2020-09-23 - Checking In

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : Hey. Heard you got mixed up in that shit at the trailer park. You okay?

Vic is sitting at the bar in the Murder Motel, or the Sea View Suites, call it what you want. She has a whiskey in front of her, and some paperwork on the bartop, comparing possible apartment and house rentals if the repair bill on the trailer comes back way too high. She's in jeans and an Eagles (the band not the sports team) tee, which mercifully no longer smell like charred marijuana after a long day at the laundromat. Her phone pings and she pulls it out, expecting it to be Joey Kelly or something else work related. Seeing the sender she frowns for a moment, then sighs and begins typing back at the man.

(TXT to Ruiz) Vic : Depends on your definition of OK.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : You're being mouthy, so you're alive. I guess that'll do.

Vic smirks on her barstool perch and raises her glass to the tender to signal a need for a refill. "I'm gonna need a double this time," she notes to the man. Because any conversation with Javier de la Vega usually ends up with them half an inch from beating the shit out of each other. She taps away at the phone with a sniff and a rubbing of a finger under her nose.

(TXT to Ruiz) Vic : I'd be mouthy on my deathbed and you know it.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : You'd be mouthy in your fucking grave, Vic Grey.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : Is your airstream a writeoff?

(TXT to Ruiz) Vic : Damn straight. And you'd be bitchy in yours. Anyway, I'm currently residing at the infamous murder motel until I get an estimate on repairing the sleeping end of the trailer. It got scorched and water damaged. And my patio is charcoal.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : Bitchy? The fuck is that supposed to mean.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : Heard the place is under new management. Some Hilton chick.

Vic takes a deep drink of her newly refreshed double and sorts through the papers. Liven A-Frames, ramshackle homes to rent on Elm, garage economy apartment on Maple for rent, and a few apartments at the Broadleaf. If she can fix the trailer enough to be livable, maybe she can rent it out to someone else, and get to sleep somewhere less cramped, since she doubts she's ever leaving Gray Harbor. Not alive at least. Not between the Veil and the Criminal Underworld of the podunk town. She chuckles at the indignant response on her phone screen.

(TXT to Ruiz) Vic : That, right there. Bitchy. Is it? Well her damn jacuzzi is broken. Anyway, yeah I'm alive. No one died. Some old couple nearly did, and my lungs aren't real keen on the smoke inhalation. Sorry to disappoint you with my continued existence. 😉

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : What makes you think your existence disappoints me?

(TXT to Ruiz) Vic : Oh I dunno. The fact I betrayed you in Portland? The fact I work for the other side? The fact I wanted to tap your boyfriend? Take your pick.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : We worked for the same side, until I had to fucking break up with Kelly or watch everything I owned systematically taken away from me and dismantled and destroyed. As for my boyfriend, I already gave you the goddamned green light on that, so the fact you aren't going at it like rabbits is very much on the two of you, not me. And Portland, I haven't decided yet.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : You got any other bullshit reasons I should hate you, Vic?

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : Or you want to come out and tell me what's really going on?

Vic sighs and rubs her hand down her face. She drains the rest of the double, but doesn't signal for another. The last thing she needs to do is go on a drunk texting binge. She'd stab someone for coke right now though.

(TXT to Ruiz) Vic : I don't think Joe is even interested. If he is, he hasn't given me any sign. And yeah, what's really going on. This fucking gang war has me clinging by my fingernails, trying to stay above water. If Felix goes down, Javier, his agreement with Ojeda poofs. Then I'm back on his hit list, and so is my father.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : I think Joe is feeling cautious after things went south with Cruz, is what I think.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : And sure, that's fair. We've all got skin in this game.

(TXT to Ruiz) Vic : Cruz? Cris? Really? O.o What on earth did he see...nevermind. I was just never into guys who were trying too hard. Some people are.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : Don't fucking get me started.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : Just don't.

(TXT to Ruiz) Vic : Hah. We always had similar taste in lays, Javier. That hasn't changed one bit.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : I don't know about that.

(TXT to Ruiz) Vic : We can sniff out the ones who like it to hurt.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : There's more to Joe than that. Hell, I'd like to think there's more to you than that. Maybe I'm being too optimistic.

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : Anyway, glad you're doing all right. good luck with the, uh, house search.

(TXT to Ruiz) Vic : I sure as hell hope there's more to me than that, because if that's all there is, and I haven't been laid in four years, maybe I really don't exist anymore. But uh, yeah, thanks for checking up? I didn't expect it. Be safe out there, ok?

(TXT to Vic) Ruiz : You too.