Thursday April 3rd 2008 Who: Rae, Jack, Fox Where: The kitchen! When: Pre Cook-out What: Jack tries to tease Fox, but it backfires. Rae and Fox have a smushy moment.
Fox walked over to Rae while others were at the grill, preparing dinner. He had little skill with a cookout like this, so he decided to stay out of the way. "Hey Slim! Have you been enjoying your week?"
Rae laughed at him. What a decidedly formal thing to say. Besides, did it not seem like she wasn't? So what if she was on her laptop a bit here and there? She was a veg-out type gal. "Uhhh.. yes?" she asked, gathering bags of chips and reaching above her head in the cabinet for bowls. The house had dishware. Awesome. She fell in love with it a little bit more everyday.
She had designated herself chip-girl, and was already lining the large party bowls with papertowels. "Youuuu?"
Fox watched her pull the chips out of the cabinet and wondered if it was going to be necessary to take another trip to the grocery story for the couple more nights they were going to be at the house. "Yeah actually. Looking forward to getting my tattoo, actually."
"Change your mind about a design?" she asked, setting two bags aside and opening up Doritos and pretzels.
At the sound of crinkling chip bags, Jack meandered his way into the kitchen holding a bag of hamburger buns. He had basically taken over the grill, but was open to suggestions from anyone. He just liked manning it, for reasons he didn't quite understand himself. "Oooh," he said, reaching into the bag before Rae had a chance to pour the Doritos out.
"Gross," she said, before looking up to Fox for an answer.
Fox thought what Jack had done was perfectly normal, and he gave the man a nod in greeting. "Well, didn't see anything I liked. So I'm not quite sure what to do. I know you can bring your own designs, but I can't draw."
"You can borrow my laptop if you wanna look online," Rae said, slapping Jack's hand away to pour chips loosely into the bowl.
"Dude, she's parting with her computer? That's something." "Shut the hell up."
Jack grinned, shoving chips in his mouth, and then shuffled past Jack to grab a six pack out of the fridge.
"Hand me a beer, would ya, Jack?" Glancing into the fridge, he noticed that most of the alcohol he'd bought was still there. "Damn. We need to do some serious drinking, since we can't take shit back with us." He'd decided he'd comment on Rae's offer in a moment.
"Head's up," Jack said, tossing a can softly, underhandedly to Fox. Rae leaned into the counter, just to make sure her head wasn't in the line of his throw.
"We went through a lot Wednesday..." Rae said, with a smirk.
"Booze, or clothing?" Jack asked, laughingly.
"Both!" she grinned. "You better put wine coolers out. I'm not drinking that crap." She meant beer. She detested beer.
Fox grinned and caught the can one handed, "Thanks." Turning to Rae, his grin only grew broader. "Oh yeah, that's right." He chuckled softly and opened his can, drinking the foam from it being tossed. "Dunno how you don't like beer."
"Uhm, because it's gross?"
"You can always drink the soy milk Fox bought for you," Jack said, leaning against the counter with his can, his grin wicked.
"Huh?" Rae looked up from the bowl of pretzels she was working on, eyebrow arched, and glanced at Jack, then Fox, then back to Jack.
"Yeah," her brother continued, "figured you know, vegetarian.. soymilk."
"I saw that in there.." Rae said, softly, turning her gaze up to Fox with a half-smile.
"Yeah, well," Fox shot Jack a look that he wished would kill the man, but unfortunately he was still grinning. "I've known some vegetarians that like the stuff, and figured maybe you drink it."
Whatever Jack was attempting had clearly backfired, because Rae was not laughing at Fox. "Oh.." she said, suddenly finding the arrangement of pretzels in a bowl interesting. "Uh, no, I don't, but... thanks."
Jack grinned. "Apparently he can make drinks with it, though, so we picked it up anyway. That reminds me, your grilled eggplant is next up."
