2019-04-27 - Thai Kung Fu

It's been a few days since Graham's put his bags in Elise's spare room. For a bit now, the pair were like two ships passing in the night - they both work funny hours, and Elise was consistently running across the way to her parents' home to take care of her dad. Burning both ends of the candle wasn't fun, so when she wasn't at work or at her parents' house? She was crashed out in her room. But at least she made sure there was always food in the fridge for him, a cooked dinner with plenty of leftovers for them both to take to work, or eat just before face-planting to get a few hours of sleep before the day starts all over again.

But today was Saturday, and she didn't have the day off from work but her mom was at home with her dad. Which means that she could come back to her place and chill for awhile. That explains why she's halfway between 'work ready' and 'chill ready', wearing a fitted soft pink camisole on her top half and a pair of black scrubs on her bottom half. Her hair was parted into two braided pigtails; it'd fall out into curls later. There was music on in the kitchen, some kind of techno-dance beat to it, and she was humming to the rhythm while traipses along in the kitchen, prepping some shrimp-and-noodle dish on the stove.

<FS3> Graham rolls Alertness: Good Success (6 6 6 5 4 2 2 1)

Graham mostly only burns the candle at the one end. It just happens to be the middle-of-the-night end. So he rouses sometime around the noon-hour, which usually means he can wander around in an under-shirt and boxers and there's no one around to care, can eat the food she's nice enough to leave for him over the sink, minimizing the amount of cleaning up he has to do. That's his game-plan this - well, it's morning for him.

Yawning hugely, scratching the top of his unkempt hair, he slumps down the hallway and toward the kitchen. The fact that there's music dawns on him sometime before he actually steps into the room, and that's why he grabs an umbrella from next to the door, cocking it like a baseball bat up and behind one shoulder. His head appears around the corner first, peeeeering groggily around a space he's accustomed to finding completely empty. "What the fuck are you doing here?" he asks of the person that owns this house, blinking blearily at the dancing Elise, like she's the last person he expected to find in her own kitchen. Also, he slowly lowers the sheathed umbrella-weapon.

Elise was in the zone - and probably half asleep - so she misses the thump of somebody waking up and coming down the stairs over the heavy beat of her music. By the time he comes slumping around into the kitchen and grabs for his umbrella weapon, she's halfway in the fridge reaching for some coconut milk, her hips swaying with the tune. The demand of his question catches her off-guard; the back of her head goes thunk! against the top of the fridge, and she groans. "Fuck! Shit, what the fuck, Graham?" she winces, drawing back out of the fridge and putting her hand to the back of her head, rubbing at it. There was gonna be a lump there. She peeks at him from over the door, blink-blink-blinking at him there in his boxers.. with an umbrella. "I.. live here? Are you going out? It's not even raining."

In Graham's defense, "Yeah, but you're never here." He winces sympathetically when Elise brains herself on the fridge, then looks guiltily at the umbrella he was about to use to beat her to death with. He should sugar-coat that plan, but: "No, I was about to beat you to death with this." Gingerly, he leans it against the nearest empty wall-space; it immediately slides down the wall, the handle making a good amount of racket, and clatters to the floor, so he just steps over it and pretends that didn't happen. "Seriously, what're you doing here? I thought you just came home to sleep and leave." And that magic fairies stocked the fridge for him.

Elise mumbles something under her breath as she nudges the fridge door shut with her hip, continuing to massage the giant lump on the back of her head with one hand as she carries the coconut milk over to the stove top. Her brows go up at his plan, her expression saying it all: really? "I guess you shed marginally less than a guard dog," she remarks, though there's a dubious look cast to the mess that he calls a head of hair, and then winces when the umbrella clatters to the ground. She puffs air into her cheeks and deflates them with a sigh, and gets to adding the milk to whatever it is she's making on the stovetop. "Who did you think was putting food in the fridge? Keebler elves?" she recaps the milk, and goes to fetch the umbrella off the floor where he's left it, shaking it at him. "I got off work and didn't have to go sit with dad today. Besides, somebody ate all the leftovers I was going to take with me to work tomorrow."

