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The Devil's Nest, Tuesday Evening

Tonight was Max's very first bar shift, and because he was a supremely mature human being, he was not celebrating it by drinking the entirety of the doughnut vodka that bartender from the weekend had introduced him to. Or any of it at all. That was how committed he was to this job.

Instead, he arrived, greeted Tiny with a "Hey, what's up, I'm Max," gave the DJ an appreciative nod for this evening's selection of underappreciated eighties hits, and settled behind the bar to await customers. He was feeling pretty good about his bartending skills.

Then the DJ's trend of eighties music began to progress toward the overappreciated, and Max began rethinking his satisfaction with this job.

He glanced at Tiny. "Hey, man, you think he'd turn that down?"

Tiny somberly shook his head. Great.

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For drinking! And Max!

For shaking that groove thing.

For schmoozing with a vampire who may or may not be present.

I have never written Devil's Nest OCD before. Exciting.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaay, there aren't any little kids here this time!" Laurie had had a hard day of filing her nails at her desk, okay, so she was sashaying her way right up to the bar and beaming at Max. "I was so not in the mood to answer questions while trying to drink this time."

"Ugh, I know, tell me about it," Max agreed. "Plus I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be serving them and I don't want carding issues on my first shift. I'm so not awake enough for that."

"Oh my god, did I end up at a bartender virginity-loss party and I didn't even mean to?" Laurie asked, clapping her hands. "Congrats on the first shift! I don't know what the usual gift is, here. Mostly I think I should get a drink. You know, to celebrate you."

"One drink, coming up," Max said, turning around to survey all the bottles. Huh. This might be trickier than he'd thought, but he'd roll with it. "But I think the usual gift probably involves a generous tip of some kind, if we're really going for tradition here."

Because he was such an expert, see.

"What kind of drink we talking?"

"White wine, in your very biggest glass." Let's be honest, here. "Like, all the way to the top. Maybe so much that I need a straw."

She smiled at him. Or, well, his back. "I keep it easy and breezy. Not always beautiful, but I don't have to be a Cover Girl."

Good, that was easy enough. After a few moments to locate the bottle and a glass that was suitably big, Max presented Laurie with not only the requested wine, but also a purple bendy straw.

Oh yeah. He was that good.

Or he'd been playing with bendy straws earlier and that was how he knew where the supply was. Shhhh.

"I dunno, you do have the big, bold look-at-me lashes and a maybe-she's-born-with-it smile," he said thoughtfully, tilting his head as if in thought. "...I watch a lot of commercials."

"Or else you just have fabulous taste," Laurie said, posing a little. "I'm going to choose to interpret it as genuine rather than commercially-prompted, thank you! Are you brand-new around, too, or just going for a new career choice?"

"New since... Wednesdayish," Max reported. "I believe. I had to pencil in a few nap days after that, so it's hard to say." He was classy like that. "You too?"

"Last week," Laurie said, waving a hand vaguely before sticking it over the bar. "Laurie Keller, what up. I manage the apartments over that-a-way so I'll be around to drink a lot."

That was not a logical train of thought, but Laurie could have started that sentence any way she wanted and still ended it with 'I'll be around to drink a lot,' and been happy.

"Always a fan of new customers," Max decided. Well. "Okay, always a fan of non-annoying customers who request drinks that are easy to make."

"I'm so easy," she assured him, grinning at him. Then paused, and added, "It's weird not having my friends around to fill in that I mean like, sexually, too, but I don't think you're buying what I'm selling so there's no point in explaining, anyway."

"I like how you played that," Max said approvingly. "And I don't think you wanna make that point to Tiny on account of how he looks like he'd probably build a shrine to you in a pot that's supposed to hold a plant, so if you wanna just save that line for if someone more heterosexual and less creepy should happen to stop by the bar, I won't tell anyone you've used it twice."

Edited 2012-10-23 19:52 (UTC)

"Oh my god, are there cute boys here?" Laurie asked, pouting. "Where do they hide them? Cute straight boys, I mean. I like you, new friend. No need to compete."

"Well, I am flattered," Max informed Laurie dryly. "But they're just elusive to me as they are to you. With maybe the exception of a curiously muscular blond I saw at the bar the other night who may or may not bat for my team."

Oh, how he hoped.

Edited 2012-10-23 20:09 (UTC)

"Did he have any curiously muscular lady-lovin' friends he'd mentioned?" Laurie asked hopefully.

"That mystery will require more investigation," Max said seriously. "Maybe an intrepid wingman/wingwoman duo?"

"You are genius," Laurie said, taking a sip of her wine through her straw. "There's no overlap, either. Amazing."

"I have never been called that before," Max remarked. "Actually, you know what? You may never meet my friends from Chicago. Scratch that, I am a genius, everyone calls me that all the time. Genius Max. That's me."

"'Kay, and I'm Elegant Laurie!" she decided. "And you can't ever meet my friends from Gulfhaven to back that up. Deal?"

"Dealskis." 'Dealskis,' Max? Really? Sigh. "So Gulfhaven, huh? Why am I picturing a Southern town full of retirees and expensive lawn furniture?"

