2019-07-06 - Conditional

It's a terrible night to be at work, it's slow, most of the regulars have either been and gone, or haven't even shown up yet. So that means that to escape the boring monotony of standing around or cleaning, Everly has stepped outside, a half smoked cigarette in hand, and her attention on one of the few cars parked in the parking lot where a couple seems to have forgotten they are in a parking lot and not a private room.

Rolling up to the parking lot, one slick-looking navy-colored BMW. It's quiet, too, one of those new models with the very quiet engine. It rolls up in the dark next to the couple and Everly, if she's looking, might catch a flash of a puckish grin as there's a sudden HONNNNNNNK and the couple all but leap out of their skins.

The window rolls down, and Jay looks out. "Sorry! Sorry! I fat fingered it!" And then he's out the car, closing the door behind him, grinning. The grin lands on Everly for a moment, and he veers for her. "You got a light?" He taps out a smoke.

"Yeah." Everly replies, pulling a lighter from the front pocket of her apron, holding it out towards him, most of her attention seeming to be focused on the couple as they finally remember to actually leave the parking lot. It's not until they are safely out of hearing range that she turns her attention towards him, smirking faintly, "I thought they were going to fuck in the middle of the parking lot the way they were going."

Jay lights up. He's in a pair of gold-rimmed black sneakers, some navy blue slim jeans, and a black polo shirt. He takes a drag and then glances at the car that's backing out and leaving the parking lot. "Sorry," he says, "did you want to watch the show?" He glances back at her.

"I was going to wait until they were at least half naked, then call the cops on them." Everly points out, which might or might not be a yes on her wanting to watch the show, or at least one kind of show. She gives him a once over, then looks towards the car that he pulled up in before she straightens, smiling, "You here for the waffles?"

"I'm here for something," Jay says, shrugging. "At the waffles actually any good or is it called the Waffle Shoppe ironically?" Hipsters.

"Waffles are good." Evidently it's not just an ironic name. "There's a burrito we've got, salsa, some kind of Mexican sausage, it's pretty good." Everly takes a drag off her cigarette before she flicks it out into the parking lot, "Coffee is decent tonight."

"Not every night?" Jay eyes her. He's still half-way through his own, so. "You make it tonight or are you the one that forgets and burns it?" He leans against the wall next to the door, ashing his cig off to the side.

"I make it some nights, but not tonight." Everly reaches into her pocket, pulling a phone from her pocket, checking the time on it before dropping it back into the pocket, "Tonight Earl made it, and he makes pretty alright coffee most nights..."

"Oh, well, if Earl made it," Jay says with a smirk. He watches her pull her phone out, drop it. "What's your n--" But then he spots the name tag. "Everly." He squints. "Huh. Weird name. Like someone didn't know if they wanted to call you Evelyn or Beverly." He smiles. "You gotta head back inside?"

"Or really liked the Everly brothers." She's probably heard this joke a few times in her life. There is a glance inside, through the windows before she shakes her head, "Not yet. Not exactly like they are busy inside."

"Fair enough." He shrugs, glancing in and then back at her. "I'm gonna go ahead and guess you're a local."

"That obvious?" It's probably that obvious. Everly leans back against the wall, legs crossing at the ankle as she shifts attention from inside back to him, "You got a name?"

"Jay." It's a lot more common than 'Everly'. He ashes his cigarette again and takes a long drag. "And yeah, it's pretty obvious. People around here got that tired sort of nothin' shocks me look to'em." He lifts both brows.

"Do we?" Everly looks unshocked by this. It's just the way this is going to go down, isn't it? She crosses her arms over her chest, "So what brings you blowing through?"

"Just needed a place to crash and a friend let me take up room in her trailer." He shrugs. Not something that you expect to hear from a guy driving a BMW, it's true. "And now I'm just hanging around. Might stay a while."

"Huckleberry?" Because that's the trailer park! Everly glances towards the BMW, but doesn't seem to question things even though it's probably right there on the tip of her tongue. "But you're not from around here."

He snorts. "No. Not even close. San Francisco by way of Chicago." He finishes his cigarette and flicks it out onto the parking lot. "Let's get inside. I want waffles and Earl's coffee." He opens the door and holds it for her.

"Geographically that's fucked up." Everly points out as she pushes herself away from the wall, starting to head through the door and towards the counter, stepping behind it, "Coffee and just normal waffles, or you want some fruit compote with them or anything?"

"Believe me," Jay says, slipping in after her, "I know." Once inside he says, "Maybe blueberry waffles, yeah? I like blueberry." He glances around and then heads over to a random booth, flopping into it.

There is a quick note of which booth he sits in before she pulls the order pad from her pocket, jotting it all down, "Bacon?" She wonders, glancing up from the note taking. "So you only here because your friend is?"

"Naw, that's just why I landed here. I stayed because it's as good a place as any. Plus it's kind of weird. I dig it." He shrugs. "No bacon, no."

There's a shrug as she tears the ticket off to put in the order, the book dropped back into her pocket before she moves to then pour him a cup of coffee. Everly grabs a little dish of half & half creamer cups before moving to place them down on the table along with the cup of coffee, "We're just a normal little town."

Jay snorts pretty hard. "Yeah huh." He gives her a look that says she's full of shit and then grabs a creamer, a single pack of sugar, and dumps it into the coffee. "Normal my ass."

"What makes you think we're not normal?" Everly moves back to the counter, pouring herself a cup off coffee before getting comfortable. It's not like there are any customers beyond him at the moment.

