OPEN.

[poleaxed]

ill put an img here l8r.

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[poleaxed]

She tries not to over-analyze him-- it's not like she's anyone to judge. She rarely dates, and with good reason. She's shitty at it, shitty at anything that's supposed to paint her in a good light. Some part of her wishes she could just skip this and hump in his room, but it's so rare she gets to go on a real date. It's flattering, even if he doesn't know.

She sips her drink. "Nope. Texas." Kentucky, Oklahoma and Louisiana are some of the rare places she feels like she can tell people she's from Texas without catching shit. "But I been all over. Am I gonna get chased outta town for not drinking bourbon?"

[ultimatums]

"Depends how quickly you apologise," he says with a little smile, tilting his head a little. "But it begs the question, if you're not from here, what the hell are you doin' here?"

[poleaxed]

Joan holds up her hand, scrubbed raw and red. Both her hands are tender like that, and so she has to pull the sleeve of her flannel shirt down pretty far to get to one of the remaining streaks of engine oil around her elbow. "They needed a mechanic, and I was passing through."

[ultimatums]

"Right. So you're travellin'." That makes more sense. Every time he meets someone who voluntarily put down roots in Kentucky, there's an urge to grab them by the shoulders and shake them until they get the message and leave. "How long you gonna stick around?"

[poleaxed]

"I dunno," she says. "Depends on how the job goes. Might not stick around if it turns to shit, you know?" She sips her drink, watching his face for a reaction.

[ultimatums]

"Uh huh." His expression is momentarily a touch envious, if only for the freedom she seems to have, before it returns to something more placid. "Well, be careful you don't get turned around and end up back here. I was on the way out for a while, and yet."

[poleaxed]

"The alimony payments putting a dent in your moving fund?" She makes a wild stab in the dark, mostly out of the urge, always, to draw blood.

[ultimatums]

"It's my job, actually," he says, his face a little pinched. Does he just look divorced or something? "Why'd you figure alimony?"

[poleaxed]

"Sounded funny in my head." She's good at reading people, but not that good. She suspects she's touched a nerve, but she's not sure which. If he's really paying alimony, that'd be funny, and a little sexy. She wonders how big his dick is.

"Can you dance in a circle?"

[ultimatums]

"I prefer not to," he says, and has a demure little sip of his drink. "I did have a cousin, though. Everyone called him Heinz, 'cause he said he knew fifty-seven dance steps no one else had ever done before."

[poleaxed]

Finally, she sits on the bar stool next to him. "No dancing, just drinking? Kentucky's really living up to its reputation."

[ultimatums]

"If you want dancin' you need to go down to a holler when they've got a party goin'. You can clog to your heart's content."

[poleaxed]

Joan puts her head on her palm. “So it’s just your smart mouth romancin’ me?” She lets some of her accent out, mostly because he doesn’t seem to be able to stop with the folksy shit.

[ultimatums]

"I'm tryin'," he says with a little shrug. "So d'you like bein' a mechanic? Or is it just punchin' the clock?"

[poleaxed]

She looks at him with a skeptical expression, trying to get a read on this line of conversation and failing. "Can't imagine me being anything else. I like the work. Not so much the co-workers."

[ultimatums]

"Ain't that always the way," he says, although frankly he likes his coworkers fine, for the most part. "How long you been doin' it?"

[poleaxed]

"Professionally? Since I was sixteen. My Daddy was a mechanic, taught my brother, and he taught me. You got a car you need fixed?"

[ultimatums]

"Might do," he says. "Not now, but I'll keep you in mind if that changes. So it's a family business?"

[poleaxed]

"Nah, we all worked in different shops." She waves the idea aside. "What and you? Are you really a grave digger?"

[ultimatums]

He snorts a laugh, and a moment later decides to swallow the rest of his drink and flag down Lindsey for another. "Deputy US Marshal. So, not a gravedigger."

[poleaxed]

Marshals are classic cowboy shit. She wonders is that's a good thing. "Why'd you lie? This a sting operation?"

[ultimatums]

"Thought it was funny," he says, with a little shrug. "I dug coal when I was nineteen, though. If that counts."

[poleaxed]

Digging coal means he was poor, she suspects, and he's not afraid of hard work. It's attractive, not that she lets that show on her face. "Funny to lie? I see how it is. What's day to day like for a US Marshal?"

[ultimatums]

"Funny to think of myself as a gravedigger." He has a good think about the question, though, frowning into the distance for a moment. "Well, Lexington's a small office, so we share tasks. There's low level shit like prisoner transport, judicial protection, witness protection, that kinda thing. Then there's fugitives, so, y'know, trackin' 'em down. Managing assets is pretty fun," he adds. "That's when the courts seize property durin' a trial and we gotta look after it."

[poleaxed]

"Oh, I know. My oldest brother was a cop. Probably still is." She rolls her shoulder in a casual shrug, her eyes briefly scanning the bar's floor. "His whiskeydick best friend scored a lotta free coke that way."