Boston Beauty

“A chef always asks for feedback on their food. Otherwise, they get stagnant and never improve.”

“You’re the chef here? Interesting. You must be new because the food wasn’t hardly this good before, so good job.”

“Yeah, well, Boston has notoriously shitty public transportation. You know, you just passed on a perfectly good opportunity to say how do you like them apples… What sort of Bostonian are you?”

“You’re not wrong about that, that’s why I just don’t trust any public transportation. Ooh, woah there - don’t go questioning my bostonianism!”

“No worries, I could thank her enough for both of us. There’s always public transport - and it’s good for the environment!”

“I grew up in Boston, and I never grew to love public transportation. So, I would probably rather walk all the way to where I needed to go before actually using that. How’s that for ‘being good for the environment’?”

“Firstly, Beyonce could crush a car with those legs. Secondly, if it was my car being crushed —- I would thank her profusely.”

“You’re not wrong, though I couldn’t be the one thanking her for doing it. I mean, what am I gonna do without my car then?”

“Sorry, I was just doing rounds to see how people were liking the food.”

“Well...seeing as I’m still eating it - I like the food. Since when did they start having people going around and asking about the food?”

Cole was still smiling pleasantly - if not a bit amused, this was all a game, remember? He was teasing her, going along with her delusions that he was washing away evidence, just a joke - as he took a step forward, closer to the petite girl. He ducked his head slightly, into her personal space, so he could speak more quietly, eyes scanning the darkness around them - but for what, he wasn’t sure. Cole was the most dangerous thing lurking in the dark of Northpoint, that much he knew; that much, he’d made sure of, early on. “Worse than you could ever imagine,” he murmured to her, voice low. Then, giving her slow wink, he pulled away. “You really should get on your way, darlin’,”

Her blue eyes followed his as he got closer into her own personal place. His eyes searched their surroundings so her blue eyes found the darkness behind him for the moment. There wasn’t anyone else really around, you heard the rare sound of someone speaking loudly and it was probably be because of the fact that there were houses nearby. But right now, it was just the two of them standing there on that beach - and a part of Avery was scared, though the other part looked at the situation as a challenge. Would that ever be her downfall? His words sent a chill down her spine as her eyes found his again, though his second statement caused her to shake her head and move to walk more towards the rising water. Her shoes slipping off of her feet before she got there, she let the water fall over them. “I think you couldn’t really do that bad,” Avery let her eyes stare back towards the ocean, the moonlight making it look prettier than normal. “What if I don’t want to get on my way?”

“R-really!? Oh god - I thought you were going to say no! Okay! Yay, great!”

“Yeah, really. I probably would have said no if this were nay other time, but I need this trip. When are we planning on doing this?”

“—– Do you want to come to New York with me? Just for a weekend? It might be nice to get out of Northpoint…”

“...You know what -- fuck it, let’s do it. I need to get out of here, and I don’t wanna be back in Boston.”

“Is everything - well, no, certainly not everything is okay… Is there anything you would like to talk about, then?”

“I don’t.....I don’t know exactly what you could even help me with by talking about it. Let’s just say, my life is fucked.”

He gave a low chuckle at her hesitant answer, tilting his head, as if considering it. His eyes crinkled with his smile, darker than usual in the lowlight as he met her uneasy gaze. “If I were,” Cole said, upping the charm in his smile to an eleven, accent like honey over words that cut through the brisk night air like a knife - like the knife that he had tucked away, a flick of the hand, a split second, from falling into his hand. “Would you really want to be standin’ here with me?” The all by yourself, in the dark, went unsaid, but was heavily implied.

Now, if Avery was more so a smart girl - she wouldn’t have even made noise to catch the man’s attention. She would have turned around, walked away and acted like she saw nothing in the water that night. However, her curiosity got the better of her and well - the fact that she was having a shitty few months was making her feel some kind of daring. His accent soon got heavier, actually making her want to continue standing there with him instead of running from him. There weren’t accents like that up in Boston. She studied his eyes once his question was spoken, even daring to step a hint closer to him before letting out a breath she had been keeping in since she saw him. “I mean...what’s the worst you could do...” 

In Cole’s business, you were not to be crept up upon — people who allowed themselves to become distracted and unaware of their surroundings, ended up at the bottom of a waterway, rocks tied round their ankles - dead from a gunshot wound, if they were very lucky. Cole had no intention of seeing the bottom of the Atlantic anytime soon. He heard the gravel crunching as someone approached, but didn’t glance up until the woman cleared her throat. He gave his hands a quick rub, eyeing the rapidly - but not rapidly enough - dissolving blood in the water, and stood. “Or what, darlin’?” he asked, teeth glinting in the dark. It could have been a smirk or a smile, a bit of charm or a dare, caught between the baring of his teeth.

Avery could see the crimson color in the water much more clearly now as he stood up and back from the water. Though, she was still unsure of it was his own or someone else’s - that’s what made her uneasy, even if she had seen some fucked things in her days as a mob girlfriend. His words came to her in an accent unfamiliar, though it still sent chills down her spine. Hesitant, she spoke back. “Or..well..or are you here washing away some kind of evidence?”