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Post by ryanne on Nov 4, 2012 20:41:05 GMT -5
Keoki lost the fight.
He'd been struggling for a long time, holding back against the gargantuan yawn that'd been seeking dominion over him. It'd been a long day - Keoki had had the day off from school, but for some reason he was totally exhausted. But he'd promised that he and Nell would start a riot today in one way or another after she got off work, and Keoki kept his promises. In circumspect with that, his tiredness was nothing. In fact, it was starting to wane at the prospect of just seeing his best friend. Keoki was practically in love with Nell, and her presence had a way of energizing him no matter what the circumstance.
So he was sitting here in his car stalling a few blocks away from Casino Hollow, the night fluttering down on him like a velvet cape, fighting a yawn that threatened to overpower him. Well, he'd been fighting it. The yawn took over him now, sucking every inch of air from his lungs mercilessly, and Keoki found his mouth stretched wide open, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he clamped a hand over his gaping mouth. As it ended he felt a kind of calm wash over him, some kind of contentment that made him a little bit more weary.
Philosophy-inducing yawns and closing night. Where the hell was Nell?
Keoki checked his watch. A few minutes to nine-thirty. Nell was due off right at the half-through of the clock. And then the world would no longer be safe. He quickened at the thought, yearning to see Nell again. The very fact that Keoki was parked a few blocks away from an edifice where gamblers guzzled beer and wine and every other alcoholic beverage under the sun was proof enough that Keoki and Nell were close. After all, Keoki was veritably alcoholophobic, and casinos were not his thing. But they were Nell's job, and that made it worth it.
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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Nov 5, 2012 4:32:05 GMT -5
 Nell counted the chips under her breath, her finger gliding down the row on the table. If dealing poker had helped her with one thing, she would have to say that it was math. When getting the job she hadn't realized it involved so much of it, that she would be constantly counting money and chips and making sure everything added up. If a chip went missing, it was her responsibility. That aside, it also helped her with the game in general. The casino had a lot of rules for a dealer, from how to shuffle and wash the deck, to how to handle the pot. Her table min was five dollars, so it got a lot of money each night. Of course, that money didn't go to her. She didn't mind, she wasn't in it for the money. She was in it for the pure sport, the fact that she loved cards and casinos. Another plus side was that she didn't have the poisonous work environment with Jane. She still had to spend time with her, unfortunately, and that still took its toll. Thankfully, she had a plethora of excuses not to spend an extended amount of time with Jane. School, work, volunteering, social life... Anything could get her out of a drive with the woman.
Since she had taken to wearing a watch, given that the casino didn't have any clocks, she murmured a, "Darn," before starting on her count of another row. She had asked Keoki to pick her up so they could go out, and here she was running late. She couldn't exactly be blamed -- she had to help a co-worker earlier with the blackjack table when she realized that she had one more chip than she should for the table. It had ended up being a missing one from the other poker table, and they ruminated on that for a while, decided that it was the fault of an African or European swallow. Another reason she enjoyed her job could quite possibly be the employees there. Despite the long hours on her feet, the uniform that she didn't think could be described as an actual uniform, or the surly people who lost a lot of money because they made a dumb bet -- she enjoyed it. She figured anything involving gambling would be her calling.
After the final count, she went over to the faculty lounge marked with "warning" to ward off other people, and was unfortunately caught in a conversation with a bartender as she retrieved her bag. Polite as she was, she let him discuss the game with her (and hey, she did enjoy sports) before she hurried off to find Keoki. She had put her jacket on, but the skirt she wore didn't protect her from the chilly autumn air. It wasn't long before she found the car and hurried up, the sound of her heels tapping against the tarmac as she opened the back door on the driver's side, tossing the bag in. "Sorry I got here late," she apologized first, sliding in and closing the door. "There was a problem with one of the tables, and then this guy got me into a debate about the game, and I'm really really really sorry Keokito." She sounded breathless, half from the walk and half from explaining quickly what had happened. She figured that he wouldn't hold it against her. At least he didn't have to go in -- she would never ask him to do that. It was nice enough that he came within a fifty-meter radius of the place.
