2019-12-11 - What Money Can Buy

For someone who drinks like he does and tends bar it would be understandable if Easton were a late riser. He is not. And thus in the early morning he makes his way towards the pawn store. He's dressed casually, with a big oversized Cornell sweatshirt over his usual tee-shirt, jeans and boots with a large travel mug of coffee (ostensibly). He may be great at the early rising, but it's clear that the sleeping part is still not going so well for him. He has very dark circles under his eyes and they are puffy and a little red. Entering the shop, Easton looks around. Pawn shops are something he never even knew about growing up, they were so divorced from his privileged life. But then he met Tom and learned what it was like to have money issues, extreme money issues and thus became very familiar with the business. It's why he's kicking himself for not realizing that Bennie would rely on such a place in a pinch. He calls out, his voice rough and obviously not yet used today, "Hello?"

Lilith is behind the glass wrap around case and counter where the jewelry, guns, coins, and other things are displayed, double purpose to separate the computer and workspace and employee seating. Easton may not be familiar with the general lay of pawn shops, but hers... has some pretty nice stuff that goes pretty high dollar and it's not as junky as far as arrangement and inventory goes as he might expect. It probably was back when her father had it, but Lilith being Lilith, she's a collector and a restorer and repairer, at that, to unnatural levels. She's also not entirely on the level as far as goods and cash goes, but that part isn't common knowledge. Even if people suspect, they don't generally talk about it.

Anyway, everything looks pretty nice, like a retail shop with no theme and a real nifty selection of items in nice condition, despite the fact they're used as the name PAWN on the door suggests. And Lilith is trying to show an old retiree-looking man how to look up something on the computer to value. It's someone she's been trying to train, but grandpa clearly isn't down with the technology and it looks to be driving her nuts on the sly given her face while she's standing with lean from behind. When the door chimes, though, and she looks at Easton's entry, she blurts and straightens while making survey.

"Oh wow, don't you look like hell. That coffee isn't doing what you think it's going to do for you, clearly." Then, with a tiny twitch of her lips, she tilts her head, "Hair of the dog instead? Got a bottle under the counter I can splash." It's unclear what she knows or doesn't know from Byron.

Taking in the wares of the shop, Easton is immediately drawn to the firearms. Whatever jewelry or gadgets may line the shelves his finely honed senses immediately find the guns and start perusing the wares. Most of it isn't all that interesting to him, either things he owns or things he has no interest in shooting. There are a few pieces though that catch his eye and he awkwardly squats in front of one case to take a better look.

"First of all. I always look amazing." Easton does not in fact always look amazing but right now he is especially rough looking. He smirks at the offer of the hair of the dog. "No, that's alright. But I appreciate the offer." And he would definitely say yes if he hadn't already doctored up his own coffee.

Standing back up he smiles and says, "So you said you had something Bennie pawned? I'm assuming she's a pretty frequent customer?" He's not trying to pry into Bennie's business.

"If you want to see true amazing, I have a beautiful 32 model Remington in the safe I haven't put out yet, assuming you're into shopping instead of picking up. Pump action before the mass-produced times put out some neat pieces. But... yes, I do." Lilith pats the old trainee on the shoulder to get his attention and talks a little louder than normal because sometimes he's hard of hearing while concentrating and boy, is he concentrating on trying to work that computer mouse and click on the right things, "Go on break, we'll try again after you get your eyes a breather."

The counter help departs after stretching his old bones and the woman looks at Easton with silent agitation for the elderly in general, explaining with stall while she leans to get a lockbox out from behind the counter to tap into the non-sale jewelry items, "He knows old things and has about a million stories about them, but his up-to-date and marker valuation and computer skills are..."

She doesn't finish that sentence, she just makes a noise in her throat and pokes through some gold rings before finding the one she wants and eyeing the engraving inside to ensure it's the right one, "Bennie, though... just this once since I've had the place. But that doesn't mean she hasn't used the place before that while my father had it. She... seemed very reluctant to part with this. And usually, when people pawn engraved sentiment, it means they don't have anything else left to pawn, so."

Drawing in a breath, she leans on the counter with the ring in her palm for Easton to see, hand turned out for him to look at the engraving, "She probably thinks it defaulted and got melted, since that's my standard go-to with engraved pieces that have ounce value. Got pushed on my list of people to call. I don't generally save things, but the local people we went to school with... well. I'm not entirely heartless, even though the business tends to demand it here and there." She pauses, curious for the sake of curious, "You know who's ring it was to give her such a case of the feels over cashing it in?"

