2019-09-10 - Sea Urchins & Bad Romance Novels (Pt. 2)

Claire's laughter is easy and warm. "You definitely made 'charming', Corey. Maybe even before you shared your fries. It was nice of you to make a new girl like me feel welcome in a very strange new place." She accompanies Corey out of the door and turns her face up into the rain. "Yes! We're definitely getting wet." A quick grin to Corey and she heads in the right direction toward the beach, perhaps surprisingly. Claire neither zips up her jacket nor pulls up her jacket's hood. She actually looks as though she'd like to divest herself of the jacket entirely. "C'mon, chef."

"I do try," the student chef replies, looking pleased as she affirms that he does in fact have some level of charm going on. He likewise doesn't adjust his layers; only jeans, a t-shirt and a plaid flannel shirt over that, he's not going to be staying dry. His feet might depending on whether those are real or knockoff converse.

Following Claire down to the beach he asks, "So, what do you do anyway? You know pretty much everything about me by now."

Claire grins to herself as she walks alongside Corey through the rain the brief distance from the diner to the beach. "I think you're by far the more interesting topic of conversation. Maybe if I get sand down your shirt, you'll cook me dinner." Her brown eyes dance with capricious amusement. "So my job? I am -- or at least I was and emergency dispatcher. I have an interview week after next to see if I can get a job here doing that. They said they needed someone, so all I really have to do is demonstrate some awareness of the geography of the area, some landmarks and local hangouts along with an aptitude for being calm and knowing my shit about emergency procedures and first aid. Oh, and don't forget that sexy, sexy operator voice."

Claire laughs brightly as they get to the beach and kicks up her speed to a light jog once in the sand. She stops halfway to the water and toes out of her shoes to bare feet. Then she slips off her rain jacket and folds it so her wallet and phone get wrapped up in the thing before she sets it beside her shoes.

"You should take your shoes off," she suggests, clearly having an opinion about what Corey may or may not want to participate in involving water. She stuffs her hands in her front pockets and waits with a challenging bit of a grin.

"Babe. I'm open to cooking you dinner with or without sand," Corey remarks, his smile faintly crooked, boyish even. "Yeah? That sounds stressful. But hopefully you enjoy it?" he prompts when she gives her job, sounding genuinely interested. "I've never met a dispatcher before. Though clearly, I should've guessed from that sexy murmur."

Down onto the sand, and he does do as Claire suggests, tying his laces together and draping his shoes across his shoulders so he doesn't need to keep them in hand, rolling up the legs of his jeans and tucking them up about his knees. "You planning on swimming?"

Claire quells a grin at Corey. "Excellent. My devious plan is working, then. I'm pretty sure you call all the girls 'babe', though." It's difficult to tell if Claire is flirtatious or simply playful. "That makes my life easier. And you won't get sand stuffed down the back of your shirt." The rain is quickly turning her hair from a bouncy auburn mass to a darker wet mass that she pushes her fingers through to get out of her face. "It's, well ... it's a rush or it's dreadfully dull. Never in between. But when it's dull at my old center we were right adjacent to the emergency HQ. So there were plenty of folks to mess around with. Kind of like a family." The career foster child values that feeling immensely.

"So..." She starts walking backward toward the surf. "Would that have been your guess about what I do for a living?" Her hands come out of her pockets. She lifts the back of one to her forehead, "He knows the jargon. Be still my heart."

She turns with amusement at the last sugary compliment and heads out to meet the foamy waves that lap up to shore once they've flowed across the sand. Her t-shirt is thoroughly damp, but the San Francisco girl seems not to mind at all. "That's a bit thick, Chef Corey. Walk it back a little." She doesn't sound offended in the slightest.

There's a laugh as Claire calls him out on his language. "I do," he confirms with regards to his use of 'babe'. "Unless they're relatives, or they look uptight enough to be offended by it." Clearly there's some discernment there. On the positive side, she clearly doesn't come across as being uptight.

He falls quiet, listening to her description of her job, nodding a few times. "Yeah, I can imagine. People working in a stressful environment tend to bond." He sounds like he has some experience of that. "Honestly? No. I would've guessed a student, purely because you look about the same age as me," he admits then, hands spread in a helpless gesture. "Mmn? No, I don't think I will," Corey then declines the suggestion to slow his roll when it comes to flattery, his lazy grin returning.

