2020-12-08 - Round 1

Once Tor walked into the bar and saw that Easton was working, he quietly logged off Uber Eats. Normally that's why he sits there, nursing a drink and a plate of fries or nachos, waiting to leap on an order that comes in from TiBS' kitchen. Tonight though, he's got other business. He sits at his regular spot at the bar and waits for a moment to say, "Hey, when you got a second, got something I wanna talk to you about." He looks a little...well, not nervous, but cagey when he says that.

Easton is working the bar, though he's a little more restrained that normal. There's no loud boisterous yelling or doing shots with regulars. He's pouring drinks and texting Bennie and sipping on something that looks suspiciously like water? Catching Tor's call, he upnods and leans against the bar, "What up doctor pizza boy?"

Tor leans on the bar and folds his arms together. He hesitates for a moment, then, "I was wondering if you were maybe lookin' for some help here. I got cousins getting their licenses and they wanna drive for the shop to make some extra money, but I've been taking all the shifts." There's a distinct feeling that there's more to it than that, but he's not laying it all on the table right away. "I got a lot of customer service experience. Don't know about mixing drinks, but I did decent at chem in school." In fact, he did decent at all his classes. Better than, if the rumours are true. He's the poster boy of Gray Harbor's wasted potential.

Easton tilts his head to the side at the first question and then narrows his eyes. He looks at Tor with open suspicion and asks, "Help with what?" Gee, that's not a super friendly question. He regards him for a minute but then Tor starts listing credentials and he seems to relax. "So to be clear this isn't a suggestion from Joe Kelly?" Easton doesn't feel the need to play any games right now so he just asks straight out.

"What? No, no, man. Naw. I got my own reasons." Tor sniffs once. "They haven't been tossing me a lot of work lately. And I gotta make ends meet, y'know?" He shrugs. "I'm an entrepeneur." He lifts a shoulder. "Half this town treats me like the gofer kid brother. But I can do more than that."

"Good." Easton nods seriously and then loosens up. He pours himself a beer now as if he's going to need it for this conversation maybe. "Yeah, sure." Nodding he takes a sip of his beer and asks, "So what? You want to bartend? Wait tables? What you got in mind? And does this mean I can't call you doctor pizzaboy anymore?"

"Dude, I don't think anything is gonna stop you with the nicknames," say Tor with a wry grin. He clears his throat when he prepares himself for what he says next. "I'd prefer to be behind the bar. Because I see an opportunity in this town."

He leans forward a bit conspiratorially towards Easton. "I wanna learn more about beer. I have a cousin, she's in Seattle. She's taking an elective on brewing and she's learning a lot of shit. And my uncle, y'see, he's got an old shed he doesn't use anymore. I'm already sourcing the equipment. But I need market research, y'know? And you? You could have beer on tap with a better profit margin than the shit you're buying from the multinationals. And people are more loyal to local, y'know?"

"That is very, very true." Easton says of nicknames in general, but he might have to alter Tor's if he's not actually a pizza boy. Though let's be honest he will always be 'the pizza boy' because of that one delivery. "You want to pour beers so you can sell me beer?" Easton frowns and considers this for a moment before shrugging and saying, "How good a shot are you?" Wait, what? What does that have to do with anything? Easton is obviously dead serious about this interview question though.

Tor opens mouth, closes, shrugs. "Sorta? I mean, I figured it was too early to talk partnership. But even if that didn't work out, I gotta get out of the pizza delivery biz. For one, yeah, little cousins who wanna start doing it and I gotta make room. But I realized the other day I've been doing it nearly ten years. Shee-yit, man. No one under 30 should do any job that long." He swats the countertop. The question catches him off-guard though. "Like...doing shots?"

"Oh we are not talking partnerships." Easton clarifies with a grin, "We're talking about your big ambitions." Something about that makes him smile, "You should talk to Thorne if you need a backer at any point in your brewery plans. Tell him your story, he appreciates a hustler." Easton doesn't mention anything about Byron's past, but he's grinning about something. "No. As in with a gun. Or multiple guns, ideally listed in order of preference." He waits. "If you want to work behind this bar, I need to know that you can take down threats to the customers, ideally with the firearm of your choosing." GH interviews are weird.

