2019-05-18 - Swipe left next time.

It was Saturday night, and Elise has a date. It was another rando from Tinder, but in the kitchen earlier that evening? She had seemed excited. Eager even. And she was dressed to kill - or actually probably just dressed to fuck. Hopefully fuck, anyway, because murder is wrong. Either way, she was in a short skirt and knee-high boots, a cute blouse and a long jacket to finish off the ensemble. It's an outfit she shows off to her BFF4lyfe, twirling around in the kitchen before her phone goes 'buzz' and she's out the door. Apparently, this was no 'Asian Dude From Church With Small Penis, Esquire' - this was some dude with a Porsche who shows up on time but she doesn't make come to the door to get her. And just like that, off they go and into the night. Elise promises that this time? She won't be home by 8:30.

There's nothing until nine, when Graham's phone rings. Maybe he's at work, but the phone will not stop buzzing in his pocket. It's Elise, and if he doesn't pick up on the first call? There'll be a text - pls pick up - followed by another phone call. That phone isn't going to stop ringing until he starts answering, so when he finally does:

"Graham?" she doesn't sound okay. "I need you to come get me. Please. I'm in Hoquiam."

Graham had to fight SUPER HARD not to ask Elise why she didn't swipe-right on the big black dude that he knows full fucking well showed up on her Tinder matches. Like, this question was eating him alive all night. It makes for a good distraction when she comes downstairs while he's killing time before 'work,' wearing that particular get-up. His eyes don't fall out his head, but he whistles a looooooong low whistle and makes some comments about condoms to chase her out the door.

Then he gets himself all gussied up to serve drinks to club tramps, committing himself to fucking one of these bitches tonight, 'cause now he's in a mood. Not the mood. A mood. The phone rings well before he's at the point of the aforementioned bitch-fucking, though, and of course he picks it up on the first call. Just, "Hold on! It's loud as shit in here."

With the un-tss un-tss un-tss music.

He must be ducking somewhere quieter, probably with his finger shoved in one ear, but eventually he's able to say, at a normal phone volume, "Say again?" Which is presumably when she says her dialogue, followed by, "I'm on my way. Text me the address." This is why he has a fast car.

And points in driving.

There's no insight given; the conversation itself is brief, his request followed up with simple instruction: "Just hurry." And that was it. She texts the address, and she waits.

Graham's GPS points him in the direction of a crappy diner in Hoquim right on the bay. He can park in the lot, but Elise lets him know she's not inside - she's out on the dock, where she's alone and rather hard to spot. There are a few boats out in the distance, but it's dark here, and thankfully it's not raining and the temperature is tolerable, because that sassy long jacket she had to go with her short skirt is no longer in the picture - it's just gone. She's on a bench, bent towards her knees, her chin in her hands. It's hard to see until he gets close, but she's got a red mark on her cheek.

Graham hurried his ass off, managing not to get a ticket only because he's the type of guy that already knows where all the speed traps are. His car is loud, half-a-block-away loud, and he leaves it in the lot as directed, then comes hustling down toward the dock. Which should probably strike him as sketchy - considering the last time he was hanging out on the docks - but this is Elise, and Elise doesn't do sketchy shit, so it's more just... confusing.

"El?" He approaches from the side, taking the bench wide and leaning forward like he's not sure that's actually her, since she left the house in a coat, and this person doesn't have a coat. But that's her, and - with brows knitted - he crosses the remaining distance at a jog, looking for something to explain this. And there it is, the mark that makes his eyes widen. He scoots onto that bench immediately with, "Whoa, what happened?"

The voice didn't necessarily startle her, because she was expecting him (and probably because she heard his fucking car from a mile away), but it does break the concentration of her stare out towards the bay. A barely perceivable tremble runs through her shoulders as she sits herself up, lips twitching into a mild frown as he follows up his bench scoot with the immediate question. "Ah, it's.." she lifts a hand, ghosts her fingers along the edges of the mark. "He looks worse? I think. Probably."

The sigh that leaves her is bone-deep, and she angles herself to lean heavily against him. "He seemed really nice," her frown deepens. "We were having a good time? We got back to his car and we were just.." there's a brief pause, just a blip. ".. Talking. And that mother fucker asked me to talk Korean to him, and he grabbed me and.. Whatever. I punched him in the nose. I hope I fucking broke it," her knuckles look pretty red.