Unzipping her bag, she took off her shoes and put them in the bag. "I have to change right quick," she told him, pulling out a blouse. She reached her finger around to poke him in the cheek. "If you peak, I will eat everything you love." This was Keoki, though, her main squeeze. She didn't order any of her friends, didn't think any of them were better than the other because they were all a part of her big makeshift family, but she was well aware that Keoki was her closest. She trusted him, especially because she didn't think he wanted her eating everything he loved. With that, she ducked down into the space behind his seat, quickly pulling off the skirt and the sparkly top that was called her uniform. She didn't want to have too much of a problem with it, but the amount of skin shown made her uncomfortable. "You know where to go right?" She'd told him the address for the laser tag place through text, and she was leaving it up to him to figure it out. Where it her responsibility, she'd get them lost with the first turn. At least it wasn't very far.
Nell contemplated keeping the stockings on for warmth, before deciding that she would be warmed up running around. Hopefully the Water graduate didn't mind her jostling his seat too much as she pulled on her jeans and button her blouse. It was a relief to finally have socks and sneakers on her feet in place of her heels. She had gotten used to them, and she loved the added height, but wearing them her entire shift was killer. She put her uniform in her duffel bag, zipping it up, before climbing into the passenger seat and buckling in. "So how was your day, hombre?" Of course she had to be clever and rhyme that. Realizing that her hair was down, she quickly pulled it into a bun. The only reason she wore it down was to cover the tattoo on the back of her neck, but she preferred it up, even in this weather.
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Post by ryanne on Nov 5, 2012 16:17:53 GMT -5
Nell came outta nowhere, as usual. Keoki's third yawn through, there was the familiar clunk of the door latch thing being pulled and then the thunk of the passenger door swinging open. A gold light flicked on, heralding Nell's arrival. A bag flew through the open door and collided with the seat, bouncing to the vehicle floor. Keoki waited, blinking as cool November air washed in swatches over the leather seats and scrubbed him with wakefulness. He checked his watch - thirteen after nine.
"Well, look who decided to show up,"
[/color] Keoki said a little too loudly, his eyes on the busy Nell. "What, did the chips go rogue on you guys? Get tired of being bet on and decided to gamble on human souls instead?"[/color] He raised an eyebrow, watching Nell execute an exchange of objects between her hands and her bag. "I have to change right quick," Nell told Keoki proudly, poking him in the cheek with a sharp fingernail despite his attempts to dodge the wagging appendage. On impact he yelped, rubbing the spot ruefully, and raised an eyebrow as Nell added, "If you peek, I will eat everything you love," and hopped into the backseat to change. The thought of a woman taking off her clothes, or at least some of them, in Keoki's own backseat wrought a change of exactly zero in the man's emotions, and it was the apathy that surprised him. Then again, this was Nell, his best friend in forever. She was like his sister. But still, he would've expect himself to blush at least a fraction, especially at Nell's own apathy about changing it up in the backseat. If his eyes even wandered to the rearview mirror, he would most likely die a little of embarassment at what he might see. Of course, there was the threat that Nell would consume every man, woman, and child alive that was dear to Keoki's heart, which Nell expected would keep Keoki's eyes shut tight. It worked. But besides that, it was just about chock full of comebacks, and Keoki plundered it with his eyes closed. "But... you can't eat yourself! Bwarharhar!" Keoki burst out into a deep evil laugh, clawing up his hands palms-up in front of him with relish, the perfect mad scientist. He stopped abruptly, pausing for a fraction of a second, and then spoke normally: "And besides, even if I did want to peek, I wouldn't be able to look long enough. My eyeballs would melt in my sockets. And my soul would probably explode."[/color] Keoki snickered, his eyes still squeezed shut. Nell was finished before he even knew what happened, sliding almost soundlessly back into the passenger seat. He opened his eyes and directed his gaze towards her, taking in her new outfit in the space between heartbeats. "Yeah, I have the address. Oh, and sorry, Nell. Could you do that again? You didn't bump my seat enough."