"I'm also almost completely housebroken." Graham hovers by the door with the fallen umbrella for a few seconds, like maaaaaybe it occurs to the back of his mind that he should go put on some pants? But he doesn't do that, so he just finishes coming into the kitchen, and has gotten himself settled enough over the past couple days that he's comfortable making coffee for himself, though it means they're probably going to wind up walking all over each other a few times. "Yes, I thought it was the Keebler elves," he deadpans, prowling in her cupboards (not a metaphor, sry) for coffee-things. "And see? This is why you need me around. So people quit breaking into your shit and stealing your leftovers. This town, man, full of fucking savages."

"Almost," Elise agrees, fluttering a hand across his shoulder for a quick pat-pat as they dance around each other in the kitchen. "But not quite. Until then, I'll keep layering the puppy pee pads underneath your sheets. Just in case," she cocks her head and flashes him an understanding smile, before she shoves the umbrella back into its place. The deadpan earns him a snort of a laugh as she comes back to the stove, mixing the concoction in the pot with a quick stir of a wooden spoon, the end of which is licked after. She watches him with a hint of amusement in her dark brown eyes as she tongues the tip of the spoon, which is also not a metaphor, sorry. "Yes, this is exactly why I need you around. So you can walk around in three day old boxers and beat me to death with umbrellas. Taste this," she thrusts the spoon she was just making out with in his face. "Does it need more salt?"

Graham, with a dimples-deep smile back at Elise, "I definitely didn't pee on the houseplant in the living room, no worries there." He leans against the counter while he waits for coffee to happen, occasionally tapping on the top of the coffee-maker like that will get it finish quicker; it doesn't work, but it makes him feel better about the delay. "First off," the tapping finger is held aloft, point number one. "I was gonna change these after I ate," whatever he found in the fridge or pantry, "and took a shower. Second off - yeah, I got nothing," to counter the umbrella claim, he just looks beyond Elise and her tongue and the spoon THAT'S TOTALLY A METAPHOR, DON'T LIE to the fallen umbrella. So he tastes dutifully. "Yes? I mean, what is it?"

Elise's eyes bulge at the talk of peeing on houseplants, her freckled nose wrinkling up in disgust. "You're nasty," she remarks and makes a mental note to throw the houseplant outside, snorting back another laugh when he fails to come to his second point. "It's food," she says after he takes a taste from her not-metaphor spoon, and boops him on the nose with it. "Coconut curry shrimp. It doesn't have a big enough kick to it though, hmm.." she shuffles back to her stove, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she considers her rack. Her spice rack, perv. She picks out a few things to mix into the pot, looking back over to him as she mixes. "How's work going? Are you getting a lot of tips? 'Cause I know I said you didn't have to pay rent, but I'm not gonna turn your money away if you wanna throw some at me for food.."

But but but! He definitely didn't pee on the houseplant!

"That's exactly what I was gonna guess." Coconut curry shrimp. That's not the truth, but Graham puts it out there like it is, rolling the taste around in his (very scuzzy) mouth for a second - then the coffee is done, and he leaves her looking at her own rack so he can put a couple cups on the counter, being swell enough to make coffee for both of them. See? ALMOST COMPLETELY HOUSEBROKEN. "I got a few bucks you can have. Not on me." He stops pouring coffee so he can pat himself down, no cash in his t-shirt, no cash in his shorts, he shrugs apologetically. "But I can spare a little dough for you to go buy bread." (See what he did there?)