Not that he's the ultimate gentleman, but Graham has the presence of mind to peel off his coat before he sits down and drape it over Elise's shoulders; he's better-dressed for the weather without his coat than she is without his coat, having gone to all the trouble of putting on a long-sleeved collared shirt over some moderately clean t-shirt. It's still sloppy and untucked, but it's better than cute-blouse. "Fuck," is his initial and brilliant observation, now that he's leaned forward enough to get a good luck at the - "Did he fucking slap you?"

Yes, of course, she can lean right in, but make no mistake, there's a certain itchiness about this arrangement. "Jesus christ, El, he hit you?" The fact that she obviously hit him back (first?) is irrelevant, though he holds his palm out as a place for her to put the red knuckles for inspecting.

At least unlike some of my characters, she's not fucking sobbing her eyes out there on the bench. Though, it's probably fairly evident that she's in something of a state of shock, or at least not yet registering the gravity of the situation. There's something glassy to her stare, though that state of being lasts right up and until he puts his jacket around her shoulders and takes a good look at the mark on her face. Another full-bodied tremble runs from her shoulders down to her cute shoes, and she leans right back into him with a shaky sigh. "I feel so fucking stupid," she utters quietly, and lays her hand gingerly into his waiting palm.

"I told him he was a stupid fucking racist and that he needed to take me home or I was going to break his fucking hand," she explains, keeping her eyes cast down. "And then it all just.." got out of control. "I hit him back. I hit him hard. There was blood everywhere," her breath comes out in another quiet woosh. "I left my goddamn coat in his car."

Graham would be a terrible trauma counselor. "Why do you feel stupid? He's obviously the fucking idiot here." He tilts her hand this way and that, looking to get it out of the shadows and into whatever light there is down here right now, tightening his other arm around her shoulders, right down to a brief squeeze of her upper arm.

There was blood everywhere? "Good, I hope the cocksucker pays a fortune to clean his Porsche upholstery." There's no point asking if she's okay, but - after gingerly folding her damaged hand in his and, instead of scrutinizing it, tucking it against his chest for safe-keeping - asks a slightly different version of that useless question: "You gonna be okay? Like. That was it? You fucking clocked him and booked out?" Because there will probably be a murder regardless, it's just a matter of, y'know, how bloody the murder has to be.

"I mean I went all the way to Hoquiam in some dude's car that I didn't even know!" Elise stresses her stupidity in this situation, her voice cracking near the end. It was only a matter of time before she starts crying, and him being nice by putting his arm around her shoulders and then putting her hand to his heart for safekeeping was breaking down whatever walls she managed to build up. There's a tremble to her voice as she turns her head and plants her face right into his shoulder. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't.

But is she okay? The sniffle that's muffled by the press of her face into his shoulder should be enough of an answer. "He tried to grab me. That's.. my fucking coat, I fucking loved that coat, he ripped it, Graham. How could I be so fucking stupid?"

Useless meta: it's not like she got into a random car with tinted windows with a sketchy guy and his giant black friend, chill.

Graham starts to get all up-in-arms about the reason she feels stupid, all ready to say something (not about kidnapping anyone) that makes it seem like it's perfectly normal to climb into some random guy's Porsche and drive outta town with him, but the crying she's trying not to do keeps him clammed up instead. Now is not the time to be clever, Graham, it's just the time to be there and hug your best friend 'cause she needs it.

"I'm sorry about your coat, baby, but don't beat yourself up here, okay? You went on a date, you couldn't know that he was a," dead man walking, "piece of shit. I'm really sorry about your coat, though, that sucks."

She did need it - the hugging, not the clever quips (although that probably would've gotten her to laugh. or maybe hit him. Jury's still out) - and she squirms around on the bench to shift closer into him until she would have to crawl into his lap to get any closer. There was a bit of wetness on his shirt now, a few tears smearing down her cheeks when she finally lifts her chin up to look at him, her brow wrinkled. "Thank you for coming all the way out here. I just.." she huffs. "I'm fucking done with dating, I think, I'd rather be a goddamn old maid with a thousand cats than have to put up with any more of this shit."

She sniffles again as she wipes her cheeks with her palms, about to lay her head down on him again when something occurs to her. And just like that, she's pulling out her phone from her purse, the screen too bright against the otherwise darkened corner of the dock. "Do you know him?" she's suddenly insistent, swiping to get to her Tinder app even though she just said she wasn't going to date anymore. "He said he worked at Firefly. You're not friends with this dickwad, right?"

