2019-08-29 - So much for the Groupon

"All right, you ready?" Elise comes bounding down the stairs with her hair up in a high ponytail, looking cute AF in a pair of stretchy black yoga pants and a turquoise-colored razorback tanktop. It was freaking early in the morning, but Elise kicked Graham out of bed just past sun-up. And by 'kicked Graham out of bed' I actually mean woke him up in the manner that all girlfriends should wake up their boyfriends, so there should be no fucking complaints.

But this was an exciting morning! They were going to take a couples yoga class! And Elise was so ready, she'd gone out and bought brand new yoga pants for this very moment (and they look great on her too). So down the stairs she goes, a bounce in every step, looking for Graham since she told him to be down in the living room waiting for her. "If we don't leave now, we're gonna be late."

Like, 78% of the time, Elise asking Graham if he's ready meets with an affirmative response. Where Elise is concerned, he is always ready. But that's not what she's talking about, so he's complaining. I mean, okay, the meta said he shouldn't have any fucking complaints, and he had none then, but then is not now; now, he has complaints.

As punishment, he smokes in the house again.

He's not brave enough to just flop onto the couch and blow smoke-rings, so he's right smashed up against the front door, but just be aware: he's doing it specifically because Elise doesn't like him to. And he waits till she's down here before he tosses the butt out into the yard. "How late do we gotta be before they're just like 'nah, you guys are out?'" 'Cause she's all bouncy and wearing stuff that makes bouncy fun - and he's in sweats and some kind of t-shirt which isn't hot but that's also probably to punish Elise for signing him up for couples fucking yoga.

The bouncing ceases somewhere around the last stair, when the stench of smoke makes her crinkle up that pretty freckled nose of hers. "Really?" she rolls her eyes and puffs out a sigh, sliding off the last step. There's no bounce in that. See what you did, Graham?! You ruined her bounce. "I'm going to buy you the patch for Christmas," so it is written, so it is done. "And if we don't show up, I lose my Groupon, and that's like twenty bucks." Something in her tone suggests that Elise definitely doesn't want to lose her Groupon.

But she slides over close and gives him a once over, carefully inspecting his get-up. Sure, he was dressed like a homeless guy with a smell to match, but she pastes on a smile and stands up on her tip-toes to give him a smooch. On the cheek. Because he's gross. "Come on, it's gonna be fun. You can stare at my butt the whole time while we're downward dogging," she wags her brows, and then smacks an open palm on his rear.

"Cool, I bet it tastes like cinnamon." The patch, he means. "What if I give you the twenty bucks," Graham continues, very rationally. It's her fault for coming over and smooching and then smacking him, because of course he gets his arms all around her and crowds into her space, delivering the rest of his lines in between kissing her neck a bunch. "And we just stay home and downward-dog by ourselves. You can teach me about rhythmic breathing," is as much as he knows about yoga, "and I'll..."

...teach her how to look around sometimes so she doesn't get kidnapped...

"...promise to be an excellent student." He pulls back and beams, sells this plan?

It almost works, the neck kissing. Graham smells like the Pourhouse on a Saturday night but she gets all giggly and happy-melty in his arms as he crowds her space, snuggling up into him and tipping her head to the side so he has allll the space he wants to kiss. "Mmhm, I could teach you a lot about rhythmic breathing," she closes her eyes, reaching out to hook a thumb under the waistband of his nasty ass sweatpants, already starting to roll them down a bit.

But then he has to go and ruin it by pulling back and trying to 'sell' it with that smile of his.

Her eyes blink open and she moves her hand, which means his sweatpants are at an odd angle down over one hip. He gets a little shove in the shoulder with a huff. "I hate you," means 'I love you', she's got an overwhelming amount of hearts in her eyes. "We have to leave the house sometimes. Besides, I already scoped this place out and there's totally a private 'relaxation' room in the back. Where the door locks," she beams right back to him, boops his nose with the tip of her finger, and moves to go right out the front door.