"Is it now?" Elise gives a skeptical squint in his direction at his claim, before she just rolls her eyes and continues to stir the pot and plot the removal of her houseplant that he totally didn't pee on (/sarcasm). "Shouldn't it be that you can spare a little dough so I can make bread?" Elise considers this, then puts the lid on the pot so it can do its magic while she picks up her coffee cup and carries it to the little table in the kitchen. She perches, lifting the cup for a quick slurp, and then sticks her elbows down on the table. "If you pitch in the cash," and she sounds a little doubtful here, "I'll let you tell me what two things you want me to make for dinners this week and I'll do that. Unless you pick something overly complicated, in which case I'm still going to take your money and just make you more shrimp curry," she grins.

Staying over here by the coffee pot, because he's definitely going to need more of this stuff, Graham starts in on the cup while Elise is making her hard sell about what she will do with the hard-earned cash he'll be contributing to their collective grocery budget. His brows climb over the brim of his cup, hanging there amusedly for a few seconds, and the humor is explained when he comments, "I mean, can you actually cook anything but curry and noodles?" He lowers the cup and asks with a thoughtful purse of his pretty mouth, "Was that a little bit racist?" He feels safe asking Elise that question, since that's what friends are for.

Elise watches him watch her over the rim of her own coffee cup, scoffing at his question. "I mean on a scale of one to slant eyes? A little," she pinches her thumb and forefinger together and then spreads them apart just a touch. "But yes, Graham," she wraps her hand back around her cup, lowering it to the table. "I can cook other things. I am a pro at white people food. You want me to make you some chicken nuggets, mac and cheese? Hot dogs?" she grins, amused at herself. "I even make a mean schnitzel. It's my dad's favorite."

<FS3> Graham rolls Wtfisschnitzel: Success (7 6 4 1)

"Okay, see. That was definitely racist." Graham chimes in with that when she says 'white people food,' leaving him shaking his head at Elise like he's just sooooo disappointed in her, wtf friend. "I'm super-outraged now." Good thing he has coffee, sipping it helps temper the deep offense he's taken at her lumping all white-folk-food under one culturally insensitive heading. "Ahhhhm, is that a pastry? Or that stuff that's sort of like chicken-fried steak?" So his outrage earlier was totally justified. "'Cause I'll eat either, but I need to prepare my palate ahead of time."

"Was it really, though?" Elise makes hand-weighing motions. "I'm sure I could calm you down with some casserole or watergate salad," the edges of her lips twitch upward in a bold grin, before she hops out of her seat to check under the lid of the pot. She side-eyes him as he talks of preparing his palate, her brows hiking upward. "I didn't realize your palate was so refined that it needed to be prepared ahead of time. But schnitzel is.." deep breath, let it out. "Yeah. Like chicken-fried steak." That was the easiest explanation. "I'm better with the savory than the sweet."

Watch Graham get excited. Er, watch Graham's face get excited. He's still hanging around in his boxers, so it seems important to make the distinction. "Do you have casserole and watergate?" This is enough to get him to walk away from the counter and everything, leaving his coffee cup and swinging open the refrigerator door, traipsing a look up-and-down the inside. He's still there, now moving a couple of containers, when he looks back over his shoulder to Elise at the table. And smirks at her. "Guess that explains why we never hooked it up, seeing as how I'm so damn sweet." Then he slings the refrigerator door closed; there's no white people food in there, dude. 🙁

Elise could've saved him a whole lot of disappointment and just let him know that no, there was no watergate or casserole in the fridge. Instead? She lifts her slim shoulders in a shrug. "I dunno. Maaaybe," she offers a glimmer of hope as she turns off the stove and sets the lid back on the pan, retreating to the table so that she could have a good vantage point for when his excitement dies. She waits, tap-tap-tapping her fingers over the ceramic of the coffee cup, while her brows arch upward to practically disappear into her hairline. "Right. Right. That's exactly why we never 'hooked it up'," she wiggles fingers in the air to make quotes around her words. "It certainly had nothing to do with you gloating to me about how you were getting blowjobs from half the cheerleading squad," she sips at her coffee. "Or that time when you ditched me for dinner because you met two super hot Cuban girls at the gas station and they were quote 'totally DTF'." Sip. "It's only because you're so sweet, and I wouldn't know what to do with you."