Thankfully the picture she suddenly thrusts in his face is not that of a 6'5" black man who likes bubble wands and manicures. But this dude? Graham does know this dude. He doesn't work at the Club - that was a lie - but he does work for Felix. Definitely not a top ring employee, so that was a saving grace.

"Hey, don't mention it. I wasn't really doing anything anyway." Working and trying to find the club-tramp most likely to give him a blowie isn't really doing anything, see. "Maybe you should just, I dunno, meet somebody the old-fashioned way? Like - " How, Graham? How do people meet people, praytell?

Fortunately, Elise seems to have moved on before he gets himself into any kind of conversational trouble here, and he sits back now that the immediate crisis has passed and she's not actually crying on his shoulder. For about half-a-second, he knows the extreme terror that it's about to be Andre on that screen, and it shows in the particular wash of paleness that makes him appear especially white in the darkness, even worse by the blue-light of a phone. But then it's not, and he takes the phone with a momentary tightening of his eyes. "Yeah, I know him. Fuck. This is the guy?" Gears turn, but there's a wrench in them now, and it makes his forehead crease where his brows draw together. "That's not even his fucking Porsche."

Put a pin in that conversation about meeting people the old-fashioned way, Graham. They weren't done with that topic yet.

But right now, there were more important things. She notices the pale wash of his skin before she even hands him the phone, and it makes her brows climb high towards her hairline. Her dark eyes were still glittery with tears, a shine taking to them so they glint sullenly, somberly in the dark. "What do you mean, that's not even his fucking Porsche? Who's Porsche is it?" as though that's the important question here. She shakes her head afterward, her top lip curling back into something of a snarled look, and she sits up straighter to look back at Graham. "Are you friends with him? It's not like you need to do anything, but Graham, what if he picks up some girl from the club and does the same thing to her?"

"I mean that's not his fucking Porsche. It's - not important." Certainly not important enough for them to argue about right now, and that's why Graham just shakes his head to deny the whole subject of the car. Which he brought up in the first place. He answers her look resolutely and is not even lying when he assures, "No, I'm not fucking friends with him. We just work together. Sorta. It's just complicated."

Convincing Felix that someone who doesn't work for him is a problem is relatively simple. Convincing Felix that someone who does work for him is a problem... that's a whole other issue, and Graham is already trying to sort through those logistics. But first - "Listen, Elly, I promise you, he will get what's coming to him, okay? This message will absolutely get delivered. In the meantime, lemme take you home. It's fucking cold out here, and only sketchy people hang out around the docks at night, yanno?"

Elise isn't in the mood to argue about Porsches, at least. She's way more concerned that Graham's friends with a potential rapist, so there's a touch of relief that shines through in tear-stained eyes when he explains. The promise that comes after is something that should chill her to the bone; but for Elise, it just makes her relax all the more there on the bench. "Okay," she murmurs, lifting a hand to touch the edge of her reddened cheek again, and then drops it so that she can tighten his jacket around her shoulders. "I.." she starts, then frowns, and doesn't finish whatever it was she was going to say. Instead, at his suggestion, she just gets to her feet.

"Thanks. For coming all the way out here."

Graham is a second behind in getting to his feet, chasing away the headache that's already brewing about this problem. But it's not Elise's problem now, so he shakes his head at her gratitude, like it's an unnecessary thing, stepping over to fold her in a proper hug, not just one that's sideways on a bench, both arms tight around her for the duration. "I will always come for you, Ellybean."

And there's a laugh into the top of her head, the eye-roll audible in his tone. "Even allllll the way to Hoquiam." All four miles away, apparently. Maybe it's... like... six if they count the distance from the club to the waterfront, hah!

Elise wasn't expecting him to envelop her into that hug, but the second he does? She sort of melts into him, winding her arms around his middle and nuzzling her face into his chest again. There are a few tears that manage to dribble out when he says that he will always come for her, smearing a line of wet across the red in her face, and she snuffles loudly into his shirt. "You're a really good guy, Graham," she squeezes her arms around him, unwilling to let go for the time being, even if only sketchy people hang out on the docks at night. "Probably the best guy that I know."

He's not just being coy when he insists with another 'all the way to Hoquiam' quality laughs, "That is probably one of the least correct things you've ever said." But it's not enough to make Graham not hug her for a minute, to put off planning retribution at least while this moment lasts, just a little respite with time to smell her hair and be warm and not mind that he's getting cried on. Eventually, though, even this has wind itself to a close, if only because it is kinda fucking cold down here, him with no jacket and her with a short skirt.