Claire reaches the water and stops just inside where the apex of the last wave flowed to crouch down with one knee forward as she rolls up the cuff of one pantleg. She shifts when that's done and works on the other. "Bingo." She lifts her hand to point at Corey, then tap at the tip of her nose when he talks about stressful environments and bonding. As she finishes rolling that second pantleg nearly up to her knee, she regards him thoughtfully. "It's nice to hear I don't come off as uptight." And it is.

"I honestly have no idea how old you are except for the hint of what year you're on in school. And yeah," she starts slowly, pushing back to her feet. "I stopped at my high school diploma. Besides some specialty training at work, that was all I needed. I do wonder sometimes what it would have been like to go to college." She shakes her head and kicks herself out of the musing. "Pipe dream, really. It can't be as easy as it looks like in movies." She flickers a look upward and tips her head back again, catching a faceful of windy-wet rain.

At the last bit of what he says, Claire opens her eyes back up and drops her chin, tossing him a measuring look. "Look at you, Mr. Unruly." There might be approval in her tone. Or it could simply be teasing. Whether he will or will not be joining her barefooted in the ebb and flow of the waves' edges, she starts walking through the wet sand along the water. Hands now slide into her back pockets. "Tell me what the last impressive thing you cooked was." Demanding, too.

Following Claire to the water's edge and then a step further forwards again, Corey lets the surf lap over his toes and up to his ankles, digging his toes into the wet sand, his clothing pretty much soaked through now, the layers of cotton clinging somewhat. "You don't. You seem like somebody who looks for the fun in things," he offers as she mentions not being uptight, his smile lingering.

There are a few slow nods as she explains her education, not seeming to judge, though admitting, "It's a lot of hard work. You always see on TV or in movies how everyone's just goofing off all the time - and there are some who do - but for those of us who actually want to graduate - at all - let alone with a decent grade, it's a lot of hours, a lot of study," Corey affirms, falling into step alongside her. "Impressive? Mmn. What is the benchmark for impressive in this instance?" he wonders.

Claire lifts a foot to flick her toes over the water of a particularly high roaming wave, successfully splashing him from knee to shoulder. She laughs. "Well, I'll take that as a compliment. So long as there's not an emergency you want to call me about." A smile is offered in exchange for his.

"What do you have to spend the most time studying?" the ginger asks as she turns to walk along through the eroding wet sand beside the chef. "Impressive? Something that was new and challenging. Something that turned out well. Something that made you feel like you're pursuing the right degree."

There's a startled laugh from Corey as he is splashed - though really he's already soaked through, so a few more drops of seawater won't do any more than the rain has. "I find the practical stuff comes easy, so I have to put more time in on the theory. There are a lot of units around the subject; things like the psychology of human behaviour, the theory behind precision temperature cooking, wine studies.. those are the ones I need to really work to grasp."

Continuing to walk, he considers what he's made lately, that might come under that definition of impressive. "My main focus is on baking and pastry arts. I think, for me, the most impressive thing I've done recently was creating a cheesecake that had tofu in. It worked. Tasted really good."

Claire walks through another larger wave, the water flowing up past her ankles. She gets lost in the feel of the world shifting as she watches the water recede, then she looks back up. "That sounds like some deep shit, Corey. Psychology of human behavior? If we love our food, does it love us back?" Her teasing is companionable rather than ridiculing. "Seriously, though. That sounds both difficult and potentially interesting. What's hardest for you this term?"

Claire doesn't have a need to fill all silences with talking. She's happy to listen to the roar of the breakers and the sounds of those waves colliding with the rocks. She lifts a hand to drag back through her wet hair again. She's thoroughly rain-soaked now. The pastry arts. "Tofu cheesecake. That is quite a feat. You say it tasted good?" A dubious glance and smile. "Do you have a really great kitchen at home, or do you do most of your cooking on campus?"

"It's deeper than I ever planned to go, but at the same time it's interesting. It's about why people behave the way they do, and it's hideously complex," Corey admits with a rueful smile, glancing sidelong at his equally rain-soaked companion, his eyes alight with good humour. "Though if it leads the way to figuring out what food to bribe my sisters with, it's worth it," he adds, in jest.