Is it better or worse if, "Wow, I completely forgot about those Cuban chicks." Graham, reminded of them now, leans against the closed refrigerator door, arms crossing over his chest, staring vaguely off into the middle-distance while old memories coalesce behind pale blue eyes. After a couple of seconds, he ahems and drags his attention back to the here-and-now, specifically on Elise over there, sipping away, and he smiles at her. Beams at her, even. "The little one started stalking me after that. I wound up telling 'em both that you were my crazy girlfriend, and you knew that Thai kung fu stuff." Speaking of vaguely racist. "So they better get off my dick before you had to fuck 'em up." That beam turns angelic, looking at Elise like she's just the best thing since sliced bread. Even though she doesn't actually know Thai kung fu.

Elise will just go on sipping at her coffee, rolling her pretty brown eyes in an exaggerated circle as he reminisces of the Cuban chicks. "They weren't that hot," she mutters into her drink, and then almost chokes on the coffee when he talks about her being his crazy girlfriend. "Thai kung fu? Seriously?" she coughs out, smacking her hand on her chest a couple of times and wincing as the burn of the coffee goes down, about to say something else when her attention lifts to his wholly angelic smile. There was something in the way that he was looking at her that makes her deflate, and she can't help but grin back at him. "I should've kicked their ass anyway. Tied their dumb pony tails together and made them clack their heads or something. We had reservations! To a really good place!" Alas. Her cup is drained and she gets up to wash it out in the sink, before she moves to start bringing down bowls.

"You are sweet though," she'll admit. "I remember when I broke up with Mark, and you said the cutest thing to me. That your dick was a magic wand and you could heal my heartbreak with just one stroke," she snickers, casting a look back over to him.. and a softened smile, even if she rolls her eyes again. "It's almost the nicest thing a guy's ever said to me. But it wasn't quite as high up there as the dude that told me I'd look a lot hotter if my tits were just a little bit bigger."

Thai kung fu? Seriously? "I thought about telling them you were in the Yakuza. 'Cause I'm pretty sure they couldn't tell the difference between Thai and Japanese?" Beat. "Or that the Yakuza is Japanese. But," shrug, "I figured if you ever heard about it, you'd get all pissed, and it'd become a whole big thing." So Graham went with Thai kung fu, and that's how the story ends. His shrug now apologizes for messing up dinner reservations back then, and he gets out of her way from there - quickly swooping in to refill his coffee and retreat back to the table, taking exactly her abandoned seat instead of any of the other ones. Hers is already warm!

"First off, that's true." About his magic dick, he means. "Second off, that Mark guy was an asshole. I wonder whatever happened to him." No, he doesn't. Because Graham is the type of person that knows the type of people that break arms for a living, scaring milquetoasts named Mark into moving to Oregon where they fucking belong. He leans in his chair, to look at her actual rack - not her spice rack - and ennhs. "You'd have to dress sluttier then."

"I would've been pretty pissed," Elise agrees about the Yakuza thing, looking thoughtful. "You should've told them I was with the Thai mafia instead and that Cubans go good in curry." There's a sly grin as she lifts the lid of her pot and takes a sniff, nodding approvingly at the scents wafting from the pot. She gets to fixing him a bowl, breathing out a sigh when she turns to serve him and sees him sitting in her spot. There's a moment when she considers Thai kung-fuing his ass out of the chair .. but instead she plunks the bowl down in front of him and goes to make herself a plate, too.

"Mark was an asshole," they can agree on that, as she comes to perch on the edge of her seat. "And I dunno. Apparently he just quit his job and ran off to Oregon, it was really weird," she shrugs, rolling her shoulders back so that she can squint down at her rack, too. "Is dressing slutty something you have to do if you have huge boobs?" She's got small ones, so this is news to her. "Sounds like a lot of work."