Easton's face tells her that yes, he's very interested as he makes a soft 'oooh' sound with narrowed eyes as she described the gun. He thinks about it for a moment and says, "Maybe after we deal with the other stuff we can take a look." Do not be distracted by all the beautiful guns Easton, you are here with a very specific purpose.

The interaction with the shop assistant gets a bemused restrained smile from Easton. His eyes widen ever so slightly in response to her look, commiserating with her.

He seems curious when she mentions Bennie only pawning one piece. His head tilts until he realizes that it's probably that she never got the chance before her father beat her to the punch. He looks down at the ring and his face melts into a pained expression. He looks at the ring and takes it out of Lilith's hand to hold it up. He thinks back to the Dream he had, where he actually met Bennie's now deceased family. He nods and says softly, especially for him whose voice usually booms out, "Yea, it's her moms." He breathes out a sigh and says, "She died. A while back."

He shakes his head at the thought of her having to pawn what little she has left of anything her mom left her in order to pay off debt collectors. He lets out a long sigh and says, "Did her dad pawn stuff here? That's probably before your time. I hear he skipped town a while back?" Easton's not exactly clear on the timeline, it's something he never really wanted to pry into with Bennie.

"I couldn't honestly say. I wasn't back here in town until this past spring and I was gone over ten years because I bolted as soon as I graduated. I could look back through old paperwork signings and see, but honestly, my father didn't even have people sign things or get their information over half the time because..." Well. He was pretty well the town drunk and screw up and always in debt himself, which is why she came back to take charge before the shop got pulled. He was the sort to drink at the Pourhouse before he died at the Hanging Bridge this summer, though, not so much Easton's place.

Lilith twists her lips a bit at the mom tidbit, though, and when Easton takes the ring from her hand, she stays at lean on the counter and unwittingly adjusts her sweater sleeves with push. It's for the weather outside, but the sapphire v-neck garment is cashmere and overly warm for indoors, paired with her tailored jeans and boot heels she's wearing for the day. Then she straightens quickly and turns to go do a leaning lookup on the computer once she realizes what she's done out of habit, tugging the sleeves back down to adjust while talking. And she's not only quick about it, but there's some fading bruising on both of her wrists with yellow and purple fanned grip marks to blame for that.

But she was distracted by sentiment, maybe he is too, it's fine. After telling him the value of the ring for payoff plus interest with lookup and hair at dangle to kind of conceal her facial features while she's leaned, she speaks with comment, then asks, "I heard it was your idea to go to Vegas on the fly and you look like hell, so while Byron doesn't gossip like a girl, I'm going to put two and two together and take a shot with a question-- you two on the skids? I ask because... if I release someone else's item to you, I kind of need to trust they'll actually get it. Not that I'm thinking you're about to go petty with it, but... you know."

"Nah, don't worry about it. It's .." Probably not worth anyone's time? He realizes that doesn't sound so great, even in his head. "Not a big deal." He likes the sound of that better.

He doesn't think twice about her pushing up her sleeves, but the quick tug down causes his eyes to slide over ever so quietly. He doesn't react at all and goes back to looking over the ring as if there was something interesting about it to him. There isn't really. Not as a ring. But as a representation of something Bennie had to sacrifice because of her current situation? That's interesting. The bruising around Lilith's arms is of course noted and filed away for now. It wasn't all that long ago that he was sporting some fading bruises that were entirely consensual so he's not going to jump to conclusions, just yet.

Raising his eyebrows Easton asks, "Oh, you haven't heard?" He seems surprised, pleasantly so. "Yea. Bennie left me." He looks down at the ring and smirks, "This isn't some, please come back thing." He had planned to get the ring back, and anything else she pawned before he did anything stupid. "This is just something I planned to do." Somehow it sounds less convincing out loud, even though it's completely true. "Did Byron at least tell you about the leopard? Because that's a damn good story."

Lilith doesn't really want to dig through what her father called 'paperwork' so Easton dismissing something as not a big deal, well, that's just fine by her. After finishing up with the computer, she pops back in lean with a hip against the counter and reaches for her own coffee where it's set aside, eyeing Easton for a pensive moment while he explains the happenstance and his intentions with the ring. After a beat, she nods, like that's fine enough for her, then knocks a hand back through with tousle at her dark hair while taken with a sudden, unwitting half-laugh, "Yes. I was mad it wasn't waiting for me as a Christmas present. Isn't that what rich guys are supposed to do, wrangle exotics for kicks and give them diamond collars?"

Then, after blowing some air over her lips once she's drank, she makes proposition, "If Bennie won't accept it from you on principle of NOT accepting anything from you... which sounds like something I personally would do if I were pissed enough to leave because I have a proud head like a rock... then you bring it back to me and I'll finangle a way to make sure she gets it back and keep your payoff on the sly. Deal?"