Then he's nodding to the tofu cheesecake thing. "It did, and was a lot less calorific than regular cheesecake, while being almost as tasty. Could be one to publish."

Claire nods thoughtfully as she walks through the water. Her toenails are painted an iridescent lavender hue. "Hideously complex or not, it still sounds hella interesting." A sidelong glance. "Do your sisters hold some power over you that you need to bribe them not to use?"

"So when you say it's less ... calorific, do you actually put it in some machine that measures the calories, or do you just add up the ingredients and divide by some magical number?" Publishable. "Cooking Cakes with Corey?" She swallows a giggle in her throat. "We should probably turn around. Your sisters sound like they'd kill me if you got sick."

"Yeah. To keep away from my cookware and knives. I don't have an amazing kitchen, but I do have good quality stuff, and if they get to using it, my pans will be scratched and my knives blunted in no time. So, bribery," Corey admits freely. "Well. For Phil and my housemates, anyway. Zelie is still living with our parents." He's unashamed in this explanation, it probably comes as no surprise that a chef is possessive about his kitchen.

There's another lazy grin as she asks about calorific content. "Calories are a known quantity. Four for carbs, nine for fat, four for protein, seven for alcohol, per gram. So you figure out the content of your recipe, use that calculation, subtract indigestible fibre, and there you have it," he explains, turning towards her rather than doing a full 180. "I think you'd survive them," he notes, lifting a hand to pluck a lock of her dripping wet hair, lifting it so that it does in fact drip rainwater down onto the sand. "All you need to do is threaten to shake off."

The way Corey talks about 'his kitchen' and implements doesn't sound at all surprising to Claire. She might be more startled if he didn't talk about all that at all. "So how do I get in on this bribery thing? Find out where you live and come over to shave my legs with your knives?" She asks the question with an animated smile directed at the water that rushes in and back out again over their bare feet.

"I'd have guessed as a culinary genius that you would have ignored calories, but given your career of choice, I suppose it makes some sense." She stops walking when he turns and swings around to face him. Beads of water gather from her hair and roll down her face now and again; she truly doesn't seem bothered in any way. The temperature outside is just warm enough to keep someone this soggy from immediately being chilled by the wet. "You just roll those figures off the tongue like it's simple, and--" Claire glances to the hand that touches the strand of her wet hair and looks back to Corey. "-- I'm pretty sure it's not. Sounds like you live with a lot of people." He makes his observation and Claire's brown eyes widen just a bit. "That sounds like a challenge, Chef Unruly." Ask her shake her head. Go ahead.

Eyes widening in horror, Corey shakes his head slowly as Claire suggests putting his knives through such abuse. "That'd be an instant banning, babe. That's like five steps too far. I bribe them not to use my stuff in the ordinary sense, let alone for.." he trails off, regarding her as if she's just suggested kicking puppies or slapping babies or something.

It takes a moment for the fact that she's called him a culinary genius to take the edge off, and he slowly relaxes back into the moment, lifting his other hand, gently lifting a second lock on that side, a preventative measure in the event she does try to shake off. Instead, he tugs lightly forwards - enough to feel it without it being painful. "Nuh-uh. I think you need to help me get that image out of my mind, Dispatcher SexyVoice."

Claire drags her lower lip with her teeth in an effort to keep from laughing as Corey first widens his eyes, then tries to put words to the degree of aghast he's reached. "It seems to give you the tremors, so I'll save it for a baking emergency." Claire glances to the second hand and quells a mischievous grin. "Is that what you think?" the soggy redhead lifts one hand and grabs a handful of Corey's shirtfront. "It sounds like someone needs a swim." She's not quite dragging him out to wrestle into the surf, but the impetus is there.

"A swim?" Corey enquires with brows raising, it now being his turn to challenge Claire, his expression practically daring her to do it. He does let go of her hair, making no attempt to get her to let go of his shirt either, his smile slowly dawning. "There's no emergency big enough for that threat, babe. That's like nuclear war over a mild disagreement. Promise, no leg-shaving with my knives."