She's already scoped this place out; "Oh, I know." Graham shoves that comment out with forced cheer - blatantly forced cheer, so Elise will have to know that it's forced cheer, because he is never going to get on-board with Yoga. The fact that it requires him to wake up before noon is just grumpy gravy. Anyway, she goes out the front door, and he hangs behind for a minute - ostensibly to get his keys and stuff but really 'cause he's not going outside in his current state, the neighbors would lose their minds.

So he'll just be back here, locking the door while he muses, "You know what we should do? Instead of a puppy, we should get a grown dog. A big one." Hold on, he'll demonstrate why in a second here theoretically.

Yeah, it takes him about nineteen seconds to reopen that door with a credit card, jimmying it open with a headshake. "Like a rottweiler." (He might be trying to make them really late.)

This is why Elise is going to get kidnapped someday - she's already happily bouncing down the sidewalk, ever-so-unaware that Graham said 'I know' like he was aware of the scoping out she's done. Woosh, there it went, sailing over her head. "We can't just get a full grown dog, it might not get along with Mew-Mew," she mentions, though his latter remarks stalls the pep in her step. She teeters, then turns with a questioning look, brows climbing as he starts to jimmy the lock.

It takes him nineteen seconds and she's staring. "Did you just do that with your credit card?" There's a note of disbelief, but behind that, maybe just a small quiver of concern. She takes a few steps forward, back up to the front stoop, and looks from him to the open door and back to him again. "People don't just.. know how to do that. Regular people. That's just stuff from the movies."

It was a good success , so Graham will knock the backs of his fingers against the big front window - yanno, the one that got shot out at one point and has long-since been repaired - and offer, "Window's even easier, hold on, I'll show you." He's a fucking genius. 😃

"First off, we can get a full-grown dog. It'd be, like, doing our part, rescuing some poor dog." Ta-dah. The window is open, after a little more of that jimmying, and he puts away his credit card to slide it open, demonstrating with a Vanna White wave of his hand to this new option for ingress ingress. "Second off, regular people aren't what you need to be concerned with, baby." Which fact gives him a moment's pause, because wtf? Did he even need the credit card?

Nope. He looks through the window and fucks with the latch with his mind for a second. "Third off, seriously. Big dog."

'Genius' would not be the word Elise would use to describe Graham in the moment, but 'increasingly uncomfortable' would be the words Elise would use in the moment to describe herself. She folds her arms over her chest as he starts to tap on the window, hugging herself as he jimmys the lock .. and then proceeds to use his brain to fuck with the latch instead. "Okaayy.." she furrows her brow, frowning at the window and then turning that frown onto him. "I mean I know we had that situation with the window, but you took care of that. It's not like he's going to bother us again," but she was on edge.

Couples yoga, it seems, was a thing of the past.

"Do you really think someone's gonna just.. I don't know, try to get into the house? I mean maybe we need to get a security system AND the big dog," her teeth scrape over her bottom lip. "Is there something going on that I don't know about, G? I mean if somebody's after you, I have a right to know, you can't just keep me in the dark anymore."

Graham went to a lot of effort to get out of this yoga class. She may not appreciate this, but he will pat himself on the back later.

Maybe something's going on and maybe it's nothing. The response from Graham is the same regardless. He leaves the window latched and comes over to Elise again, dragging her on over to him with both arms around her again. He ought to just leave them there permanently; it would save him a lot of time. "I'm just making a point, El. I could be in this house in a minute, and I know a lotta people like me, and a lotta people like me know you now. So just consider it food for thought. If we're gonna get a dog anyway, we could at least get one that would bite the shit outta somebody." He kisses her cheek~

god fucking dammit woman of course the motherfucker is only telling part of the truth, WAS THAT ROLL NECESSARY?

Elise leans all the way back after he kisses her cheek, not escaping out of his arms but certainly putting tension on the clasp of his hand. She narrows her eyes, staring sharply right up into his eyes, while her lips curve into a frown. "You're not telling me everything," it's not a question, it's just a statement of fact. "So either start talking, or I'm dragging you to couple's yoga and we're going to do that, and then go to the little refreshment bar and drink wheatgrass shots, and then do the hot yoga that's at noon, and I won't even fuck you in the relaxation room, and then I'll wake you up tomorrow and make you do it all over again. Every. Single. Day. For a month."