She doesn't touch his magic dick. Sorry not sorry.

"Yeah?" Mark moved to Oregon? Wow, that's sure some news to Graham. "Well, one more drop in the bucket." 'Cause he thinks Oregon is already full of assholes, see. There's an appreciative beam at Elise - as a whole person, not her little boobs - when she drops off food for him. Since his internal clock is all kinds of fucked up, it makes perfect sense that he eats curry for breakfast at sometime in the middle of the day. Without waiting for it to cool down, he takes a bite, and is sucking in air to cool it down inside his mouth when he gets to, "Uh huh," about dressing slutty. A couple more 'ooh' breaths later, he chews gingerly. "I mean, if you're a cute Asian chick with big titties? You kinda have to. It's a moral imperative."

"I guess," Elise's lips draw into a thoughtful purse as she leans over her bowl, "He's a real jerk. You know I tried to call him when I heard he up and left town, and he changed his number. He went completely off the grid, and his asshole friends wouldn't tell me how to get in touch with him either," grumble grumble. "I left my really nice sweater at his place. I just wanted it back," she sighs. Ah well. "Is it too hot?" The food, not the sweater, when she notes all his air sucking action going on over there, spooning a mouthful in and shrugging to herself. It was definitely spicy, but she toned it down so it was appropriate to his complexion. "I guess it's a good thing I'm just an Asian chick with small titties. So I can dress slutty when I want to," she remarks, getting up out of her seat to go and pour him a glass of milk.

Graham's takeaway from the beginning of her story, since he already knows exactly why Mark doesn't return calls, is a confused, "Why did you try to call him?" Then she adds the bit about the sweater and he ahhhs, starting to get his coffee cup - then thinking the wiser of it, his tongue is already all scorched. "Sucks about your sweater, but just goes to show. That guy? Was an all-around asshole." The milk is appreciated, but he will explain for her edification, "Other kind of hot. I burned my mouth." And sticks out his tongue to show her. There is absolutely nothing to see, but still. He's still sticking it out when he tries to say something about her dressing sluttily, so it will have to remain a mystery what he was trying to convey, since it's just blubbery gibberish.

Oh well. Elise pushes the talk of jerk ex-boyfriends and lost sweaters to the side, with just an acknowledging nod of her head. He was an all-around asshole, and there was nothing left to say about Mark. "Aww, poor thing," she leans to inspect his tongue when he sticks it out, reaching for her spoon to thwap it right against his tastebuds. "You'll survive. It's not even burned. Drink your milk and eat your breakfast curry," she instructs, making a hurrying gesture with her spoon over her own bowl, now that she's finished hitting him with it.

Turns out, "Owwww," is almost intelligible, even with your tongue sticking out as far as it will go. It's a little more "oh" and a little less "ow," but Graham manages to get the point across. He also licks her spoon as much as humanly possible while it's over here, then adds, "You're welcome," when she takes it back. Because, seriously, think about the kinds of things he probably does with that tongue. <.<

Or don't. It might be better not to.

"Yes, mom," he mumbles about his milk and his curry. Making good on doing so. "So, if I pay you," definitely sounds like it's going to lead into the things she could do with her tongue, but it's not! "Will you make butterscotch pudding?"

"Ughh, Graaaham!" Elise complains as he slathers his tongue all over her spoon, crinkling her freckled nose up in disgust as she peels it off his tongue and looks at the smear of spit on the back end. "I don't know where your tongue has been! You're gross," she laments, reaching as though she were going to wipe the spoon off on his boxer shorts ... and then she rethinks that terrible decision, and wipes it off on her scrubs instead. A little blood and vomit is probably way better than whatever alien AIDs Graham has on his boxers.

