Angel Cruz

                 “Only the really stupid kind,” Maya said with the hint of a devious grin on her lips. As far as she knew, she’d never been cheated on, and that was definitely for the better— not that she had cared enough about recent flings to have invested herself enough to actually get mad if they happened to see someone else too. Commitment weren’t exactly on the horizon for her as of right now. “A dude with tattoos, huh? Well, how convenient,” She snorted, a chuckle leaving her lips either way. “As for motorcycles, I have one already. But if you’re the guy with the tattoos, how about you show me to the nearest bar and buy me a drink?”

Rhys nodded, not really being able to argue with the other man —- it was what it was. “Probably best not to think about it too much, only stresses you out,” he said with a soft chuckle. “Nothing we can do about it, right?” He was lucky, he supposed, that things were going so well for him right now, but it could all change quite drastically and he knew that. “I really hope that changes for you one day, not a good place to be,” he said, shaking his head as he thought on what Angel had said. “I would love a beer.”

“Sometimes I wonder if that’s true,” he answered with a light laugh. “It’s almost as though she’s disappointed I’m not a complete failure all the time.” He had his moments, as most people did, but ever since Elena had come into his life, he’d done his best. “To be honest, court’s not somewhere we’ve spent all that much time… avoided it as much as we can. So no, not quite. We get on a lot better than I ever thought we would.”

              Unfortunately for Maya, she had never really grown out of the phase where projecting her own frustrations onto other people weren’t a thing, and it was often easy to detect any bit of annoyance in her, whether it was caused right the second, or maybe hours earlier. For someone who wore so many different masks, she just couldn’t be bothered most of the time to hide it, maybe mostly because she’d come to learn that any visible signs of hostility was a great way to keep people out. Distractions however, those came in handy, and as the guy took a shot at ‘reading her’, her shoulders feel an inch with a bit of tension rolling off of them. “Alright… or maybe I’m a soccer mom who’s fed up with her cheating bastard of a husband?” She suggested, her face unreadable enough to make it seem plausible. It was easier to come up with a counter, than to give in an admit truth in most of what he said. 

“That is true.” Maybe it wasn’t what Rhys had always wanted to do, but it had rather quickly become a dream alternative career. Had he really been made to be a rugby player? Most likely not. His accident had been a blessing in disguise. Once they were out of the room, he nodded in response to Angel’s question, a small smile crossing his features. “Hopefully so,” he answered. “Give it a day or so.” As he continued, though, he shook his head. “Sounds like Elena’s mom, to be honest… If everything isn’t a-OK, I never hear the end of it.”

               “I don’t count your place,” she said with an edge of annoyance in her tone, not necessarily minted on the guy, but rather left over from the sight of her brother an dad. Surprises were far from her favourite thing, and springing her dad on her was nearly an unforgivable thing. “No?” She looked at him intently, a small smirk creeping onto her lips at his assessment of her. People never really took her for what she was, and she was more than happy about it. “What do I strike you as then?” Her arms folded across her chest and she watched the man smugly, hinting at amusement.

              Stopping in her tracks when she noticed her brother across the street, accompanied by a familiar face, Maya’s eyes narrowed and her jaw set. Mike wasn’t a bad guy, but it was the fact that he was with their dad that made her hesitate— a sense of betrayal bubbling right under the surface. When they pushed the door open to the cafe she had agreed to meet with Mike at, and not their dad, that was it for her. She quickly turned on her heel and walked in the opposite direction, turning a corner and nearly bumping into someone, creating a bit of an awkward moment of dreaded anticipation mixed with relief, leaving the two of them standing opposite each other like idiots. “That was close,” she muttered with a puff, tension rolling off of her shoulders. “You wouldn’t happen to know a place around here where they serve liquor before 4pm, do you?” She asked, deciding she might as well put the awkward moment to good use.

Rhys never minded helping out a friend if there was an issue, even if Elena had a tendency to question it whenever he did it —- but that was just another case of them getting used to spending a long period of time together. When Lissette finally drifted off to sleep again, he glanced back to Angel, flashing the other man a smile. Heading out of her room again, he nodded his head, answering with a simple, “I get that a lot.” He couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Guess I went into the right career.”

