so far, so good.

Tinted glass and drunken vision didn't mix.

Sprawled across the backseat of an inconspicuous town car, Greta pressed her nose to the window, trying to decipher her b's from her d's at a distance. "A number two...no. Number three, with extra sauce. Like a shit ton. Say those exact words or they won't do it. 'A shit ton of extra sauce.'"

Her heels had been abandoned on the car floor.

She adjusted her hold on her cell phone, angling the receiver closer to her mouth after realizing it had been parked somewhere around her ear, and squinted at Lucky's outline inside there restaurant at the register. Beyond it, the indecipherable menu.

Back to Greta: "You know you've ordered the only edible thing on the menu, right?" Lucky isn't a snob, but no one can do a better post-party snack than Row's End, not even Bahía Azul. Regardless, orders are orders.

Once the order's through, he sidesteps towards the glass wall facing the forecourt. His nose touches the window and he squints to check the car's surroundings. If her silhouette was visible, he could only imagine the state of her.

The music wasn’t too loud, but it still pulsed through the floor like a second heartbeat. Nora leaned against the bar, fingers loosely curled around a glass of something neon purple and sweet. She wasn’t sure she liked the drink, but it gave her hands something to do and it made her look occupied, which helped keep the vultures at bay. Typically she was happy to throw herself into the crowd and make some one-night friends, but her mind was too busy to really enjoy the evening playing out around her.

Outside, the city buzzed with its usual late-night electricity. Inside, the lighting was low and blue, the conversation thick, and the air just cool enough to justify the jacket she’d tossed over her shoulders.

She glanced up when someone passed a little too close, catching their eye for just a second longer than she meant to, their identity momentarily shrouded in violet shadows.

“I swear I had a reason for being here,” she said, half-laughing into her glass. “But now I’m just trying not to look like I got stood up. Probably a sign I should be getting home, huh?”

Whispers of a solo Du Bois tickles his ears as he weaves between velvet ropes. Eventually, he catches sight of Nora -- glass half-empty, seat across from her untouched -- attracting pitiful gazes. Without a second thought, he slides in without pause.

"So sorry I'm late!" He says theatrically, making a performance of it all, leaning in for a kiss on the cheek, as he’d seen the power players pull off. Luckily, he's dressed for the occasion. "I had to put the kids to bed. You know how they are."

A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth as he takes the seat. "Have you been waiting long?"

"Yeah I know," Lucky counters, fast, probably too fast. He doesn't need some random meatball telling him what he already knows about Joey. The smile makes him grimace, like he's being taunted with something Barry knows that he doesn't. Why hasn't Joey mentioned Barry before?

For fuck's sake...

Andrea's brows raise in near-amusement; is this some sort of test? "Are you seriously trying to rob me right now?" It's less of a question, more of a statement. He's Del Bosque in name - one must know there's only one way this can go - poorly.

He almost wants to smirk, to give away his amusement with the situation earlier than strictly necessary. There's no weapon required, not for this situation, not when he's amused by the attempted robbery. "Do you have nothing better to do with your time? I've heard there's a few excellent restaurants around here, if you need recommendations."

The cash in his wallet isn't excessive by Andrea's standards, but he supposes the average resident of this neighborhood wouldn't regularly be carrying just about twenty thousand sellos, give or take. "If you really want to try to rob me, go ahead, but it's your risk, not mine."

For a brief moment, he considers faking an attack. A sudden jolt forward, maybe even a raised fist. But he thinks he'll see black before he even has a chance to laugh about it, and, again, he has a reason to wake up every morning.

"Oh, give me a break." He laughs spitefully. "You know you're asking for it, coming to a public beach in an expensive suit." Andrea would have a target on his back even if he wore a potato sack and cowboy boots.

"Plus, is it really robbing if you just hand over the cash?" There's little convincing woven into his tone, and it's spoken more matter-of-factly. "What's it to you, anyway? Fucking pocket change, so just gimme."

Much less into confrontation and unlikely to start a fight, Conrad had never been afraid of getting into one, it happened, when he was younger he learned that even when you had nothing to do with it, sometimes people brought war to you and you could decide to do nothing or fight for yourself.

This time is different, he feels it deep in his bones when he looks at Lucky, the same spirit he used to admire, now bothers him to the point of losing his mind, nearly pushing him into causing another fight, a bitter smile forming on his lips as he studies the face of the man at a distance from him. Until, he spots the blood on his lips, it doesn't bother him, but what bothers him is when he feels his own dropping down from his nose, fingers reaching up on an instinct before coming off red. It transports him back to another time, the one when he was to blame for a man's death, the one time that had stained his hands forever and that is enough to make him change his mind and behavior.

Conrad barrels past him, and his pointed finger is left hanging in the air. Lucky waits a beat or two, staring at the smear on his sleeve where Conrad's shoulder brushed him. Almost immediately after, the bar lurches back to its rhythm. Glasses are refilled and music blasts again like nothing happened. Only one person doesn't move with it: Lucky watches Conrad storm through the crowd.