Fox would have snarled just then, but he decided to leave it alone. "Yeah, and I will. Grasshoppers are pretty good, and I figure the girls will like it if nothing else at some point." Rolling his eyes, he grabbed the next bag of chips, opening it and dumping it into a bowl to have something to do.
Jack took one of the bowls out to the deck table he had helped Keagan set up. "I'll be back," he said, as he left.
Rae looked over at Fox. She had wanted to save that bag, just in case they didn't need it, but.. well, it was open now. She gave him a once-over, smiled, then brushed sideways against him to open the fridge for the apples and cheese she'd bought sometime earlier in the week.
Fox cleared his throat, wondering how to ask Rae if she'd be willing to draw a design for him. She was a good artist, surely a tattoo design would be nothing, right? "So um, thanks for the offer. Letting me use your laptop. I hadn't thought of that."
"But what are you looking for?" she asked, then pointed. "Hand me that knife?"
Fox grabbed a chef's knife from the block and passed it to her, handle first. "Something tribal. Unique. I was thinking dragon, but now I'm thinking about a tribal fox."
Rae nodded, and a lock of hair fell out from behind her ear in front of her eyes. Now he could see all those piercings they had been talking about. "I like that idea. Foxes are bad ass. And it means something, so, that's cool too. Now that it has to. Just cool that it does." She began slicing the apple with hard chops.
Fox turned, leaning his back against the counter and turning his head to watch Rae. "So I was wondering, hypothetically, of course, if I asked you to draw a design for me, would you be willing?"
She paused in her fruit slicing to look up at him, trying to gauge how serious he was. No, he's serious.
"Uhm... I donno, Fox. That's... I mean, a tattoo is PERMANENT, don't you want something really great and professional?"
He shrugged, smiling a bit. "You do excellent work. I've seen some of your stuff, remember, and Astrid talks about it." He cocked his head, looking at her. "Besides, you wouldn't be inking it onto me, just making the design."
She turned back to her work, shaking her head, the nape of her neck flexing. A funny noise escaped her, something like a sigh and an 'eennngh' combined. "But you get better the more you draw. In ten years I can draw the same tattoo better and you're going to be like 'motherfucker! you couldn't do it that well when it had to go ON MY BODY?'" She laughed. "Not that you'll know me in ten years, but, you know, I will know I should have done it better. It's... gah. People don't get it. I explain this too many times it doesn't even sound clear to me anymore."
Fox wasn't the first to ask her to draw a tattoo.
Fox nodded. "I get it. You think that in ten years, you'll look back at your early work as something to be ashamed of rather than a different style or a stepping stone to what you will have become." He shrugged and smiled. "It was just hypothetical, but think about it? I mean, we don't go until Saturday."
"I'm a little flattered," she said, grabbing the hunk of cheddar and getting to work. She wouldn't look at him.
Fox shrugged. "You should be. As I said, I like your work." He watched her chunk the cheddar with a vengance. Was she annoyed he had even asked? Picking up his beer, he started to drink from it. Shit, did he just screw up?
"I'll try, maybe later tonight, if I'm not too drunk." She smirked. "Fox, huh? You gonna tell me the whole story behind the name if I'm gonna design a tattoo?" Now she did look at him, right into his eyes, with a challenge.
Fox cocked his head to one side, looking at her. "There's not really much to tell." He glanced to the doors, seeing most everyone else outside. They were the only two in the kitchen and no one else was in hearing range.
"No?" she asked, reaching up, higher, for a platter. She couldn't reach. She glanced at the counter, then the top of the cabinet, then braced herself and started to raise one leg, despite wearing a skirt with hot pink tights. Yes, she was going to climb the counter. Despite a six foot three inch man beside her.
Fox glanced over at just the right moment and saw her reaching for the tray. Turning, he stuck out a hand and easily grabbed the platter, bringing it down. "You should've asked, and not really. I mean," he took a sip of beer. "I told you about Joe. He gave me the nickname, and it stuck."