@rhysxtaylor 

Erin raised her brow at the man’s seemingly cocky comment, and folded her arms in front of her. She watched as he threw his first ring, and she couldn’t help but smirk. By the time his third ring got stuck, Erin was openly chuckling. “You’re supposed to get the ring on the bottle,” she said smugly. 

“Seriously, this has nothing to do with skill. The odds of it landing right are so low, you’d have almost as much luck even if you kept your eyes closed.” As she said this, Erin gave a pointed look to the man running the booth. “Most of these games are rigged.”

Angel scrunched up his mouth and rolled his eyes in the stranger’s direction. He deserved her taunting clearly, but he wasn’t willing to surrender to the carnival game gods that easily. “A’right, a’right.” He shrugged, gesturing to the booth operator for more rings. This time, I will.” Pride was expensive, but Angel had some cash to burn. “Those were practice tries. Obviously.”

He didn’t doubt what the brunette had to say, but he was too stubborn to walk away with nothing. “But people do win. I didn’t come here to take an L. If you wanna leave here a loser, that’s on you.” He moved to another end of the booth, supposing his angle was wrong before somehow.

Erin knew that carnival games were fixed. The balloons were deflated, the darts were dull, and most things were next to impossible. But she had always been competitive, and her knowledge of the games’ inherent flaws and unfairness didn’t deter her. Erin had racked up plenty of tickets, and was now blowing them on chances to win impossible games. She was trying to throw rings around the neck of a bottle, and she was failing. Erin was whipping them with her wrist as if she were skipping stones, which gave her accuracy, but always went too far. Once she was out of rings, she looked up to see the other person playing watching her. “Seriously, I think this is the hardest game I’ve played today.”

Angel grinned at the brunette who had given her best effort but ultimately came up short. He figured that his odds weren’t great if someone who he presumed would be less heavy-handed than himself struck out, but that wasn’t going to deter him. “You’re supposed to get the ring on the bottle,” he teased, as if that hadn’t been her intention to begin with. “You’re pretty good at gettin’ them on the floor though.” He really shouldn’t have been talking, considering he had yet to take his turn at the toss. Angel turned his gaze to the bright bottles again and tried to make his wrist as loose as possible. “You gotta pop it on the top,” he reasoned, lobbing his first ring high up into the air, figuring gravity would do the rest. Nope. He scrunched his face up, reloading . “Okay. I didn’t do it right that time, this time though... ” This time he leaned in toward the ledge of the booth and flicked the ring over his fingers as if flipping a coin. He tried the same tactic with the third ring and it wedged itself between two bottles just to spite him. “What the--?”

@erin-lhakpa​

“A’right. Gimme three.”

                         “Oh, sweet— I was there for six, seven years?” She shook her head, unable to remember. “Used to be a cop, worked those streets for a long time. Even got myself shot back in the day, some kids breaking into a house…” Sierra spoke about it as if it was nothing because that’s how she felt. A bullet through her thigh, one operation and eight months recovery that was how the return to Lanford came out. Damaged goods, her old boss had said and shipped her out of the city. There were worst places to go crime wise, but Lanford was the last place she had wanted to be at the time. Now, though? Sierra believed it was where she belonged. “You’ve just got to think about her. Kids get messed up when their moms and dads fight all the time—” They were screwed for others reasons too, but arguments and an unstable home life was a big factor. “That’s adorable,” She returned the smile and let Mia stand on her thighs, unsteady but enthusiastic as she tried to bounce around. “Think this one is heading in that direction, you got anything tips for what he should watch out for?” 

Angel eyed the brunette with curiosity when she revealed her past life as a police officer in Brooklyn. He wouldn’t have guessed that profession by looking at her, but perhaps that was her advantage. “A cop, huh? That’s crazy.” Despite not growing up in the most law enforcement-friendly neighborhood, Angel had a lot of respect for cops. He didn’t know if he could put his life on the line for strangers every day. “You still a cop?” It’d be good to know since he did like a little recreational smoke now and then. One had to know who it was cool to share that information with and who it wasn’t.  When Sierra cautioned him about feeding into his drama with his baby mama, he nodded. “Yeah, I know. I’d never let my daughter see that.” Celia tried to bait him sometimes, but he always managed to walk away. He chuckled at her last question. “Boys. Put the fear o’ God in ‘em early.”