"No offense to Byron Thorne, but there should probably be some businesses in this town he isn't connected to." Never mind that by virtue of Tor being a Lockhart, Felix'll have his fingers in whatever he gets off the ground. "Sides, I don't need a lot to get started. I just need to know the right beer. Which means knowing what people in this town wanna drink."

But then the question goes back to guns, and he's sizing the other man up, like he's not sure it isn't a trap. "I'm a Lockhart," is his response. AKA, The Family Thug. "My dad was getting me shooting at cans before I started driving."

"Eh, I'd rather have Thorne's fingers in the pie than others." Oh the irony. Easton has no clue that Thorne is the reason that he got even more tied in with Felix. He shrugs and says, "I could probably tell you unless yer really dying to do the market research. Frankly I'm down a guy with Albidegard out.." Ravn didn't exactly tend bar and that's not his last name (at all) but the point still stands. Kind of. He nods at the news of the Lockhart family traditions.

"Ah, see, there's what people are drinking, and what they want to drink. But yeah, I mean, also..." Tor shrugs, "...kinda arrogant of me to consider getting into the booze business when I don't know anything about the bar business." He's sort of notorious for ordering the cheapest beer on the menu, and even lifting someone else's unattended pint. But one doesn't need to be a gourmet to see a business opportunity. "I've also got some sound equipment so I could DJ open mics and karaoke and trivia and whatever."

"That's true. Especially when Vic's bartending." Easton cracks even though Vic has gotten much better about making people the actual drink they order. He shakes his head, "So do you actually know how to mix real drinks? I mean ninety percent of the time you're just pouring beers but in the summer there's actual tourists with dumb expectations." Easton frowns at the talk of open mics and trivia. "Well DeSantos has dibs on trivia night if he still wants it, but I suppose I could deal with an open mic night if it helps put butts in chairs. The pay is pretty garbage but tips are good and I don't get tipped out."

"Hey man, I'm not rushing to host something, but I'm just saying - if you have the need, I got the gear. And I'm willing to run the board." Tor starts to idly shed the label on his own shitty beer. "I can mix like...G&T and Rum and Coke. But fancy shit? Naw. But like I said, I did good at chemistry. I figure if I can mix explosive chemicals safely, how hard can a martini be?" And then he snorts. "You gotta pay better than my uncle paying me to drive pizzas around town. And those tips are shit."

"Alright well, it's on December, that's plenty of time for you to figure shit out before you get to tourist time." Easton takes another sip of his beer and shrugs, "Alright. I'm fine with it so long as you pass the second round interview." He sets the beer down and goes to actually make a drink for a customer, leaving Tor to wonder what the heck the second round interview is exactly? Easton eventually returns to inform him, "That's where you go shooting with Vic and I in the woods and we decide if you're a good enough shot to work here." Yes, go shooting with Easton in the woods after you slept with his girlfriend when they were on a break. It's fine. This is fine. "And you do a shot when you miss." Oh good, let's mix in drinking.

Tor says, "Shit. Just when I thought you were a normal business. I thought only my family had interviews like that." Tor smiles awkwardly. "Hey, uh, at least...Vic doesn't hate me? I don't think?" He did heal her that one time. "Also, I'm not looking for full time hours. I have some other side gigs. So a couple shifts a week'd do me.""

"Oh yeah, we're perfectly normal, except for the ghosts, gremlins and ghost turkeys that pop up every now and then to terrorize the bar. We haven't been lost together, but you stick out and you grew up here, so I'm assuming you know enough about the veil shenanigans to keep your head and help get everybody through in one piece?" Easton gives Tor a look about Vic, "Why, you deliver her a pizza too?" Oh yeah, he's not not going to mention that. "That works, most of the bartenders end up being part-time, especially in the off season. Tough to keep a full time schedule."

"Nothing surprises me anymore," says Tor with a shrug as he swigs his cheap beer with the shredded label. It's empty now. "I know all the weird, shit, yeah. Lost track of how many Dreams I've been pulled into. Plus, apparently I'm a Baxter." From the way he says that, it's a relatively new piece of information for him. He squints at the pizza delivery crack. He sucks air between his teeth. "She told you, huh? And no, no pretty sure Vic imagines me to be sixteen."

