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 Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 7:38 pm
Thanksgiving sucked. It always sucked. Though this year it sucked harder than most because Zia was in an awkward 'between' position where she was reconnecting with her friends, but didn't feel comfortable enough to intrude on their holiday. And all the ones that she was were with family or out of town or both.
It had become a knee jerk reaction to text Pascal in these weird 'ugh, alone' moments, but midtext, she realized he was probably with his family too. She had no idea, it wasn't like his apartment was overflowing with photos and childhood memories, it was a typical 'just out on my own' place which was code for bare as bones.
He obviously had to be. Who was alone on Thanksgiving? Except her.
She backtracked on her original text and ended up sending the obviously assuming 'So is your family absolutely driving you nuts?'
The answer made her collapse in guilt. Whoops. And she called him pretty quickly, wondering if she'd struck a nerve. In the end, she offered to take him out to eat. Somewhere nice. Her dad took her to restaurants every Thanksgiving, and her only clue that was bizarre was television's insistence it was. You were supposed to be trapped in a house with family and home cooking and the whole shebang, but even when she was surrounded by family, the closest they got was martinis in the day room to dryly discuss what a whore aunt Melanie was and whose racehorse was doing better.
Okay so there was a plan, yes. A plan thought up in a spur of the moment, but it was a plan. And it wasn't like it took long to pin her hair up, find a decent dress in her endless collection of the 'little black' variety and throw on some nice shoes.
And just like she second guessed her plan and showed up at Pascal's an hour late, but baring gifts. Food, lovingly packed in takeout containers. Traditional food, on top of it all.
"Okay," She started rapidly babbling the second she heard the doorknob turn. "I know I said we were going out but then I thought 'wow, what freak of nature goes out to dinner on Thanksgiving' I mean except me but then I worried I was showing too much Valley Girl one percent vibe and that's kind of embarrassing especially since I'm socially retarded and now I'm standing on your doorstep in a dress with take out here," She stopped for air and decided to close her mouth, extending an arm holding one of the bags. "Also it's really friggin cold to be wearing a dress."
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Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 9:56 pm
Pascal was about to get the search party out, which meant powering up to Sailor Oprheus, and finding Zia because she was an hour late and in Destiny City that was something to be frantic about. However, when the kettle was about to overflow into a boiling mess on the floor there was a knock on the door and suddenly everything cooled off. He took a deep breath, and casually went over to the door and opened it as if nothing was wrong. He was cool, he was fine and whoa, suddenly the kettle was boiling again.
Zia looked stunning in the little black dress, her work at the gym obviously doing wonders for the ensemble.
"You look beautiful," he said, inviting her in while taking the take out bags from her. What's in here? he thought, eyes peeking toward the bags as he carried them to the counter.
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Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2012 10:17 pm
"Food," Zia said, wasting no time handing it all off to him and running inside to kick off her shoes. They were such nice shoes, but after spending all this time in sneakers, her tolerance for her painful heels, or what few she'd managed to keep, had gone way down.
And yeah, she'd just said she brought food, it was obvious it was food, you could smell it was food. But there was an addendum she didn't manage to get in until she'd pulled off her jacket and pulled a bottle from her purse. "Food, and a really damn good bottle of port."
And then she felt that whole social retardation she'd brought up in her babble coming on in full force. Or maybe it was because she was standing in his apartment dressed like she was going somewhere classy, and barefoot. "Or... or did you want to go out? Because we could still totally do that. I just thought, uh... Wow, I suck."
Her brain clicked over to stupid Chris in stupid Boston with his perfect little family in clear jealousy. She was pretty sure this wasn't supposed to be a puzzle. But it was. And it was all she could do to not go 'how does I holiday'.
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Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 11:28 am
The smell of the food brought back some memories of the long forgotten past out from the back of his mind. It had been a long time since he had food with any sort of family situation so he was about as awkward with the idea as Zia. He handled it smoother than her though, pretending everything was fine all the time. He was a man, that's what men did in front of women. They were required by the law of men to keep their cool. Obviously.