[/color] "How was your day, hombre?" Nell asked cheerfully, slipping past his quip effortlessly. She was settled in the seat now, corralling her hair back into a bun as she looked at him inquisitively. He sighed and ran his hand through his dark cropped hair, an old habit that had formed a long time ago. He wasn't tired or confused or stressed like the gesture might seem; actually, it only seemed to come up when Nell was around, like a manifestation of his subconscious' awareness that she was there. Keoki counted it as one of the many ways he and Nell were so incredibly close. At least, none of his other friends had their own gestures. "Well, I had a fantastic day. Day off from the police academy. I did absolutely nothing. It was great."[/color] He smiled. "But I have to say the highlight is happening right now,"[/color] he confessed as he put the car into gear and started moving down the block, mentally calling up the address of the laser tag place they were on their way to hit up. "You were late, though. I believe this calls for a physical manifestation of the adolescent phenomenon commonly dubbed 'smh'."[/color] Keoki executed it with delight, shaking his head slowly with a look of sheer disapproval splayed across his face, his eyes locked on Nell.[/blockquote][/blockquote][/size] |
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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Nov 6, 2012 5:54:58 GMT -5
While a part of Nell felt bad that she made Keoki wait, the other part was more entertained by his questions. She figured that him being Keoki, he didn't mind having to wait too much. Even when it was outside a den of alcoholics and gamblers. "As a matter of fact, yes," she replied to his questioning. "We had to take them out with our secret arsenal of AK's." It was a little less disastrous than some kind of poker chip takeover, but the idea of chips gambling with people was some existential horror. "Actually," she said, deciding to give him a straight story. "Somehow a chip found its way to the wrong table and freaked us out. I had the theory that they were reproducing through mitosis." It wasn't stated seriously, and she hoped that they realized that she hadn't offered it up as a legitimate source for their problem. Though in her world, everything is possible until proven impossible. Her father would like to argue otherwise, as he so often informed her.
As a married woman who adored her husband, and someone completely oblivious to what went through most men's heads, she saw nothing wrong with changing in the back seat of her homie's car. She did it with her girlfriends whenever she needed to. Not that she considered Keoki to be a girlfriend -- he was an attractive male and she did not forget that, but she was completely comfortable with him. And she really did not want to stay in her uniform while running around shooting people with lasers.
She lifted her eyebrow at his words and paused in her work to silently laugh at his words. It was good to know that he loved her like she loved him, but it was hard to take him seriously when he was talking like an insane man. "I'll bet you five bucks I can gnaw off my arm," she told him. Maybe she was spending too much time at the casino, she was turning into a character from Rat Race. Her feet seemed to thank her as she slipped them into a pair of Nikes. Though they weren't aware of the fact that she would keep them moving for a few more hours. Hearing his next words, spoken much more calmly, she paused and kneed the back of his seat. Not hard enough that it would hurt him, but clearly in a joking manner. "That better not be your way of calling me ugly, mister," she said in a childlike voice. Either she was too beautiful or too ugly to look at for long, and the way she took his words clearly said something over her self-esteem. In any case, she was definitely joking around with him. Especially since she didn't plan on eating anything he loved, unless he had some food in the car.
She shrugged her shoulders once she got in the front seat, trying to ease the tension out of them before turning and blinking at her friend. It said something for their friendship that Nell did not apologize for jostling his seat. Instead, after she asked the question, she stretched her arm out and gave the back of the seat a few more pats as if to oblige his request of bumping his seat again. She was small, but it wasn't as if she could fold herself into a miniature Nell and make no movement in the backseat whatsoever.
Nell watched as he ran his hand through his hair, crossing her arms and glad for the warmth of the car now. A smile reached his lips as he spoke of his day off from the Police Academy. "Really? A day full of nothing is great? Don't you get bored?" She actually was really curious, because she couldn't see the fun in...well, nothing. But she rolled her eyes up when he spoke of this being the highlight of his day full of nothing. "I see, I'm the sunshine of your life." She wriggled around, grinning some more as if really pleased that this was the truth. Though it warmed her to hear him say that, she was going to mess with the Water graduate as much as he messed with her. Of course, she had her limit. She was too nice to be like the groups of guys she saw punching each other in the gut out of 'friendliness'.
