gentleman when [she] saw one”. If she was going to play to win, the accessories had to go. “Alright.” She squinted, lining up her club with the ball. She patted it, and the angle looked good for a split second, until the ball smacked against the little wooden replica and rolled back precisely to the spot where she’d hit it from in the first place. “Why!” Jewel cried at it. “Why! This was not what I wanted, ball! You were supposed to go that way!” Grace’s laugh was a bright one, and the kiss she dropped on Jewel’s cheek was maybe meant to make up for the sad lack of sympathy immediately evident in it. (Though she would like it to be noted that she certainly did try for it. A little bit.) “Ah, poor dear. Clearly it’s out to get you,” she murmured, attempting to better reign in her twitching smile and looking to Lionel. For what precisely - backup? sarcastic counterpoint? - she hadn’t really decided. In a sense, she got both. “No, no, the unfortunate ball is merely enamored,” he argued, meeting Grace’s eyes, his own betraying the amusement his serious face didn’t show. “We’re not in much of a position to blame it.” Lionel placed his ball on the ground for his turn. Later he’d ponder the fact that he enjoyed himself so thoroughly playing mini-golf, but at that moment he was in the thick of the game; though he wasn’t really competitive, not like Jewel, he couldn’t deny the suspense of the moment. Before he started he peered around the windmill to the other side -- his usual strategy was weakened here. “I can’t see what’s going on inside the windmill,” he complained, half to himself as he came back to the starting spot. Inconvenient, a missing factor. “There goes my one advantage.” Not quite so -- he was at least able to time his shot to get through the rotating blades without issue -- but his ball rolled out the other side at an odd angle, leaving it in quite an awkward place. He sighed without rancor, then smiled back at Grace. “Take it away.” “Do I even want to know where I’m taking it?” she inquired, pursing her lips at the miniature windmill skeptically. She couldn’t see where she was going (beyond the obvious direction of ‘through that thing’) and peering around the edge of the structure so rudely cutting her off from the lay of the proverbial land definitely fell well within cheating territory. Not that she really wanted to cheat, so much as she genuinely disliked lacking all the necessary parameters. Dinner was dinner - she’d make it if she had to and happily, even. But information was vital. “Because no one seems very happy with it thus far - and I’m honestly at a loss.” Grace pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose all the same, however, and lined up a shot with something resembling enough skill to get her through said ‘through that thing’ portion of the proceedings. “You could hit your ball into the water like you did at the 5th hole.” Jewel suggested lightly, using her club like a pointer towards the shallow water pools that decorated the field. Though she was internally pouting a bit that Lionel and Grace both conquered the windmill. “If you feel so inclined.” She wished. With that in mind, she returned to her ball, which, by Lionel’s account of its personality, was waiting eagerly for her, and lined up her club. The ball bounced off the edge of one of the rotating blades, which knocked it to stop against the windmill. “Ahhhhhhhh, puta.” She hissed between teeth, looking unintentionally comical. “What harsh language,” Lionel quipped, though he was grinning widely, not because of Jewel’s missed shot but because, like a young boy, swearing simply always amused him. They meandered over to the other side of the windmill where Lionel’s and Grace’s golf balls were strewn; his gaze fell on his ball and the hole and he saw no less than fifteen ways he could end the game right there, utterly all of which he knew were virtually impossible for him to actually pull off. Sometimes his ability sucked in that way. True to form, his shot sent his ball hitting surfaces of obstacles here and there until it settled in a position that was absolutely no better located than the previous one. Lionel rubbed his chin. “I think I’m actually a couple inches closer now. Perhaps.” Strictly speaking, yes. Definitely closer. If he was intending to shoot straight from his current position. Farther away if he was going to make use of angles. Although - well, it really all just depended on the angles, didn’t it? Grace frowned mildly, glancing down at her own ball and wishing that she’d cultivated some previous, dedicated interest in miniature golfing prior to this moment. “We’re certain this is a game intended for children, yeah?” she asked, attempting gentle and controlled and ending up with not enough drive to do any concrete damage. “Because I feel either outclassed or blatantly lied to. I’m not sure which one, honestly.” Jewel, who was glowering at her ball on the other side of the windmill raised her arms in an overstated shrug. Glancing around, Lionel saw a group of young teenagers towards the middle of the course. There was another group, not children, around the beginning, but by his estimate they were octogenarians, so not much better. “Well. No one is watching us but the agents, and considering their position, laughing would just be rude.” Grace snorted, glancing over to where their escorts were seated, Jewel’s handbag and heels still held gingerly (like some kind of questionably-pinned grenade) on the youngest one’s lap. “And the poor duck is still in recovery. Those shoes probably cost more than his last three paychecks.” Jewel held up two fingers to indicate the correct number of paychecks. But the purse cost at least four. Correction aside, she lined up her club very carefully to the ball and thoroughly concentrated, taking a deep breath. She tapped it, watched it bounce off the rotating blades, roll back the opposite direction, and into the grass. It was good that Lionel was amused by swear words because she unleashed about twenty. Half an hour later and all three feeling both parts accomplished and ruffled, the final ball rolled into the cup. She looked over Lionel's shoulder as he held the score. "Where does that leave it?" He schooled his expression into one somber and blank as he looked back. “It leaves us…” and then he paused before shrugging, pairing a slightly sheepish grin with his words, “Well, it leaves you two with the hope that cooking really is just chemistry, as they say. It leaves me with homework and a phone call to make to my mother, and you, Jewel, with slightly less homework, and you, Grace, with a glorious trophy that I suppose we’ll all just have to imagine.” Lionel nodded at her, still grinning. (He was joking about his cooking; however, the best jokes are based on at least some truth.) “Congratulations.” “Why thank you, love.” Grace returned, dropping a kiss on his cheek and not bothering to check over his math. “I can safely say this is the first trophy I’ve received for any kind of sport.” she snorted, bemused. “Imaginary or otherwise. Which is probably tragic in and of itself. But -” She cut herself off cheerfully and, with the best approximation of a curtsey one could make while wearing jeans, Grace curled her hands around her invisible trophy, her own grin gone crooked around the edges. “Glory and honor has been returned to my family. I will feast in their name.” Jewel laughed outright, her hand at Lionel’s shoulder. It was an uncommon and wonderful thing to see Grace display a charm of silliness in its fractions and she could’ve kissed her silly for that delightful grin. “Considering that response, I suppose I could concede defeat. Congratulations, mi cielo, and pray our next date does not include football." Her fingers at his back gave it a soft squeeze and an even softer smile. “And good game, amorcito. I think that ravenous appetite of ours will be put to the test.” “It certainly will be,” Lionel agreed, already running through possibilities. His eyes traveled between the two women. A loser he might have been, but with another date secured, it honestly didn’t feel that way. “Speaking of our appetites -- our escorts are waiting. Time for our dinner reservation, no?” The girls nodded in agreement, all shared grins and unabashed happiness. Arms were linked, shoes and purse acquired, and the date continued to the latter half with rousing success. It was the unofficial interrogative portion of the date, but done with such candor and humor that all three of them ended the night very much looking forward to date number two. |