"Good." Easton shakes his head at the crazy things they need to cover. "Oh. Shit. My condolensces?" What do you even say to that. He sips his beer and smiles at the fact that he knew. "She did. And no worries... that was a fucked up time." He really could care less about it, even with Bennie flirts with Tor it's not something that bugs him. "Yeah, I can see that."

"I'm not after your girl, you know that, right? It was just a one-time thing. Kinda out of the blue. We didn't know each other at all." Tor isn't defensive about it. His tone is more matter-of-fact. "I didn't even know she'd been seeing anyone til after the fact."

"Oh buddy. If you were after my girl, she would eat you alive. I don't think you have stamina for it." Easton grins, over-sharing on their sex life is pretty par for the course for Beaston. "And really, that's the past. I will continue to bring it up and laugh about it, but I promise it's nothing I'll shoot you over." Oh that's reassuring wording.

"Mhmm, you'd be surprised," says Tor with sort of a cocky half-grin. "And there wasn't much funny about it as I recall. But yeah. I figure if you were gonna come at me, you woulda by now. You also don't strike me as a patriarchal macho asshole who'd come at a stranger for something his girlfriend did." Then grin gets wider.

Easton laughs at the brag from Tor and raises his eyebrows. "Alright thumper, I'll give you there might be more than meets the eye." Shaking his head Easton says, "Nah. I wish she did a lot worse. Fucked half the town or something.." What? He realizes how that sounds and shakes his head, "No. Not that.. but something. I hurt her in.. well I was a dick. And there's very little that she could ever have done to even up that score."

"Hey, that's none of my business," says Tor, hands going up. "She's never come looking for anything from me since that one time. And she was a fuckin' wreck with you gone, though she tried really hard not to let it show. I'm smarter than I look. And I'm definitely too smart to go barking up that giant-ass tree. Sides, I tend to like things pretty uncomplicated. Not ashamed to admit that sometimes that means trading a bit of scratch or some favors. Gotta hustle in a town this size to make a buck, you know?"

"Frankly if you didn't take the opportunity when you had it, I'd never have respected you or at least understood you." Easton shrugs like really, what else you gonna say. "But yeah, I agree with the overall plan of not asking for trouble. Goodness knows this town throws enough of that at us anyway."

"Uh huh. Ain't that the truth?" Tor bites the edge of his lip and grins. "I also don't piss where I eat. Very firm rule. So if you think I got a chance with anyone who works here, tell me before I start my first shift." Hard to tell if he's serious. That shit-eating grin is a pretty common fixture on his face.

"Frankly man I got nothing. Maybe ask Vic for a woman's point of view? Or Bennie? Sorry, I don't know of any of the waitresses who are into cute fuzzy bellies." Oh, good. Bennie shared some details with Easton which he's going to hold onto and deploy at strategic times.

"Doesn't have to be just waitresses. I'm equal opportunity," says Tor. He's got a confident grin on his face until the belly comment. He narrows his eyes. "How much did she tell you?"

"Oh." Easton seems to take this into consideration and says, "Maybe Manny, one of the dishwashers then? He's a good dude, bit of a manwhore? But in a fun way?" He doesn't seem surprised by the revelation. "Not much actually. Just a couple details I plan to keep in reserve for later."

"I warn you. I don't have a lot of shame," says Tor with a half shrug. "I come from a family with a bad rep and have been getting into shit my whole life. Gives you a pretty thick skin. If it bugged me, I woulda left town a long time ago. And I'm definitely not ashamed of the things I did with your girl, bossman," he winks and slides off the stool. "If you're serious about testing my gun skills, just let me know the where and when, and if it's BYOBoomsticks."

Easton grins as Tor doesn't seem phased, "Good. I think this'll work out just great then." The smile fades though to stone face, "I'm dead serious about round two. We have plenty of guns, but feel free to bring a loved one if you need to." He clarifies, "Loved gun, I mean. Not like a person."

"You know you could just ask around to see if I could shoot. But I'm happy to take a few shots if you're buying the bullets." Tor thumbs out cash to pay for what he's eaten. Then he old school scribbles his name and number on a napkin and pushes it towards Easton.

"And you could just ask around about beer. It's not the same thing." Easton takes up the napkin and pins it up to a post behind the bar. "I'll be in touch pizzaboy."