"But why'd he give it? Because you're crazy.. like a fox?" she asked, taking the plate from him. "Thankyou," she muttered, between sentences. As she spoke she began arrange slices of apple and cheese in neat rows. "Sneaky? Smart? Agile? Handsome? Why?"
Fox turned back to lean against the edge of the counter, crossing his ankles over each other. "Joe was more of a father figure than my own dad," he started. "I told you he kept me from going to jail. Gave me a second chance. When I didn't want to crash with my ol' man, I'd stay at his place." Fox smiled at the memories. "Mostly he heard girls calling me 'foxy' and figured since I was so slick, and good at getting out of sticky situations, he started calling me Fox. The name got around and it stuck." He smiled, thinking about Joe and what'd he say knowing that Fox was wreaking havoc during break. He'd have to see if he could drive down and see him one weekend soon. For some reason, Fox loved that man, and missed him when he was on the road.
Rae smiled and paused in her decorative cheese-placing to look up at him. "Cool. Really cool. I mean.. this Joe guy, not girls calling you 'foxy.' That's just lame. How old were these chicks?" She crinkled her nose, teasing, a snicker escaping her.
"So where is this guy now? He know you're at TJS?"
Fox arched a brow at her. "This was high school. And a couple of the local college chicks too." He grinned at that. It was pretty sweet, a fifteen-sixteen year old catching the eye of the hot college girls that attended Longwood. Seriously? Who the hell put a school called Longwood in a town named Farmville! The thought was ludicrous. "Joe still works for the police force at the University back home. I told him I've started school, just not where." Fox stared at his beer can for a minute. "He doesn't know what I am, just who."
"Understandable. Most people would be a little what-the-fuck? at the knowledge that you're half-angel. I mean...I still sorta am." She watched him watch his beer can.
"You guys still talk?" Fox had a cell phone, couldn't Joe?
Fox drank from his beer can, noting it was half empty now and that he'd need a new one soon. "Yeah we talk. Haven't heard from him in a couple weeks. I was thinking about driving down to see him one weekend."
"Cool," she said, easily. She turned around to the pantry to slide a box of Ritz out, and started fighting with the plastic wrapping of one row of crackers. She was anal about the way they fell on the plate; if they were out of place, she moved them, so that the plate looked as nice as it would taste. In fact, when the cracker line proved to be too long for the cheese and apple line, she popped a Ritz into her mouth and offered some out to Fox.
"Why wouldn't you want to stay with your dad? He an asshole?"
Fox reached out and snagged a few crackers remaining in the sleeve. "He's alright, but when he drinks too much, it's better not to be around." He still remembered the sting of a belt against his back, or a hand across his face.
She swallowed the cracker. "Ahhh, yeah. That was mommy dearest." She turned around to settle her back against the counter, mirroring his position.
Fox chewed the crackers slowly, liking the sweet, salty taste against the heady, frothy beer. "Mmmhmm," he nodded, watching the people outside, Jack manning the grill like he owned it.
"Sorry," she said, pushing off with her hips. "Sometimes I forget that just because I don't care about talking about it, not everyone else is the same." She reached for the platter, but her hands rested on the edges. Her eyes scanned his face. Was he alright?'
Fox had mentally wandered off in la-la land, thinking about Joe, the way he sheltered a scared fourteen year old kid from being beaten, kept him in school, taught him about the good in life. Bronsky would not be happy at the life Fox had chosen, but he was happy that he had a better shot, and was trying to not be his father completely. Shaking his head slightly, he grabbed one of the bowls of chips. "Ready to head outside?"
Despite the subject matter, Rae was enjoying being inside. Inside there was an honest, open conversation. A one-on-one quiet interaction. Outside there were... more people. People who had intentions she was even less sure of, who needed to be entertained, and who could possibly be offended.
"Uh. Yeah." She grabbed the last bowl of chips in her free hand, cheese platter in the other, and led the way.
Fox watched her back for a moment, pretty sure the look that crossed her face was kin to revulsion. Did she not want to go outside? He was a full four paces behind her when he snapped out of it and moved forward.