Edited 2012-10-23 23:25 (UTC)

"Florida," she corrected. "Florida's only kinda the South. Only kinda."

In that it was...you know, down. On the map.

"Southern enough for sunscreen but not for good Mexican food," Max said with a serious nod. "State's got its priorities all wrong if you ask me."

Because Mexican food trumped everything. Possibly including life itself. Max would one day get a tattoo of a Mexican food truck logo on his hip in exchange for free burritos, so, you know, it was pretty serious.

"We have Cuban food," Laurie assured him, "which my one Cuban friend is basically the same but minus like, forty percent of the calories."

Andy was, of course, lying.

Max perked up at that. "Intriguing." He even tapped his chin for effect. "I may have to try that. Your state may yet be redeemed, CoverGirl."

He had no idea what the weird voice he donned for that pronouncement was supposed to be, but it was something.

"Whatever, you guys have really deep pizza and hotdogs," Laurie said, trying to pretend like that didn't sound like awesome regional food and...largely failing, poker-face-wise. LOOK IT JUST SOUNDED LIKE THE BEST, OKAY?

Max was just going to point at her failed poker face. "Ah. Ah. You see? Chicago's awesome. Buuuuuut you tried."

Was it too early in their relationship for teasing her the way he teased Alex? OH WELL. MAX WAS PUSHING HIS LUCK.

"Then why'd you' leave, hmm?" Laurie asked, resting her chin in her hands.

"Cheaper rent, mostly," Max said truthfully. "With a side order of being sick of watching all my friends make out with each other all the time. Plus it is, like, way easier to get a job in this town than it is in Chicago, especially if you have moral reservations against walking and scooping poop."

Max was all class.

"How about you, Elegant Laurie?"

"My friend bought a property here and sent me to maaaaaaaaaaanage it!" Laurie said gleefully. "She was all, 'Laurie, you're twenty-eight, don't you want a career?' And I was all, 'Not really, Jules, I like doing my nail art at my desk and taking three hour lunches!' but I'm here anyway." She made a face, and added, "Plus, bad breakup and I have the friends-making-out-around-me factor, too. Yuck."

Max let that sink in for a second. Then-- "You," he declared, pointing at Laurie for effect, "are basically straight girl me. Plus blonde. Although I guess an argument could be made that if I was a girl I'd already be blonde because I most likely would have dyed it as some kind of failed scheme to make a baseball player fall in love with me in my late teens. But my point is that you're me. With the whole three-hour-lunches-and-being-lazy-at-your-desk thing. That's my life right there."

"Not a natural blonde," she confided, holding a hand up to shield her whisper from...Tiny. Who obviously cared. "So yeah. And flexible on the straight part." She raised a brow and added, "I've been drunk a lot."

"Aaaaand that's where we differ," Max declared. "Eeeugh. Ladyparts."

Ahem.

"No offense. I have dabbled. Buuuut not my scene."

"'Dabbled' sounds so dirty here," Laurie said, eyes wide. "Whatever, as long as you can totally tell me when the girls look good or if they're pointing in opposite directions, we're good on contact with my ladyparts, swearsies."

'Dabbled' mostly meant 'slept with Penny in college and continued to have on-and-off nightmares about it to this day,' so...

"Good deal," Max said, offering Laurie a double thumbs-up. "You're good right now, FYI. Not that it matters."

Sorry, Tiny.

Laurie looked sad, then drank more of her wine. "How am I supposed to make bad post-breakup decisions? How?"

"There's always the DJ?"

The DJ who... looked to be bopping his head and tapping his foot to Total Eclipse of the Heart.

"...Maybe not the DJ. He smells like baby powder anyway."

"I'm so past my DJ phase," Laurie assured him, then frowned. "Why are you smelling him?"

"It's really noticable!" Was it, though, Max? Was it? "Go request a song and see for yourself! It's like he just stepped out of a day care bathroom or something."

Laurie did as told, striding over in her heels and leaning on the DJ booth. After a few moments, the music picked up into something...less terrible, but still very eighties, and Laurie clacked her way back over.

"Oh my god, it's like he bathed in it."

"Right? Right? No wonder he keeps playing weird eighties music, the baby powder has clearly started to affect his brain." Or eighties music was just really good. God, Max. "Anyway, he clearly isn't a good suitor for you. We'll have to expand our horizons."

"The eighties were great," Laurie said, frowning at him. "We may have to explore off the island. Or lie in wait for the like, two cute dudes who might live here."

"Either of those, man," Max said. "Possibly the latter because the other one sounds kinda like work. And if you'd been in as many gay clubs as I have, you'd start to get a little sick of the eighties too. I'm just sayin'."

"Or you grow to love them even more," Laurie said excitedly. "Though less gay clubs and more limos with hot tubs owned by guys who peaked in '85."

"...that is pretty much the same thing as a gay club," Max conceded. "You got me there."

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The Devil's Nest, Tuesday Evening

The Bar

The Dance Floor and Lounge

The VIP Section

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