He shook his head after he spoke, and yet Nell did not attach the chatspeak of 'smh' to that expression. So she merely tilted her head curiously. "Smh? What's that?" She gave another thought toward it. "Sounds dirty. Search my house? Is that police lingo?" A bunch of ideas went through her head at once, but the bottom line was that she didn't go on the internet much save for schoolwork. Josh had long ago scared her away from ever exploring the dangers of the internet and what could be found with a well-intentioned Google images search.
"And I did apologize. Multiple times. But I'm sure I can make it up to you. Buy you pizza at the joint down the street? Maybe make you a Spanish dinner." She liked cooking for people, and this was Keoki's forgiveness here. She would do anything she could to get back in his favor, and she thought that a good bowl of paella might have been able to do it. The dish was one of her favorites because of everything that went into it and she believed that he would probably like it as well.
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Post by ryanne on Nov 6, 2012 23:55:31 GMT -5
Keoki smirked as Nell patted the back of his seat snarkily. "Yo, Nell, whatcha trying to do, start an earthquake?"
[/color] He laughed and reached over to ruffle her hair, smiling to himself with the knowledge that Nell would probably preen it back into semi-perfection like girls tended to do when their hair was messed. Girls. A completely different species. Keoki would probably never understand them. Them and their various insecurities and subtleties and outbursts of ferocious feminine wrath at the strangest provocation. Of course, he could reconcile some of it to the ridiculous insistence of contemporary media that women had to be perfect. There was always the unspoken urge to be flawless and gorgeous and all that crazy improbable stuff that seemed to pressure girls a lot. Then again, knowing Nell, the girl probably wasn't totally immersed in media. "Yeah, yeah, don't let it get to your head,"[/color] Keoki laughed, responding to Nell's cheerful reveling in the fact that she was his sunshine. She really was, though. Being with Nell brightened him up, kind of freshened the air in his lungs and made his blood pump a little faster. She was a like a zap of golden electricity. And the sun was electric and stuff. Not really. Well, kind of. Ish. So Nell was kind of his sunshine. Keoki mentioned this to her, smiling mock-bashfully as he did. "Oh, and before, when I said that thing about the whole... eyeball-melting thing... I mean for sheer awesomeness of your beauty. I doubt I could take it, you know. Your beauty. And stuff."[/color] His earlier assumption that Nell wasn't a media junkie was confirmed when Nell took a swing at the identity of "smh" and totally missed. Keoki couldn't help but laugh, looking happily at his friend. "Yeah, it's a real dirty term. We use it at the academy all the time. It's a sex euphemism."[/color] Keoki capped off the claim with an overdramatic double wink and a cheesy half-grin, hoping that Nell would catch the drift. "No, but seriously,"[/color] Keoki said, managing to sober up, "it's not. Don't worry, Nell. I'm not asking to check out your house anytime soon. 'SMH' means shaking my head. It's a dumb teenager thing."[/color] Keoki blocked out the small voice reminding him that he'd been a dumb teenager about three years ago and was probably still considered one by lots of people in society. Technicalities. He rounded the second block now, winding past the long rows of street lights that spilled liquid gold onto harsh concrete and stolid pavement. The streets were still alive, though - here and there he passed a man chilling on his steps taking a hit off a joint (which he assumed, for the sake of his duties, was just a cigarette). It looked like one. Keoki was never one to shirk duty, even with Nell, but realistically speaking, a cop couldn't go up to every single person smoking a joint that looked remotely suspicious and demand to take it in for testing. So he rolled past it, right by a group of kids crouched on the sidewalk, probably examining a bunch of bugs with childlike delight. Nell broke his thoughts with her cheerful voice again, the bright sound like painted coins. Weird analogy. Hm. Oh well. Keoki tuned in, smiling ruefully as Nell said she'd make her lateness up to him with the simple classic pledge of "pizza's on me". "I'm not really too upset over you being late, Nell. But hey, if you wanna buy me pizza, go right ahead."[/color] Keoki thwacked his hand against his flat stomach. "My stomach has no beef with it."[/color] Then something hit him, and he hit himself. Wow. "Omigosh, Nell, have you eaten yet? I'm sorry."[/color] He glanced at her worriedly, not believing he could've missed it. He really hoped she'd eaten. He felt like a complete dork.[/blockquote][/blockquote][/size] |
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Post by NELL DOE DALE on Nov 7, 2012 5:55:44 GMT -5
I can certainly cause an earthquake. Nell was not the sort of girl who worried about her appearance and what others thought of it -- she was the sort of girl who ignored it completely. As such, she wasn't very put off when he reached around to ruffle her hair, even though she was in the midst of changing. "I will bite your hand, sir." Instead of doing that, she simply flinched a little when he ruffled up her hair like a big brother might do. She liked the idea, having a big brother like Keoki. She didn't know what it felt like to have a good one. Her half-brother was the king of assholes and the simple mention of her brother-in-law had her stomach in knots. She had never known what it was like to have a brother she could argue with and compete with and a part of her wondered what it would have been like if Rafael had been born as a different person. But she couldn't exactly miss what she didn't have.