Elise's brows loft at the 'if I pay you' thing, expecting something lewd .. so when he asks for butterscotch pudding instead, he gets a blink. "Uhhhh. Sure? Why butterscotch?" she looks at the backside of her spoon again, and then just sighs, and returns to eating her curry. She can get up and get this man a glass of milk but she can't even bother getting up to get herself a new spoon. Priorities.

Graham says solemnly, "In my mouf." Then he tilts a shifty look upward, squinting at the ceiling, and leaaaans his head to the side to sort of rethink what he just said. "Mostly. You wanna trade?" He smiles his 'wanna buy a watch' smile at her, and holds his own spoon out at arm's length across the table to Elise, like this is better. No? Whatever, her loss, he eats. "I think the question, dearest heart." He pauses to chew and swallow instead of talking with his mouth full. "Is why not butterscotch? It's delicious."

No, it never even occurs to him to go get her a new spoon. But he puts his milk down in the middle of the table, so she can have some? So that's nice of him?

"Yeah but I don't know where your mouth's been, either," Elise quips back, eyes alight as his own lift to the ceiling. "My point exactly," she remarks at his 'mostly', and recoils back at his offering of his spoon with that slimy smile of his. "I'm good. I'm like ninety percent sure whatever you got is probably not contagious.." But there's still a wary look, a suspicious squint of her eyes. "I can think of a whole lot of other things that are more delicious than butterscotch pudding," she decides to chime in on that conversation instead, "But sure. I'll make you pudding. Though, no, I won't fill up a baby pool in the backyard with it so that you can invite girls over to pudding wrestle," she's putting the kabosh on that right now.

Aww, his offering of the milk makes her smile, and she might not know where his mouth's been, but she'll take a sip anyway.

Much like how he's almost housebroken, Graham also: "Relax, I'm current with all my vaccinations." That's a big lie, too, but he doesn't try to pretend it's true, just keeps the trust me smile in place, blinking prettily over the top of it. Also, while he looks back down to what's left in his bowl, he mumbles intelligibly, "Besides, I've been using your toothbrush since I got here - wait, why not?" With the bathtub and the girls and the pudding, he means. "What if I promise to limit it to times you're at work?" Totally reasonable!

"Wait what?" What was that about her toothbrush?! Elise looks alarmed, and the conversation about girls in baby pools full of butterscotch pudding is set aside in the moment. "You are not! Graham, Jesus," she'll apologize for saying the Lord's name in vain later, scrubbing at her face with her hands before she mumbles something under her breath. "Let me go get some paper so I can make a fucking list. I can't believe you didn't bring your own toothbrush with you," she's already out of her chair, digging through her junk drawer to get a scratch pad and a pencil.

"No baby pools full of butterscotch pudding," she's putting her foot down on this. "Do you want ants? 'Cause that's how you get ants. And crabs, probably."

"So I guess you don't wanna know what I do in your bed the second you leave for work?" Graham scrapes the last of the food out of his bowl, tucks it into his mouth, and smiles-and-shrugs at Elise and all the things he's violated in her house. "You're so cute when you get your dander up, darlin'," he adds, leaning his elbows on the table around his empty bowl, his chin on his hands, watching her prowl around the kitchen, and the only thing that keeps it from looking like there are <3s in his eyes is the fact that his smile is obnoxiously smarmy right now. Also, "Never mind the pudding, then. What about Jell-O?"

"No, no thanks. My imagination can fill in the blanks," Elise waves a hand dismissively. Nope, no need to tell her. She can already guess. Mental note to self: bleach sheets later. "You're 'you're so cute darlin' doesn't work on me," she even does the drawl like him, finishing off her bowl and piling hers on top of his empty one. He can do the dishes, she cooked, she pushes the bowls towards his obnoxiously smiling self. "I haven't been able to eat Jell-O since the Cosby incident. So no. No Jell-O either," she says sagely. "If you want to wrestle girls in food, you can get your own place."