"A swim," Claire echoes with an iniquitous sort of nodding grin. She walks backward, tugging just so against Corey's reticent self. He certainly could stop her with a word and the right kind of tone, or by yanking his shirt free of her hand, but he follows. "No emergency? I think you just haven't had the right emergencies, Corey." He can feel the water washing back out to sea in a rush. "Let me think about that. I suppose I could take it back but--" she begins, tipping her gaze up and to the right of Corey with an impish expression that mimes contemplation, then she drops it back to his face just when the next wave rolls in at their knees. That's when she abruptly slides her leg like her cop big brother has taught her and attempts taking Corey down into the water by tangling her foot around his ankle and giving his chest a sudden shove.

"I can't even begin to consider what emergency that would.." Corey begins to reply, perhaps not noticing that he's being manouvered deeper into the surf, too busy worrying about the sanctity of his kitchen equipment.

Then as she mentions taking it back he's perhaps duped for a moment, caught entirely offguard when she does that fancy leg-sweep-shove movement, having just enough of his wits about him to grab onto her knees and let the weight of him falling pull her down into the shallow waves as well. "Hey!" He's laughing, trying to push up to his knees so he's not getting saltwater in his eyes each time the waves roll inwards.

With a startled cry that tumbles into laughter, Claire finds herself tugged into the water atop Corey. The waves drive over them both and leave them swimming in their clothing. She surfaces, sputtering, then coughs and starts laughing. As the water hits its high point it gives them both a bit of a weightless feeling, then stills for a half a breath and turns to start pulling them deeper. Claire tries to dig her feet and knees into the sand, catching at Corey either to 'save' him or to use him as an anchor against the pulling water. She sputters and looks at him through bedraggled wet locks, blinking then laughing all over again. Peals of laughter. Someone on the beach might think one of them was attacking the other. "Get up, get up, get up!" She glances over her shoulder to see how soon the next wave will be washing over herself and the chef whose knives she so recently attacked the honor of.

Laughing, coughing water, laughing some more, Corey sways on his knees, pushed hither and thither by the ocean water as it crests forwards and then drags back. That bedraggled look of hers draws another belly-laugh, and he waits for the next wave, using the boost from that weightlessness to get up to his feet, anchoring them firmly in the wet sand before reaching down and scooping Claire up. Not into a bridal carry, no, but over one shoulder, before taking a few steps towards not-even-remotely-dry land.

There's another cry from Claire, this time startled and she's picked out of the surf going from sea-urchin's plaything to bedraggled romance novel cover gone horribly wrong. She's shocked more by being picked up than by being tumbled into the water. So much so, that after the initial 'oomph' as she's tossed into a fireman's carry she simply blinks away the water at first as he hoists her out of the surf. Oh, they both are so wet: positively waterlogged. She's not particularly heavy, and much of that is the weight of water in her clothes. "Is this something chefs do?" she calls out, pushing her palms against the small of his back to try to lift her head a bit higher. "-- when their knives are threatened? I meant them no harm, honestly I didn't!" Another roll of laughter sounds in her throat. "Oh, my dignity. My poor dignity!"

"Hey, I'm rescuing you after your devious diversion into the water, Miss Dignity!" Corey asserts, and though she can't see his face, his tone is laced with barely-repressed laughter. "Even if you did threaten my knives with heinous torment!" He doesn't go too far, just a couple steps beyond the surf line, then leaning down to set Claire back on her feet.

Then, he takes a step back, hands on hips, chest puffed out. Hero! Or something. "So, just out of curiosity, are you allergic to any food stuffs?" he enquires, as if they hadn't just practically wrestled in the ocean.

Claire finds herself set down and staggers a step to catch her balance, as she's speaking, "Your knives would have loved it. I happen to have very nice legs." She nods in emphasis of said fact and her wet hair sways. It's comically late, but only then does she lift her arms and look at the tee that's plastered to her torso, the jeans that suck at her skin like lampreys. "Well, now we've done it." she looks accusingly at Corey as if their level of drenchedness was entirely his fault. Her line of logic all but shuts down as he asks that question. "Wh-- food allergies? Shellfish. And I'm predicting tofu, but that's on you, chef. It's totally on you. Tofu's future is in jeopardy because of you." She tries to drag her hair back out of her face and waves her hands as if that would dry her off. "Now I know never to speak to culinary geniuses in diners. Especially if they've ordered sweet potato fries." She pokes him in the center of the chest with each of the last three words.