"I don't know." He starts to say, as if she's not well aware of his past and his family connections. But then Easton admits, "Depends on how new money they are. Older money is more apt to enjoy fine experiences versus splashing out on the lavish and exotic items." It's not meant to be a dig at Thorne, who is the very definition of new money, but it could certainly be taken as one. "But there are still a few shopping days until Christmas, maybe Byron's got one on order for you? Or at least a diamond collar."

His smile at the crack about the collar fades when she mentions Bennie not accepting it. He's been trying to convince himself that she'll be pissed but ultimately want it enough to just accept it. But there is a very real chance that she won't. He can see that when Lilith outlines it clearly. "Shit." He lets out a annoyed sigh, "Yes. Please. If you'd be willing to do that, I'd really appreciate it. I know how much this means to her."

"There's no telling what he's bought. I asked for the full Christmas experience because mine have been lacking and he has a tendency to deliver in spades. Diamonds or no diamonds, though... I'm not quite sure he's brave enough to try and collar me, knowing it might well be put on him instead." Lilith makes a dry quip and rise and fall of her shoulders with a twitch of her lips in smile and a good-natured, silent kind of 'we shall see' air about it. Also Byron being collared doesn't even seem like a thing to joke about given how the man is himself, but then again, considering the general devil-may-care forwardness of this woman, who knows!

When Easton catches on with realization his gift might not be accepted via pride-complications when it comes to pissed off women, Lilith makes the barest empathizing noise in her throat at the 'shit' part of it, "We're incredibly petty creatures when we want to be, on principle, because we can be. I'm not immune to it, which probably is no surprise, and I doubt sweet Bennie is either."

After a click of her tongue, her head tilts and she straightens from her hip popped lean to look at the guy with more curious gauging than judging because look, most people can probably deduce Lilith was a compliant other-woman kind of thing there for a while, which kind of makes her an asshole too. Context matters in that, of course, but from the outside, perspective it is what it is, "... but the sweet ones take a while to get to the 'shit' point of worry. What'd you do, slugger?"

"I imagine that Thorne'll do just fine by you. He has good taste." Easton's mouth turns up slightly as he means it to be a compliment of Lilith herself, not just Byron's taste in suits and cars that he's seen since coming back to town. His eyebrows raise a little bit at the talk of collaring Byron, again leading him to believe that any bruising miiight just be a slightly more adventurous couple than anything to be concerned about. Not that he won't keep his eye out to be sure.

"No. Bennie is definitely not immune to refusing something on principle." He shakes his head and sighs, "Shit." Again.

He is well aware that the start of Thorne's relationship with Lilith overlapped another one. He doesn't know details and really doesn't want to. He however has never been one to shy away from admitting his own mistakes, "Stuck my dick where it didn't belong. She walked out when I told her." It's at least important for him to clarify that he did the telling. He shakes his head, "It was dumb." It was a lot of things, dumb just being the tip of the iceberg, but he leaves it at that for now.

"Then... it's a good thing I have my backup plan. I'm pretty sneaky and have no qualms about lying when I want something to result, and she deserves her mother's ring, regardless of who is giving it to her. I didn't have a mother, I'm soft about those things, I guess. And life is an unfair bastard when it comes to mess and pain, especially here. We need the small sentiments and securities to keep us from becoming eaten up inside." Lilith kind of eyes Easton here at this point in backhanded fashion to impart that yes, that includes him, regardless of where he's sticking his dick. This place does things to people, she knows that the very hard way, firsthand, and until recently, the damages dictated a lot of her life.

"So... give me money so I can fund the accounts and pretend I'm fancy enough to be at Byron's suited arm. You wouldn't believe the outfit upkeep involved with standing next to him for moments and events. Honestly, I should kick the independent pride and ask for a clothing allowance." Lilith tells the man after settling up with turn to grab the printed off invoice of pickup for sliding his way so they can make the exchange. And from the way she's delayed and smiling a little bit when she mentions the last part on matters of Byron taste while he's paying, it's hard to tell if the bruises are impossible from that direction, or just something she'd starry-eyed let slide-- she's clearly smitten given how she drops her lashes girlishly and kind of melts her tone of voice, "Byron probably kicks himself daily for opting into my messes and all the ways I can frustrate him. But neither of us would have it any other way, either. It'll be a good Christmas for us."

But when they're done, she points a finger in warning at Easton, back to forward with a little bit of mother henning for the messy kindred soul, "And if yours sucks, don't drink yourself to death. Shoo. Try to woo her and let me know how it goes?" She has a customer standing behind him, "... and I'll tease you with the shotgun later because I'm shameless about turning profit."