It's true. Graham's schtick doesn't work on Elise. But! "That doesn't mean I should quit trying." Which is why he keeps trying, right down to batting his eyelashes at her. He gets the message, though, that he's expected to chip in around here somehow, and so he slides out of his (her) chair, scraping the bowls along the table top, then shifting so they scrape along the counter top, then over the lip of tile, then drop down into the sink. "I'm working on it," he promises. His own place. "My boss," THE CRIME LORD, "says he knows place on Elm that should be free in a couple days. Will you come visit me when I live da hood, Ellybean?"

"Hey you never know. Maybe someday I'll hit my head hard enough that I'll fall for it," speaking of head bumps, hers still kind of hurts from smacking it into the fridge earlier, and the dragging scraping sound of the bowl over her counter and tile and into the sink makes her wince. Or maybe she was wincing because he said he was working on finding his own place. "Oh," the response is a little flat. It's neither a good 'oh' or a bad 'oh', but it definitely wasn't a very neutral 'oh', either. She shifts on her chair, tucking her bottom lip between her teeth, before she nods her head. "I mean, sure. Whenever you're not having Jell-O wrestling match night. I didn't think you were looking for a place?" she looks over her shoulder at him.

Oh, is that what it takes? Hitting her head? Graham tilts back, looking to where the umbrella slid down the wall and landed on the floor just inside the kitchen, his brow taking a hike up the hill toward his hairline. Then that brow and the other one wag once: "Maybe someday." But he's not quite to the point of braining his dearest friend for a little quality time. Back to the dishes, he runs water, does soapy things, is actually capable of scrubbing a few bowls and spoons, as incredible as it might seem. "I'm not house-hunting, but I mentioned that I needed a place, and." He ends the story with a shrug, looking back over his own shoulder at Elise... curiously? "I know Elm's not exactly Oak, but still. You okay there?"

"What? No," The curious look makes her roll back her shoulders, straighten up in her seat and roll her eyes at him. "I'm fine. What? Why wouldn't I be okay? I just didn't know you were looking for a place. That's all. I thought you were going to stay here for awhile." Beneath the table, she kneads her hands against her scrubs and then twists to get off the seat, slipping past him so that she can start putting the shrimp curry into Tupperware containers for later. She throws him an easy smile as she goes. "That's cool though, that your boss is looking out for you," she says that sincerely, before she adds almost flippantly: "I'm going to head up and take a shower and then catch a nap, I think. I have a date later," she makes a face. "My mom set me up with somebody from Church."

"I haven't signed a lease or anything." Not that 'places to live arranged by Felix Monaghan' typically include leases, but Graham leaves off that part. "So if you're okay with me hanging around a while. Using your toothbrush and jerking off on your pillow?" Which, btw, he doesn't actually do either of those things. "I don't have to go anywhere." He super-smoothly fumbles the bowl he was washing, 'cause it's soap-slippery; that he does that when she's like 'i have a date later' is just a coincidence. Thankfully, it lands back in the sink with a splash, instead of the counter with a crash, and provides him the necessary distraction for what is almost definitely going to be an epic composure check.

"Yeah? That's cool. With who?"

"I did say you could stay," Elise replies, her lips pressing into a all-too-neutral flat line as he talks about jerking off on her pillow. She lets that one slide, pushing the pan to the side of the sink so that he can add that to the dishes he's washing when he's done almost breaking her bowls. "But if you want to get your own place? Get your own place. Then you can jerk off on your own pillows." She manages a dazzling smile, before she turns on her heel to put the Tupperware into the fridge. She is wise enough not to stick her head in as she organizes the food for later. As for the date? "Oh, I don't know. One of the very few single men left in the tragically small Gray Harbor Asian community. But he's Asian, and he goes to Church, and apparently he's a lawyer. So he checks all the boxes for mom."

