2019-12-08 - Boy Night In

Easton only picked up the phone to text Baylee. He needed to get her on the case to figure out what's happening with the money Bennie needed and possibly get a lead on who she owes it to. It was a very necessary and productive reason. But the phone is still in his hand and the productivity has dropped dramatically as he flicks through friendzone posts. He scrolls past posts for bartenders (which he meant to post to help him out) and posts for open mics (which he promised and then failed to do) and a jello wrestling tournament (Is my leg Jello proof?) but stops when he sees a new post from Erin.

His stomach drops when he sees the photo. There's no mistaking that blond for anyone else, especially not in that dress.

"fhwwhhh... well fucking played Benz."

Easton drops the phone and looks at the bottle of whiskey sitting on the cardboard box 'coffee table' and asks it, "What's that WhiskeyTom?" The Knob Creek bottle has a pair of googly eyes attached to it that stare back at him unevenly and uncomprehending. Easton picks up the bottle, ostensibly to refill his glass but first he shakes it so the eyes wobble and in his best gravely Southern accent he replies "Get off yo' damn phone you limpdick moron. Drink me instead" The accent, as all of Easton's are, is terrible but he at least has a reasonable approximation of Banks' vocabulary.

He pours some more of WhiskeyTom into a glass and sets him back down, ensuring that the googly eyes still face him. He tries not to think about her coming to see him at the bar. He clenches his jaw, not wanting to remember the feel of her hand on his cheek or the small kiss. That wasn't real. That was just some echo of their relationship that she hadn't yet managed to let go of. It will pass.

A hour or more passes and now WhiskeyTom is nearly empty, but to make up for his lack of liquid filling he has been adorned with bling of sorts. A set of dog tags hangs around the neck of the bottle, wrapped around a few times to get them to hang properly. He gained some jewelry but at some point lost both his top and one of his eyes though.

"And why the fuck aren't you here?!"

Easton yells at the bottle non-sensibly. He finishes off his glass but doesn't yet empty out poor WhiskeyTom's remaining amber tinted lifeblood. He instead stares angrily at the dog tags, wondering not for the first time if it would have mattered if he put in those instead of the shirt. Would he still have the ghost of Tom to talk to? To fight with? To at least have around.

"Why-.."

He doesn't get the rest of that question out. The important one about why Tom's dead and he's not that he tries to avoid at all cost. That's a slippery slope and one he knows far too many surviving Marines fall down and never get back up from. And so he decides he needs to not be alone in his place anymore. He gets up and throws on a hoodie, slips into a pair of shoes and grabs his keys. He's way too drunk to drive but also too drunk to make good decisions, so here we go.

The morning sun doesn't wake him. The squirrel hiding walnuts in his hoodie pouch doesn't wake him. The few people who pass by, walking their dogs or taking a jog, don't wake him. Not even the man who stops to prod him with a toe and inform him, "You make my life look good brother." wakes him.

Finally as the storm booms and the rain falls, Easton comes back to the land of the living or whatever Gray Harbor is. He opens his eyes and looks around, unsure of where he is or how he got there. He is sure that he's hungover, there's no doubt about that. Making his way unsteadily to his feet he can see that he's not that far from Huckleberry. He must have been headed to Geoff's? He starts off in that direction as the rain begins to fall in earnest. Slowly bits of last night come back to him, the googly eyes and the whiskey, grabbing his keys and leaving ...

But where is his jeep?

Where was he last night?