Who: Gaby Teller-Mason and Tim Riggins What: First time meeting leads to a possible job for Tim When: Recent! Where: Random bar Rating/Warning: Low Status: Complete
Now that football season was over with Tim Riggins was bored as fuck. He didn’t even know why he was still here. He should be back in Texas with Street and his brother. Not stuck here in classes that were boring as fuck and not playing football. the whole reason Tim had even come to this stupidly sunny place was to play football. His brother wanted him to have an education. And Jason just wanted him to keep pushing himself, to not give up. With given everything Jason had been through, how could Tim let him down? But it was hard. Harder than Tim thought it would be. Every damn day he thought about just going home.
Instead though he went to a bar. Took the pain away. Kept him busy. And he usually ended up taking home a woman to spend the night with… or just a few hours with.
Riggins flashed the bartender his fake ID. Back in Texas he didn’t need it, they sold him alcohol knowing he was underage. It came with being a football star in a small town. However, here he needed the ID and it had served him well so far. The young full back took a seat on one of the stools and waited for his drink.
Gaby had shut up for the afternoon and hopped in her car, driving aimlessly for a little while before settling somewhere. She’d grabbed something to eat already, figured she’d have a couple of drinks - see if Michael was around - and then head home and try and work out if there was something better she could be doing with her life that didn’t involve spending her evenings in places that made her look like an alcoholic.
Tilting her head a fraction when she sensed rather than saw someone sit one stool away from her, Gaby curled her fingers around the soda she’d been nursing and paused, watching him in her peripheral vision. He looked tense, and borderline miserable, and she wet her lower lip. Curiosity tugged in her chest, getting the better of her.
“Long day?”
Tim looked over at the woman that was talking to him. A small smirk crossed his face. She was hot. Older, but still hot. Tim had no problem with older woman though. He had hooked up with his neighbor back in high school.
“Yeah,” Tim replied honestly. And it was. Full of shit classes. But that he left unsaid. “Getting better now,” he added with another pull from his beer.
“Beer has that effect,” Gaby replied with a dry chuckle, lifting her soda and taking a sip. She hadn’t started on the hard-drinking just yet, she was waiting until something catastrophic happened (like her mother deciding she was going to move in with her or something) before she slipped into early afternoon drinking. Or day drinking. Things were not that bad.
She pushed her hair behind her ear and placed her glass down on the counter. Though she hardly knew everyone, she was also aware enough of the people that hung out in her regular haunts (this being one of them) to recognise a new face.
“Not favourable, either, I’m guessing.”
“Are long days ever,” he replied with another smirk, pushing some hair out of his eyes.
It was true he was new to this particular bar. Tim usually stuck to bars around campus, but some of them were beginning to recognize him as the full back for UCI. The underage full back. And bars here weren’t as cool as serving him as they were back in Texas.
“Tim,” he added deciding to introduce himself.
“Gaby,” she responded in kind, lifting her glass in a mini salute of greeting. “And sometimes they can be, but I’m guessing you haven’t experienced those ones.”
She held her hand out, “nice to meet you.” Her voice was only slightly accented, years of being in America had loosened it.
He reached out her hand to shake. Releasing her hand he grabbed his beer, climbed off his stool and on to the one next to her. If they were going to keep talking he might as well get closer. That way no one could take the stool between them and end the conversation. Tim definitely wanted to hear more of that accent, as faint as it was.
“Yeah?” Tim asked with a raised brow taking another pull from his beer. “Tell me more about these long days that can actually be good.”
Gaby snorted. “You know,” she told him, “I haven’t had one in a while so my recollection’s a little off.” She tipped her head and ran her finger around the rim of the glass, tapping it before lifting it to her lips again.
She hummed, “Hm, I- I was in Italy recently, I had a few good long days there. Getting up early and walking out all day, sightseeing, that sort of thing.”
Tim finished off his beer as Gaby spoke, motioning for another. He wasn’t a hard liquor type really. Sometimes if the occasion called for it. But for the most part Tim just liked to have a few beers at the end of the day… okay more than a few.
“Italy, huh?” he asked as his new drink was brought over. “You from there?” He was still trying to place her accent. Not that he really knew which accent belonged to which country. Unless it was a Texan accent. That he could tell a mile away.
“I lived there for a while,” Gaby said with a small smile, “But I was born in Germany.” He accent thickened a little when she said that, the reminder of where she came from bringing her accent out a little more. “I lived in Europe until I was a teenager.”
She turned on the stool to face him and drew in a slow breath, watching the bartender slide another beer across the counter to him. “I’m still learning to place accents,” she confessed, “So I can put you in the South, but that’s about as far as I can go.”
Tim noticed how her accent thickened when she talked about Germany. That was interesting but he liked it. “Anywhere else besides Germany and Italy?” Tim asked since she said she in Europe. Not that it made much difference to him. Tim didn’t have much of a desire to travel. Hell he barely even wanted to leave Texas.
“Texas. Born and raised,” Tim said proudly taking another swig of his beer. “Moved out here for school.”
“Um, Switzerland and Austria for a while, we travelled through a lot of Europe with my father’s job. But we spent the most time in Italy.” She leaned her elbow on the bar and rested her head in her palm. “After Germany.”
She sipped at her drink. “Texas? I’ve never been there, is it worth a visit, next time I leave the OC for a vacation?”
“Sounds like quite the upbringing.” At least she certainly seemed fond of it. That was the important thing.
“Yeah,” Tim replied his eyes lighting up just a bit as he spoke of his home. “If you like open fields, rodeos, and football.” That basically summed up Texas. Of course there was more to it than that for Tim. But it was hard to put the feeling of home into words.