Graham can't just go around having guys' arms broken all the time, right? Like, eventually, that shit gets suspicious. But - while Elise has her head in the fridge - he pushes his tongue against the backs of his teeth, then pulls his lower lip in and chews it contemplatively, nodding about all the info she happily provides: Asian lawyer that worships at Saint Mary's. Definitely wouldn't be hard to find the guy. "So it's a blind date?" He laughs convincingly, a short guffaw into the sink. "Have fun with that, sweetheart. I'd say I won't wait up for you, but I'm guessing you'll be back home by, oh, eight-fifteen at the latest?" Chunk, he dumps the pan into the water, too, and scrubs the bejeezus out of it.

Elise remains blissfully unaware of his plotting and deciding whether or not he can go around having arms broken all over the place. But she does catch the laugh, nudging the fridge door closed and turning back around to look at him, hands on her hips. "Don't make fun. Mom says we're going to make beautiful babies. Of course, she'd prefer if he was Thai, but 'beggers can't be choosers, Elise, you're almost thirty'," her voice pitches up and slants into an accent, a rather solid imitation of her mother, which she finishes with a roll of her eyes. She exhales a breath out after and moves to the pot to make herself another cup of coffee, even if she just claimed she was going to take a nap a bit ago. "I think.." she starts, pauses, and frowns as she pours the coffee, focusing on that. "You should probably just really consider your options. On places to live. Maybe a nicer place will open up if you wait, you know?"

Rinse goes the pan, and why didn't he just use the dishwasher? Whatever, Graham sets the clean dishes neatly in the soap-free side of the sink, where they can drip-dry to their hearts' content, leaving him free to reach down into the suds and pull up the drain. "Hold up," while he's doing that. "I should consider my options. On the house I'm gonna rent over on Elm. But you should go on a blind date with a guy your mom set you up with, 'cause she's worried you'll be a childless old maid at thirty?" He issues another laugh, this one a little less forced, and shakes a bunch of water off his hands before reaching over to give her shoulders a quick, damp-fingered squeeze. "Take your own advice is my advice."

"What? How are those two things even comparable?" Elise's slim brows hike up over those pretty brown eyes of hers as he comes over to stick his damp hand on her shoulder, a quick glance given to his hand before she looks up into his eyes .. and laughs. "I'm going on a date. That he's paying for! You're signing a lease and shelling out money every month. You're getting involved in a far bigger commitment than me, it's not like I'm going to marry this guy." She doesn't shrug his hand off her shoulder, perhaps notably. "Plus I already gave you a place to stay. Rent free! It's not like you asked me out on a date or something," mumble-mumble.

"First off." Has Graham said that like three times in this scene? "I just told you that I'm not signing a lease. Second off. You just said you and this guy," whose definitely getting his tires slashed if nothing else, "are going to have beautiful babies. So yeah." He believes that he has won the conversation, and so pat-pats her on her shoulder. "Third off, I'm about to go use up all the hot water, so you're gonna have to go on your date with Asian Catholic Guy, esquire, smelling like - " He takes a big whiff of the air in her general vicinity. Which was an ill-conceived plan for a guy wearing nothing but boxers and a t-shirt who happens to think she smells like EVERYTHING AWESOME EVER. " - shrimp." He's about to make a run for it to get to the hot water first. <.<

And there is not a goddamn thing she can do about it.

"Oh my gosh, I said my mom said we were going to have beautiful babies. Why do you even care?! It's not like you're trying to set me up!" Elise claps back, all ready to go toe-to-toe on this with him. What the hell was his problem anyway? What difference did it make? It was just a stupid date, with someone she wasn't even remotely interested in, while the someone she was remotely interested in just sniffed her and -- "What? Fuck you, Graham Stewart, get back here!" He takes off through the house and she goes to chase, only to remember she's not the coffee cup - it slows her down, so he's already on the stairs by the time she chases him out into the living room. "I do NOT smell like shrimp! I'm going to beat your ass with my Thai kung fu when I catch you!!" she shouts.

Unfortunately, she just never catches him. So he doesn't get his ass beat. This time.