She's staring right into his soul. So yes, the roll was absolutely necessary.

Shifting his hands, Graham laces them that much more tightly together at the small of Elise's back, nope nope noping the mere notion that escape is even an option here. "I'm not not telling you anything, El." Enh. But he exhales through his nose and looks up at the roof over the porch, dithering briefly, ordering his thoughts, not looking into them big ol' brown eyes she walks around with. "Shit's tense at work. I fucked up a while ago with this cop and Dahlia and a bunch of missing coke. Throw in that there's just something in the air around Felix right now."

He shrugs, tips the end of her nose with his. "Not to mention someone roaming around town, slashing people's throats. Plus," this is what the crushing victory earns, said in a squirmy tone, "you really just need to kinda start thinking about situational awareness."

"Uh huh," there's nothing but skepticism in her tone now when he claims he's not not telling her anything, brows climbing up-and-up-and-up. She'll wait, leaning into the clasp of his hands, pinning him with that soul-searching stare. She's got all day. There's couple yoga tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and every day for the next month or quarter or even an entire year Graham. Just keep that in mind. So she's quiet as he starts, nose crinkling at the nudge (but all right, she gives in a little there, lifting her chin to accept the nose-rub), and then HA! He finally gets to the point.

"Why." It's not a question. It is a demand, punctuated by a finger jab into his chest. But behind the sternness, the firmness, there's obvious tension there. Concern, mixed with a healthy dose of fear. "Is it Collins again?"

Ahaha. This conversation is never going to get anywhere.

"No. Why? Have you seen that asshole around?" Though why Graham would ask Elise when she doesn't notice a goddamn thing... He gets derailed from whatever point he was trying (not) to make earlier, hung up on this snag. So now they're both all tense, though his is less fear and more I WILL STEP ON HIS FUCKING NECK rage that's just looking for an excuse.

"Oh my God, are you kidding me right now?! You just told me I needed more situational awareness! How the the hell would I know?!" Yes, they were absolutely having this argument on the front porch of their super nice neighborhood. She gives him a little shove with her fist. "You know something! You know something and you're not telling me and god dammit Graham Stewart, if somebody's got you so riled up that you think I need to get a big mean dog to keep me safe, I deserve a right to know who!" So there. "So if it isn't Collins, who is it? Don't tell me I need to be aware and then keep me in the dark, G, that isn't fair!"

This is still better than couple's yoga. That's what Graham keeps reminding himself when he gets poked and pushed and stuff. It makes him shift his weight, but that's about it. "Whoa there," with a laugh because she Last Named him, which just makes him think she's even more adorable and leads to pulling on her with the hands still laced behind her, and also some kissing her forehead and stuff. The tail-edge of that chuckle is still there when he explains, "I think a big dog is a better idea than a little dog. Little dogs can be stolen, and they don't exactly deter people like me, yanno?" <-- All of that is completely the truth.

So is all of this. --> "I'm pretty sure you have a tail." Not ass, though - having said that - he squeezes hers. "Not right this second, but most of the time. So it wouldn't kill you to look around sometimes, learn to notice shit. Because you're definitely being followed." He shrugs a big shrug, sorry.

"Don't patronize me, Graham, I will Thai Kung Fu you into next week," Elise grumbles under her breath while he kisses her forehead and thinks she's being all adorable. But all this adorable was definitely going to knee him in the balls if he didn't start spilling his guts. There's a frustrated little squirm as he squeezes her ass - but the latter part of that statement stills her. She swallows and stares up at him for a long time, longer than absolutely necessary to process all of this information.