"My knives would never sully themselves with cutting hair, even from a pair of lovely legs," Corey defends the integrity of his tools with a passion, though his blue eyes are dancing with mirth, hero pose still in full swing, rain-and-seawater-soaked t-shirt clinging to him in emphasis of that. Of course the plaid shirt open over the top is hanging like a pair of soggy curtains, and his jeans are probably leaking black dye onto his skin, but still. He makes it look as good as it can.

"Shellfish, right, good to know. And you'll be fine with tofu, unless you're allergic to soy. Which you didn't mention." Smug chef is smug. Then he's being poked at by a diminutive (by comparison) drenched damsel, and Corey reaches a hand out to catch the one jabbing at his chest, the other one reaching forward to her shoulder as he tilts down and pecks a kiss. Not to her lips, to the tip of her nose, if she holds still long enough mid-rant about yam-based fried goods. "Hush. They're amazing."

"Your poor, poor sheltered knives. Never getting to experience the world for themselves. It's tragic." She swallows a giggle at the absurdity of the conversation, looking up into looming, mirthful blue eyes. "You're so sodden and dashing," she murmurs, mocking a sigh and reaches out for a corner of his shirt to lift it and let it drop to slap his leg with a wet slap.

"Are you ..um, planning meals? During our swim?!" Now Claire affords the man an insulted gaze, looking as offended as wet, bedraggled, and amused allows. Which isn't much. "No. Not soy, per se. But when it is molested into things like cheesecake? I think I might be allergic to that kind of soy." She was actually quite intrigued by his achievement, but it's too easy a topic to tease about. Corey catches her poking hand and she stills, aside from the dripping, to watch him dip down to ... kiss her nose. She holds still. She's even blessedly quiet for a long moment after her lucky, lucky nose gets a kiss. Finally, she stirs herself and asks more quietly, "What was that for?"

Dashing and sodden, he'll take. It is as much as can be hoped for, given the state of things. Corey nods once to the question about whether or not he's planning meals - because there's a part of his brain that never stops, even when diverted by cold seawater and charming (if rather fiery) company.

"To pre-emptively save the sweet potato fries from your censure, and so I could do this," the chef replies more quietly, the hand on her shoulder shifting up to brush along her jawline with the goal of tilting her head up so that when he dips down a second time, his lips find hers rather than the tip of her nose, brushing lightly, teasing and coaxing rather than demanding.

Claire regards Corey with a bemused expression as she considers him thinking about meal preparation during their marine scuffle. "I think you might have a problem, Corey." This is breathed like a secret confidence.

"The sweet po--ta--to..." Her words slow as he makes his intentions known. Her chin lifts with the light-touched nudge of his fingers and she sighs into his light, coaxing kiss, her lips salty and faintly tasting of chocolate from lunch. She returns the grazing kiss with the faintest brush of her own lips, a hand lifting to grab onto Corey's shirt once again. There is the quietest hint of a sigh before she rocks back on her heels and takes a slow, deep breath, opening her eyes to look at him once more, and far more quiet. "Wow." It's a very Claire reaction. And there's everything from humor to stunned fascination there to read in her brown eyes.

Straightening, Corey offers the fascinated Claire another slow, lazy smile, this one both pleased and satisfied as well. "Better. Now that I've rescued the reputation of the humble yam, I need to get home and ready for my evening classes." He draws his hand back from her jaw to grasp and gently disentangle the one holding his shirt.

"It's been a pleasure meeting you, Miss Dignity. And if you do turn out to be interested in trying tofu cheesecake - or anything else - the Den has my number, you can get it from the waitress." There's no pressure there, Corey leaving the ball well and truly in her court.

Corey disentangles himself and admits to having classes that evening. Claire opens her mouth and then closes it again. It's at least good to know what steals away her loquaciousness. "Classes. Yes. You need to go to your classes. Wait -- can I ..." He stops her from dragging him up the beach so she can pull her phone out of her jacket. "Okay. The Den. The Den has your number. From the waitress. I'll figure out the language you're speaking in later on." She nods and cracks a slow smile. "You probably should ... uh, change clothes first, Corey. It was --" Her brown eyes sparkle. "-- nice to meet you. I'm really quite glad you didn't mind getting wet." Who notices the rain any longer? They're wearing rain.