"This is better, Zia," he grinned. "Who wants to sit awkwardly at a restaurant while everyone judges us? We're above that. We can even watch movies, or listen to whatever music we want. We don't have to deal with cruddy waitstaff who don't want to work and best of all I get to be the only one who sees you in this dress." He laughed a bit at this point, he was whipping out plates from his cabinet.
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Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2012 9:43 pm
If Zia knew his thoughts on keeping his cool she probably would've agreed. Zia might've been misinformed, though, since her instruction on gender roles was not exactly the most progressive.
"Really?" Oh that was stupid. "Whatever, man, if you're happy, I'm happy," She ended up quickly adding with a shrug like she couldn't care less. When her self esteem hit the floor, her first notion was to turn up the 'ha ha I don't give a s**t' defense mechanism and roll with it.
She joined him in the kitchen. If he was going to whip out the plates and silverware, she was after a corkscrew and glasses. "Quinta do Sibio Vintage," She half bragged. "This s**t is awesome." And expensive, but she was just going to let that be unsaid. Would her kind of boss-friend be pissed he was missing a rare 1900 vintage? Probably, but he said to take what she wanted and should've assumed the culture they were both raised in would've properly educated her on how to fully take advantage. She felt he owed her a few Christmas bonuses anyway.
"Oh you like it? Really? Do you?" Zia said with dripping sarcasm when her dress was brought up and laughed at him, but, then she shrugged a little. She'd maybe gotten dressed up for Pascal once and that wasn't even a real date. Zia could be classy, but she was too comfortable around Pascal and he usually got 'baggy t-shirt not really trying to be a doll today' Zia or 'just got off work, too tired need pajamas right now' Zia. And there was something deeply ingrained in her that liked to stroke egos, but he'd probably have figured that out by now just from the way she acted in bed.
"This dress was only meant for your viewing pleasure anyway," She half lied as she hip checked him when they somehow ended up side by side in the kitchen. Because she wasn't thinking about her not-boyfriend when she thought about fashion, but with enough body issues and self-esteem problems to cripple an entire all girl's private school, Zia liked it when he noticed. A lot.
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Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 6:34 pm
Pascal was happy. It was probably going to be a problem later because the world simply refused to acknowledge a happy Pascal but he could enjoy it for now. He had what smelled like a delicious meal, a little black dress to admire and what seemed like a very good choice in liquor. It sounded expensive, but by now it didn't surprise him. Zia was all about class, and expenses.
"This is better then," he said, his free hand running along Zia's side as she closed closer to him, hip checking him.
"So tell me, now this is very important..." he said, pausing as he looked at her with what seemed to be quite the expression. What was he going to say? His hand casually brushing against her still. "White meat or dark?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 7:39 pm
Zia blushed. She would deny it until the day she died, but his hands brushing against her elicited all sorts of reactions. Blushing, goosebumps, an annoying giggle in her voice. It was disgusting and Zia was having none of it. Because just ugh.
When he looked at her, she stopped messing with the wine and glanced up, actually waiting to see what he was getting at.
And then she laughed.
"Dark," She said as she uncorked the bottle and poured with a shrug. "I'm thinking of some other meat I'd like to get at tonight, though," She joked crudely and used her wine glass as a barrier between them when she glanced back up at him with a grin.
"Food first!" She announced after a pause she let linger, grabbing the plate he had just barely finished dishing up from under him, whether it was meant for her or not, and with food and wine in hand, flopped on the couch. His earlier suggestion of movies sounded perfect. Everything was. At least it seemed like it, briefly, and she could just ignore the fact that outside this apartment there were monsters and space queens and judgmental friends and enemies and all the other bullshit.
Nope. She was here, with eye candy and food and they could watch stupid movies and drink expensive wine barefoot on the couch and no one could do anything about it.
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