"Okay," she decides slowly, carefully. She rolls back her shoulders, straightens up, and does a quick glance away from Graham and down to the street. "This is fine. Everything's fine," it's a quiet statement, but a firm one, and when she looks back to Graham, she pastes on a smile almost effortlessly. "It's really probably nothing. I'll just.. get some mace. And we'll get a dog, a really big dog. And a really fancy security system," she's not panicking. This is great , she is great . "So uh. How... long, would you say, this hsa been going on? A couple of days?"

Mace. WTF. "What happened to the gun I gave you?" (Admittedly, this was a throwaway part of a scene a long time ago and I think it wound up that the gun got left on her nightstand and he could very easily have taken it back since then, so do with that question what you will.)

At least Graham manages not to get to so entangled in that side-problem that it takes the conversation off track entirely again. Instead, he nods agreeably about getting a big dog - WINNING \o/ - but, "I mean, the dog'll do more than the security system, but if that'll make you feel better..." Next time she says 'couples yoga' to him, he will just go around showing her how to break into the house regardless of the security system. He kisses her effortless smile and continues telling her less the technical truth: "At least since I got back in town. Which really just drives home my point here. You should look around more."

"I mean I can't just carry a gun with me all the time, G! It's in the house!" It was actually in her closet. On the high shelf. And the bullets were being kept separate, like the good Democrat that Elise is. "And you said you were going to teach me how to shoot it and you never did and mace is really more effective, it's not like I'm trying to kill somebody!" Although it would be hilarious if she accidentally shot Graham one day when she realizes he's the one tailing her, maybe he should rethink teaching her how to use a gun.

Still, right now? His secret is safe with him; Elise is none the wiser that he was actually talking about himself. She accepts the kiss and returns it in kind, breathing out a sigh and finally relaxing into him. "I mean if they've been following me this long and haven't done anything yet.." it wasn't a comforting feeling. But Graham is a comforting feeling, so she snuggles a little closer, winding her arms around his waist and shimmying her hands up the back of his shirt to feel the warmth of his skin underneath. "I'm just glad you're around as much as you are," which is her way of saying she's okay with him not having a real job~ "I feel safer when you're around."

"Uh, yeah, you can." Graham doesn't even listen to all the rest of the stuff about teaching her to shoot it and mace and whatever. Granted, he doesn't have a gun in his sweatpants, but there's at least one in the house and at least one more in the car, so he basically has one on him all the time, El!

Having managed to get his way entirely, he's only to happy to be further rewarded with snuggles and shimmying hands, bowing his head to put a kiss into her hair. She doesn't have to see the self-satisfied smirk that buries itself along with that kiss. "Well, that's fine, but I will feel safer knowing you got this, a'ight? Dark sedans, tinted windows, those are usually bad guys." He nods seriously and starts figuring out how far he can start pulling up her top before the neighbors might have a legitimate beef.

"We should break back into the house and fuck again before we go pick out that big dog."

"All right. Dark sedans and tinted windows," Elise commits that to memory while she walks her hands higher up his shirt, perhaps wondering the same thing about the neighbors and how far this could go. Really, she's forgotten all about the couples yoga. She'll remember later, hopefully after he's given her a better workout than yoga could, and then maybe she won't be so mad. Something something stretch her out, haha so funny. She tucks her head into him to nip at the nape of his neck, a light laugh skipping warm across his skin at his suggestion. "I love you, G," she murmurs there, sweet and sincere.

And then she gives his shoulder a shove, tilting back to beam a big grin up at him. "Now get inside before we put on a show for the neighbors."

"Owwwww," is Graham's whiny response to getting shoved, complete with a terrific pout. "Damn, baby. Put the safety on them guns." He finally unwinds his arms from around Elise, bringing his fists up to guard his chin, in case more fisticuffs are coming his way. But he also back-steps to the door, figuring out the situation with his keys by touch, then dragging Elise back into the house with him.

Where they do yoga. Lots of yoga. Whatever that sweaty yoga is called (hot yoga?) - and probably don't make it to the pound today to find some rescue Rottweiler, giving them something to do another day.

They do, incidentally, make it to another pound. Pound town.

wow that was worse than the yoga joke, dude