He thinks nothing of it until he spots someone trailing after Conrad, so he follows behind them. It takes ramming their face into the wooden wallboards to stop them from entering the bathroom. Standing over the drunken body, he squints at the door Conrad disappeared behind, wondering what's holding him back.

Fuck it, he thinks, what's he got to be scared of? Under the heel of his boot, the door swings open.

"Always liked your dramatic exits." But the bite's dulled, trailing off as his eyes find Conrad hunched over the sink, and whatever sharp edge he meant to throw is drowned out in the fluorescent hum.

Eyes closed, he breathes with her -- one, two, three. His chest rises, then falls. The panic starts to ebb, but something else rises in its place. He doesn't know the name for it, only that it claws up his throat.

Then, he tips his head forward and gently rests his cheek against her shoulder. "It's a bunch of rubbish, Jo," he says, mumbling into the fabric of her shirt. As steady as she is, and of all the things she was built to weather, he hopes he isn't one of them. "These guys out by the docks. One of 'em said your name, the cafe too. They were talking like someone had a point to make. So I thought--"

He lifts his head, just enough to meet her eyes. "I'm sorry if I scared you."

The rest of the film blurs. Lights flicker and the soundtrack swells, but it all flies past him. He gets up halfway under the excuse of a bathroom break, and after a while, he returns with a fresh box of popcorn. For the ending, he tunes back in, where everything falls apart and the lovers don't speak.

The credits roll and the theatre clears, leaving only Tatiana and Lucky in their seats.

"I still think it's stupid. It doesn't make any sense. If you loved someone, you'd tell 'em. That's the whole fucking point." Angrily grabbing a fistful of popcorn, he looks like he's arguing with the big screen, speaking as if it's that simple, even if he knows, unfortunately quite well, that it doesn't work like that. Then, he tosses a sideways glance at her: "Why do you like this kind of thing? Is this why you're still single?"

Or worse, she says, and the implication feels like saltwater swallowing his lungs. Her brother, his friend. And many others. His gaze is splintered with a memory he isn't aware he summoned when he meets her eyes again, warily like if he lingers too long she'll catch a glimpse of it. It's blinked away and whatever quip he had in mind dies behind his teeth.

There's a beat or two where he's left standing, somewhat deflated, staring at the back of her. Ariya does this confusing thing where she flip fops between sounding like she cares then sounding like she doesn't. It'd be easier if she stuck to the latter. Easier to worm his way back in, box away her anger as something misplaced. But every time she looks at him like that, he feels he should let her go.

The commotion sounds off up ahead, all intense emotions lacing loud voices. It's the only reason Simone's here-- she'd heard it long before she could see it.

"We, the people--" he pulls down his neck gaiter soaked in smoke and sweat, gearing to jump into action, "--demand to know the truth." A chair lies split in two -- someone's bleeding at the lip and laughing about it. Lucky gives them a nod before continuing: "Do the del Bosques fuck octopuses and why do they never tan!"

The tide that shapes the shore. We are the tide that shapes the shore. Who is we? That has always been the question. Sand moves near-silently under Andrea's shoes, individual grains slipping into the eyelets where his laces don't quite plug the gaps. He'll have to do his best to clean them off sooner rather than later; he can't afford to be seen as anything short of perfect, and that includes leaving sand behind wherever he walks.

He shouldn't have come to this beach; not in such formal attire, not now, not here, where there's surely eyes on him – sunset nears, and after that, the peace of darkness, where he'll blend in with the shadows in a dark, well-tailored suit, for all who don't care to explicitly look for him (which, it seems, is all). This, though, is better than any private beach where he'd feel his family's cold shoulder more than the sun could warm his skin.

Rubbing ink-stained fingertips together, thumb and index, then thumb and middle, and back again, hand behind his back to try to hide what may be perceived as a nervous tick from onlookers. Waves crash on the shore. He wishes he could run into them. That's unbecoming. Andrea stops. Far enough back from the water to keep it from brushing against his leather shoes, but had he stood in this exact spot at high tide, the water would be soaking the legs of his trousers. A shame, to know a place so well, yet not be allowed to indulge in its simple pleasures.

It’s a clash of ocean-worn and silver-spined. Under the sun, their shadows bleed the same.

Lucky, all rowdy and restless, with eyes lit up as if he’s spotted a cash cow, is willing to prove it. From here to his boat, he doesn’t think it would be much of a struggle. Fortunately, for both of them, he has a reason to wake up every morning and getting gunned down by suits might get in the way of that.

And so, he resigns to the next best thing he can afford: a soft kick into the sand by way of greeting Andrea Del Bosque.

“Alright, let’s be quick with it. How much money you got?” Well, it didn’t hurt to try.

Who the fuck was this guy? And why did he look like he swallowed a fridge? He tries to stand taller, lifting his chin up pettishly

"Who the fuck are you?" More importantly: "And how the fuck do you know Joey?"