Wriggling in her seat with what was unrestrained glee, Nell giggled maniacally when the Water graduate told her not to let it get to her head, as if she were doing the total opposite. As she were one to ignore herself most of the time, she didn't think his next words were true, even if there was some honesty behind them. She remembered the day she felt truly beautiful had been her wedding, when she'd been dressed up in a white gown and hair done up with flowers and best of all, she finally got to say I do to Josh. However, she had also felt incredibly nervous that day. She now remembered it with fondness, because everything had gone perfectly. "You're getting real good at this complimenting thing. Thank you." The thank you was actually genuinely. Despite her issues, she knew how to take a compliment gracefully. She appreciated them.
Nell still got embarrassed about how little she knew when it came to the real world. She had gotten better at it over the past three years, but there were still instances when her naivete shone through. If Keoki hadn't spoken it the way he did, she might have taken him seriously and considered how those three letters could be considered dirty. Being that she knew he was joking, she slapped her hands over her ears and said loudly, "Lalalala, I can't hear you!" It was a tactic she'd seen many children in the daycare use whenever they didn't want to clean up or listen to something else she had asked of them. At least she wasn't actually a prude. She didn't think she could be married to a man like Josh if she were. Nell thought about it when he admitted what it really was, her eyes narrowing for a moment. It made more sense than what she had said, but Nell still couldn't figure out how it could be used. In what context would that be necessary? The synapses didn't connect the fact that it was internet slang. "Good thing we're not one of those anymore, huh?" she said when he mentioned 'teenagers', nudging his arm with her elbow. Or well, trying. It wasn't easy to reach him across the car, but she tried. The gesture was there.
She took her time to think about how odd it was, being twenty-years-old. Married. Instead of feeling trapped, she felt a fluttering in her stomach. She had never been happier than she was in this point in time, a married woman with great friends like Keoki. A great life. Nell pushed the issues with her aunt, her father, her half-brother out of her mind, just let her enjoy the fact that she had such a good life. And a future, one that she was trying to become accustomed to thinking about. It had always been a big, scary thing to her, an impossibility.
The Earth graduate sighed contentedly when he spoke next, looking out her window for a moment before turning back to him. He didn't look pissed off, but then again she had never seen him pissed before and wouldn't know what that looked like. It was a concerning sort of image in her head. She didn't like that idea. "Well good," she said when Keoki patted his stomach. "But I will buy you that pizza. With some kind of meat topping. Just pull over at the top of the next block." She had no problem with it. There was a time when she had to control her spending since her half-brother had been blackmailing her, but now she had a decent job and she could buy Keoki whatever he wanted.
She saw him hit himself and lifted an eyebrow. Her voice bubbled in a laugh when he voiced his concern and she shook her head. "Nah, I haven't eaten since lunch. But that will change, just a quick bite and we'll be off." She couldn't even half snacks since she was always on her feet. And one general rule of keeping Nell happy was keeping her fed. But she had been doing pretty good without. But it soon changed when they got their pizza, and Nell paid for his. She slipped into a side booth and asked him, "Have you ever done laser tag before?" The girl hadn't, but she had played paintball before and could remember the welts from it very well. It was funny during, but afterward, one had to deal with the intense pain of it. She was quick to finish off the pizza, wanting to get there quickly because the excitement for it was thrumming through her veins. "If it's comparable to paintball, I think I can be pretty awesome at it."
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