So he presses a kiss to her forehead, and he loosens his arms enough to unravel one, leaving the other laying heavily across her shoulders. "C'mon, let's go home and watch some Netflix. I'll rub your feet and everything." Pause. "But you gotta take a bath first. Or a shower or something. 'Cause I don't want that stink on me."

It's the kind of laugh that makes Elise lift her chin, and she's all tear-stained and shaken from the evening, but that doesn't stop her from fitting him with a look. "Whatever," she mutters with a shake of her head, laying her cheek back onto his chest so that she can linger in the hug for a another moment. "You've always been a good guy to me," she says quietly, but with no small amount of weight to those words, as though it was all and everything that mattered. Then she sighs, and closes her eyes, and allows herself to feel safe in the moment so that she can forget about what led them to this point.

But everything must come to an end, even nice hugs in the dark on docks, and she sighs as he kisses her on the forehead. The promise of a foot-rub at least gets her pulling away - even if that remark about her stink gets him smacked on the shoulder. "You stink," But she tucks herself into his side, his arm around her, and prepares to head off the dock for that promised footrub & Netflix. "What'd you mean, anyway? That I should meet people the old fashioned way? Like.. how?"

"Hey, I smell good." Right now. Graham had intended to get his knob polished tonight, so he had a shower and everything, so that at least worked out in her favor. He steers them back toward the parking lot, taking surreptitious looks at the mark on Elise's face by the better lighting of the diner's parking lot. The look on his face, with the working jaw and the narrowed eyes, doesn't bode well for this rapey jackass.

Her question, trying to drag the conversation way back, catches him off-guard, and he blinks over at her a couple times, pulled out of his fantasies of brutalizing this dude. "Oh, ahhm, I dunno. However people meet people. At a bar. Or work. There's gotta be a fly doctor you could shack up with?" Quit, Graham, this won't make you happy~. "Just not Tinder hook-ups. Or mom hook-ups. Or club hook-ups. Probably not a good idea to hook-up with work guys, come to think of it." So, basically, just don't hook-up with anyone.

"Right now you do," Elise agrees with the faintest bit of dry laughter that she can muster up in the moment. "Was today your monthly shower day?" It was gentle ribbing, but there was hardly any heart in it. Probably because she catches the look on his face when they step into the diner's parking lot lighting, and it reminds her of the mark there. In the lamplight, it looks far more severe - there'd probably be some bruising. She lifts her hand to rub the edges of it absently, though it's likely rather obvious that she's keeping her hand there so that he can't stare at it.

His response makes her brows climb, but there's a sort of thoughtful look that crosses her features. She frowns to herself, an errant thought chasing through her mind, and she rather instinctively pulls closer to him as he talks about shacking up with doctors. "I dunno.." she starts, only for him to continue on, and by the end of the list of hook-ups she shouldn't have, she's not left with a lot of hook-ups that she should have. "Yeah. Well. I mean, after tonight? I think I'm just.. over it," she breathes out, pulling from him now that they were near his car. The door of which she'll open up herself, thank you very much. But before she strays too far, she lifts herself up onto her tip-toes, to brush a little kiss against his cheek.

"You know what I really want?" she murmurs while she's close, looking up into his eyes. There was something there, a little pull that keeps her near to him, unspoken in the way she looks at him. And then she remembers that he just told her to shack up with a fly doctor, so. She drops back down to the flat of her feet, and shakes her head as she turns back to the car. "I really just wanna find a guy like you."

Nothing but a little, side-laugh answers for his monthly shower, and her half-hearted attempt at ribbing is answered with a half-hearted acceptance of it. Between all the people Elise shouldn't date and the one guy he has to seriously fuck up? Graham has things on his mind other than his hygiene right now. He wants to find some other clever quip to help her bounce back from this, and it shows in the troubled frown that only dissipates when he's leaning his cheek down to catch that kiss.

He looks down to receive what she really wants, passing a hand over the top of her head briefly, a quick pet over her hair that ends with a one-handed squeeze for her shoulder. "There are no guys like me, sweetheart. I'm not even like me." Which is sadly true, and a big part of the reason that - right now? When they could have a moment in this parking lot? They don't.

He deliberately and completely steps back from the car door, peeling his hands away and holding them up, like he feels it's important to prove to her that he's not touching the door. See this? He's not touching the door, Elise! "Let's get some food on the way home," is an easy diversion, said when he piles into the driver's side and turns the car over. "I could go for wwww - " Don't say wieners. " - wwwhatever you're in the mood for."