“You could say that,” Gaby admitted. There was a sort of sleepiness to some of Europe that just couldn’t be compared to the insanity of being in America. Even some of the smaller towns here… nothing quite felt the same. She wet her lower lip and sipped at her drink, eyes watching him talk about his home.
She hummed a little. “Rodeos?” she asked, “That’s where people try and ride bucking horses, yes?”
Tim knew next to nothing about Europe. He had no idea of the sleepiness. But if he knew about the long lunch breaks? He would definitely get behind it.
He let out a small laugh at her question. “Yeah,” he replied with a grin taking another swig from his bottle. “Bulls too.” Those were much more entertaining.
But that was enough about where they were from. Although Tim really could talk about Texas forever. “What do you do?”
“That sounds,” stupid “dangerous,” she settled for, eyebrow arching. “What are the injury rates like? It seems like a bit of a bloody sport.” She thought about bull baiting, the events in Spain and how dangerous those were not just for the people but for the animals. At least, this seemed significantly more skewed towards injuring the people. Still. Americans.
At the question about her job she placed her glass back down and rested her forearm on the bar. “I’m a mechanic,” she told him, pleased in a way that she didn’t look like she’d come fresh out of the shop. It meant that she’d successfully managed to clean up the oil smudge that had been on her face all day. “I’ve got a shop, you?”
“Hell if I know,” Tim didn’t pay much attention to those type of things. But ask him anything about football and he could tell you. “But it’s fun to watch,” he added with a smirk.
“Yeah?” he asked with a raised brow. That certainly had his attention. “That’s awesome. I love cars. Been fixing up my truck as long as I could drive.” And before that he helped with Billy’s car. Hell, Billy was the one that taught him how to work on cars. “I play football.”
Gaby snorted, “If you are interested in watching men get maimed and injured,” she told him, though it was without heat. She tucked her hair back behind her ear and sipped at her drink, it was nearly empty, so she caught the bartender’s eye and asked for a gin and tonic.
As it was slid across the bar to her and she put a note down on the table to cover it, she felt her lips curl up into a smile, attention returning to Tim. “Really?” she asked, “It’s a good skill to have,” she commented, “you never know when you’ll need to be able to fix up a car. That’ll never let you down, and you’ll never be short of work.” It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if he wanted somewhere to work and help out when she needed it, because she often found herself short-handed. But the offer didn’t come as he mentioned another hobby. Job? It took her a second to not think soccer, and she hummed. “Professionally or for fun?”
It wasn’t the watching guys get maimed or injured that Tim enjoyed. Honestly that didn’t even happen too often. It was more about the thrill of watching how long they could stay on for. Seeing the danger of it all up close. “It’s one of those things you have to see to understand.” There was no way Tim could explain bull riding and do it justice.
“Yeah. My brother taught me,” he took another swallow of his beer. It came in handy pretty often. Especially since Tim could only afford a beat up truck. “I’ve never done it for money though.” Maybe he should have back in high school. He coulda fixed up his friends’ cars. Would have been a good way to make some extra cash. “I play for UCI.” Not quite professionally but it wasn’t just for fun either. He technically got paid for it too. At least in scholarship money.
“I’ll add it to my list of things to try and understand the appeal of,” Gaby said, “Should I ever find myself somewhere that has a rodeo.” There were a number of elements of American culture she still didn’t understand, and she’d lived there for almost ten years, but she supposed it was one of those things that one never really got used to.
She thanked the bartender for the drink and stirred it with the straw it had been served with, listening to the ice clinking against the glass. “You ever thought about picking it up as a part time job?” she asked, that offer burning a hole in her pocket. “UCI?” She frowned a little, “is that -” she was about to say college team but the bartender was hovering and she wondered for the first time how old he was. “I’ve not seen a football game since I graduated high school.”
It was indeed a college team. Tim was grateful she didn’t say it out loud. Though really he could still be in college and be old enough to drink, if he was in his last year. But he was not.
“Not a football fan?” Growing up in Texas everything was about football. It wasn’t until he came out to California for school that he realized not everyone loved football.
But right, she had semi offered him a job. At least Tim thought she did. He definitely wanted to get back to that topic. “I’m kinda regretting I didn’t think about it in highschool,” Tim replied honestly. “I bet I coulda made some cash off my teammates.” Fixing up their cars that was. “Are you looking for extra help?”
“I’m from Europe,” Gaby deadpanned, “over there, football is soccer, and there’s another game called rugby, which is like American football but without all the…” she waved her hand, “padding.”
She took a sip of her drink and nodded, “I could use the extra help, if you’ve got some time spare.” She smiled a little, “The shop is big enough that I often need someone else to help with the routine maintenance and patching up that’s too big for me to do on my own.”
Right. They didn’t have football in Europe. Tim tended to forget these things. Mostly because he never paid much attention to life outside of Texas. “You’ll have to go to another one.” Preferably one he was playing in.
“Yeah,” Tim said finishing off his beer. “Now that the season is over I have tons of time.” Football did tend to take up most of his life. “I could stop by and check it out. What’s your shop called?”
“I guess so,” Gaby agreed with an upward curl of her lips before she placed her glass down. “Are there...seasons? When you are and aren’t playing?”
Her expression lit up, “Really? I’d appreciate that, it’s called Teller-Mason Auto Repair? It’s in Santa Ana. Pretty easy to find.”
“Not like the weather kind,” Tim replied with a smirk. “A sports season,” but he had a feeling Gaby didn’t know much about sports. “Practice usually starts up toward the end of July. Games start late August and go through January.” So Tim had a few months of down time. Though he might make time to work on cars even during football season.
“Alright. I’ll have to come check it out.” He looked at his now finished beer debating whether or not to order another and ultimately deciding to. He had nowhere else to be. And if he could keep talking cars and football? Well that was just about as good as it got for Tim.