Jay watches her for a long moment, and then he taps the table twice and opens his hand. The coffee cup slides slowly towards his hand at his beck and call, no strings. He doesn't look away from her, though, shrugging.

"Fancy magic trick." Everly looks unimpressed. Not really, there is at least a little more focus from her, but she's not leaping up acting like it's all some big deal. "So you think we're a weird town because of that?"

"I think it's a weird town because it has the highest friggin' concentration of this shit, and apparently shadowy dudes who kidnap you into dreams or some shit." Jay shrugs. "I mean."

Now that little bit of knowledge does cause Everly to straighten up from where she's leaning, glancing around before she leans over the counter, "You should keep that stuff to yourself. They listen."

Jay lifts his cup of coffee and takes a long sip. "Then don't fight it when people say the town's weird. Just be like, 'haha, yeah, super odd'." He winks.

"Why?" Everly wonders, a brow lifting upwards a fraction, "Seriously....why should I be like yeah, super odd? What purpose does it serve?"

"Well, in general, when someone claims something, if you just say, 'haha yeah', they won't push it. If you deny deny deny, or challenge, they will. Exhibit A." He does a little flourish at himself.

"In general." Everly snorts faintly, resting her forearms on the surface of the counter, "Not really. You only pushed because you were certain that you were right. I denied once, and asked you why you thought different. That's not deny deny deny, or even a challenge."

"I don't know, asking me why sounds kind of challenge-y." Jay shrugs. "But hey, maybe I'm an outlier and you know best." He smiles at her and sips his coffee again. "So what d'you do around here for fun, Everly?"

"That implies that there's fun shit around here to do." Everly points out, reaching for the cream to finally doctor up her coffee, "Mostly I work, and watch television. Don't have a whole lot of time for anything else."

"Work and watch TV? What keeps you so busy you only got time for working and watching television?" Jay seems incredulous for the moment.

"Working." Everly repeats, a brow raising before she glances around, then back at him, "I got bills to pay, got to work. Not like I'm making six figures here."

"Mmm," Jay eyes her and then shakes his head. "Not buying it. Girl like you knows how to have some fun, you wouldn't waste your time on just TV if you could find something else to do."

Everly laughs at that, "Not sure where you think you're going to get with flattery. But there are plenty of bars around, and then there's the shit down at the Boardwalk if you're into that...or the ferris wheel."

"You call that flattery? Naw." Jay shakes his head. "That's just matter'a fact. Flattery would be like telling you, gosh, you could do so much better than a waffle house in some weird little town, why ain't'cha in Hollywood, baby?" It's smarmy, over the top, deliberately so.

"No, that's just trying too hard." Everly evidently disagrees with him on what is and is not flattery. Or at least a type of flattery.

"Fair," Jay says. "Anyway, I wasn't trying to flatter you. I'm reserving that for after I taste the waffles," he says. "Gotta have some standards."

"Except I'm not the one making the waffles, so seems wrong to flatter me. I can get Earl out here, though." Everly glances over her shoulder towards the order window, then back towards him. "There's not a lot to do in this town beyond drink, work, fuck, and watch tv."

"You know," Jay says, watching her. "You're not the first one to say something like that to me. I think the other person said 'sex, drugs, and alcohol', though." He lifts his brows up and then takes another sip of coffee.

"There is drugs, too. If you can find them." Everly agrees as she takes a sip from her coffee, only to get interrupted by Earl calling order up. She sets the cup down, moving to get his waffles from the window, and then the caddy of syrup before she moves over to set everything on his table.

"Thank you," Jay says when the waffles are placed in front of him. He grabs the syrup and then just pours it on. One might ask why he even wanted them with blueberries if he was just going to literally drown them in syrup. "It always so slow here?"

"Your between the rushes, honestly." Everly replies, heading back towards the counter to pick up her coffee, "We get a rush about dinner time, then we get the after the bar rush. But between the two is sometimes silence."

"That makes sense, I guess," Jay says with a shrug. He cuts into the waffles, taking large chunks at a time, chewing with his mouth closed. Because he was raised right. In some ways. Not so much others. "You work here every day?"

"Not every day. Sometimes I clean houses." Everly takes another sip from the coffee, then sets it back down, glancing at the waffles, then back up to his face, "Waffles good?"

"Yeah," Jay says, wiping his mouth with a napkin half-way through. "Tell Earl I said hot stuff." He grins. "I tend bar down at the Two If By Sea, if you ever wanna get a drink. I'm sure someone'll buy you one."

"I'm sure they will. Usually do." Everly replies with a laugh, the sound quiet, amused, well aware of how easy it is to get that drink. "But sure, if I ever get out I'll drop by sometime."

"Oof, the dreaded conditional," Jay says, polishing off the plate of waffles. He grins at her. "How much?"

"Isn't it always conditional?" Everly wonders as she gets the ticket from the window to ring it up, quoting the price, which is fair.

"No, sometimes it's a promise that might be broken." Jay shrugs and smiles at her, fishing out his wallet and putting the payment on the ticket. He tips all right; somewhere between 'cheap fuck' and 'dude trying to show off'. He slides out of his seat and stretches. "All right. I should git. I got to get that car somewhere."

Now that isn't a fishy statement. But Everly isn't asking, she is pocketing that tip before she smiles at him, "Good luck...I'm sure that we'll run into each other again sometime."

"See?" Jay says, swinging the door open and glancing back at her. "That's not a conditional." He winks and slips out, heading for the BMW.