Hard to Miss:

“Have you –seen- the people trying to set up shop across from us?” Tully demanded, his tone indicating that, in his personal opinion, they had to be hard to miss, even from orbit. Last time he’d taken that particular tone, he’d been referring to a customer who had walked in wearing clothing that was head to foot ‘day-glo’. Day-Glo orange, Day-Glo purple… you name it, it had been in the outfit.

“Yes actually, one of them came in the other day.” Connor pointed out. “He bought a large amount of cake and some coffee. He ate like he was malnourished or something.”

“Well, having that much cake probably didn’t help him much.” Tully frowned slightly, clearly trying to picture someone voluntarily consuming that many sweets in one sitting. “You’re talking about the twiggy guy with the raver hair?” He gestured vaguely at his own mop of dark hair. “Was I imagining things or did he have scales or something?” He was half convinced they must have been glued on. With the reputation of Gene Modders, it seemed a little too surreal that someone insane enough to modify their own genetics would try and set up shop across from them. It could be a disaster if they did, surely people would steer well away from Gene Modders. He’d even given himself some kind of mock Mohawk with feathers.

“Guy has the fashion sense of a blind peacock.” Tully added, with a snort, shooting a meaningful glance at Connor’s boutonnière.

“Who was it who wore the ridiculously purple shirt last week?”

“Hey, YOU said it looked fine.”

“I said it looked fine –on the hanger-. I didn’t say it looked fine on you. Now if you were planning on visiting ‘Plumage’ with me…” He dropped the name of a relatively well known gay-bar casually, his smile impish. “That might be an appropriate place for that kind of display.”

Tully stared at him. It was one of those dead pan ‘I am processing what you just said and will be dully horrified when it finishes filtering through my brain’ looks that usually proceeded…

“Shut up, you!”

Yep, there it was. This time accompanied by flushed embarrassment, and the clear train of thought that the shirt was going to be run first through the paper shredder (Con made a mental note to buy a new shredder) and then into the trash can.

“Just saying.” Con smirked, pouring a cup of fresh Hazelnut blend and taking an appreciative sip. He added cream and sugar until it was pale and sweet, then sipped again. “Hmm. Not bad.”

“Yeah well I’m ‘just saying’ I’m not going to that freaking bar unless someone calls to tell me that you have given yourself alcohol poisoning and they need someone to drag your gangly butt to the ER.”

“Awww, spoil sport. I was going to take you there next Thursday. They’re having a Western Theme Night. I bought you some chaps and spurs.”

Tully Choked.

... ... ... ... ... ...

“Five bucks. Hand it over.” Sally smirked holding her hand out, palm up, to Elsa Gowain, one of the copy editors who had joined her for coffee.

“Jeeze. That’s the last time I bet you on those two. I woulda sworn he would have gone for the Brokeback Mountain Angle.” Elsa grumbled, peeling five bucks out of her purse and slapping it, gracelessly, into Sally’s palm.

“Hey, don’t mess with the best.” Sally quipped, pretending to sniff the bill appreciatively before tucking it into her pocket. Mmm. Free Lunch.

“Wanna go again? Looser buys the winners favorite pastry?”

Elsa narrowed her eyes. “…What are we betting on this time?”

“I’m gonna say… I’ll bet… Connor can talk Tully out of wearing those goofy loafers for a week.”

“You are SO on, Linkletter."