i like 'em new

“Oh, I’m sorry, he’s more into older and experienced women.” Rei teased back, grinning. “I think it’s cool. It would get boring if you always do the same thing, you know? What about New Year’s, is it a family thing for you or not?”

“I didn’t mean it like that, pervert. And I’ll have you know I’m plenty experienced.” She stood up a little straighter as if that would help her prove her point, grinning wide. “Hmm, no, not really, everyone usually does their own thing. You?”

“Yeah, my dad hates winter. We’ve been to Aspen for Christmas though, that was pretty cool ‘cause he’s big on the X Games, any type of crazy sports. Adrenaline junkie and all.” Reinaldo explained with a small shrug. “We don’t have much tradition, aside from dinner together on Christmas Eve and we don’t eat turkey, instead we do pork or anything other that my dad is feeling.” Rei chuckled at her explanation, knowing how that was far too well. “You get presents, you just don’t celebrate it aside from Rosewood’s events and stuff?”

“Your dad sounds fun, would he want to hang out some time?,” she joked. “Dinner’s different every year. Sometimes its take out, sometimes we spend Christmas with my Uncle Casey.” She pursed her lips as she thought for a second. “Pretty much, yeah. I mean... I don’t celebrate it in the traditional sense but I guess nobody here really does, huh.”

“Uh, no, no. A Valdez doesn’t get their hands dirty. We hire people for that. We basically have a nice dinner, my mom buys a lot of decoration and makes other people decorate the house. My dad goes big on the gifts, sometimes we go on vacation to Dubai or anywhere that’s not cold. We don’t do traditional things, if we do, we just kind of spin them around to fit our lives, I guess.” Rei explained before he took a sip from his drink and nodded. “Right. Well, to be fair, my parents just spend a lot of money on shit, we don’t really celebrate any religion or any of that. My parents don’t do any of that shit, you know? I guess they’re kind of like your dad in a way.” He admitted, smiling a little. “Have you ever gotten Christmas presents?”

“Right, of course, I should have known that. Dubai? Very non-traditional, I like it. And Illinois does fucking suck in the winter, and generally speaking but thats besides the point. If I’m gonna be somewhere cold, I’d at least like to snowboard.” She realized just how privileged she sounded saying that, but then she remembered where she standing and didn’t feel so bad about it. “Mm, thats what my dad does too. He may not be religious but his Amex definitely is. Yes, I’ve gotten Christmas presents,” she laughed. 

“Alright, no seltzers.” Reinaldo grinned widely, downing his own shot and then ordering two drinks for them, whatever he saw that wasn’t too bad or out there. He was adventurous but when it came to his drinks, he took drinks kind of seriously. “Oh, we go big. But kind of classy, my mom always does everything classy. I got here late because of them, actually.”

“Yeah, define big but classy. Why’s that, were you busy baking cookies or something?” She grabbed the drink Rei had ordered for her, giving it a quick initial sip before nodding in approval. “Um, my mom’s Jewish, not really practicing, but still, enough to not have a Christmas tree up. And my dad’s, well.. My dad.”

“You know you can’t say no to my face like this, you know it.” Rei reciprocated the kiss easily and then tugged on her hand to begin leading her to the bar, trying to find something nice to mix or to just drink. “You wanna get drunk or do you want to just try something new? Please, don’t say white claw.” He joked lightly.

Jo chuckled and shook her head, “No, seltzers make me burp too much. I just want to get drunk.” Once at the bar, she got two shots of tequila, downing one herself first before she handed the other to Reinaldo. “Is your family big into the holidays, or not really?,” she asked, just out of curiosity. She knew how important family was to Reinaldo, so her guess, they probably had a bunch of cheesy traditions.

“I’ve been thinking about why people do this stuff even when they don’t want to, myself included. I’m not great with psychology but my dad has a ton of books on it so maybe I’ll figure it out.” He thought out loud as he tried to find someone interesting in the crowd to focus on. “No, I’m not named after Sir Isaac Newton. I think I was named after Isaac in the Bible, which I find kind of dumb since we’re not particularly religious but whatever. If it were up to me I would have named myself Steven. I think it’s a fairly safe assumption to make that you were named after the rockstar, otherwise why give your child such a unconventional name?” 

She simply shrugged in response, not thinking it was all that deep. At least not deep enough for her to break out a psychology book about it. “Steven, whats the significance of Steven? And in case you haven’t noticed, there’s lots of people around here with unconventional names.”

Reinaldo rolled his eyes playfully at her. “mhm, so you’re just gonna drop my ass like that and hook up with someone else. Am I gonna have to bring out the puppy eyes and be pathetic here?” He shook his head, looking at her with a funny look. “That’s true, maybe we just shouldn’t kiss at all tonight, damn.”

“Please, I was hoping you’d bring out the puppy eyes.” She rolled her eyes at the look he gave her. “Would you stop being such a baby, you know I’m just messing with you.” She leaned up to kiss him, placing a hand on his cheek as she lingered there longer than he had. “Now, what are we drinking?”

“Oh. Uh-uh, if you think I’m that easy you are dead wrong.” Reinaldo teased lightly, taking advantage of their close proximity to grab her hand and twirl her playfully. “Bummer. Here I was hoping you’d start making out with everyone else but me.” He smirked a little, leaning in to kiss her lips quickly. 

“Ehh, agree to disagree.” She laughed softly as he twirled over, still holding on to his hand even after he’d finished. “Well, don’t speak too soon, the night’s still young.. And there’s plenty of mistletoe to go around.” She was just about cut off by his lips oh her’s. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I got a card with your name on it,” she joked, smirking.

“You weren’t going to ask? How are you supposed to make me fall for you if you don’t ask for the important shit?” Rei teased as he fixed his tie, looking over at her when she mentioned someone else. “I don’t know, at least, it’s not the rooftop, or a closet.” He joked lightly, smirking. “Who is it? They cute or what?”

“I didn’t know mistletoe was considered the important shit. And for the record.. You’ve totally already fallen for me, just admit it.” She smirked, bumping her hip against his. “Uh, Issac something. We didn’t kiss or anything, don’t get excited. And the balcony’s actually great for people watching.”

“So, you into the whole mistletoe thing or is it too lame?” Reinaldo asked Joplin when he finally found her. He kind of liked how casual and natural it was when they were together, so whenever he could, he found himself trying to spend time with her. “If you’re gonna ask me, I don’t really care as long as I get to the kissing. Mistletoe or not.” @evanstroy​

“I think its lame to revolve a whole party around it,” she answered, instantly grinning the second she saw him. “I wasn’t going to ask you, but okay. Oh, and another thing, these cards. I was met someone I don’t know up on the balcony, and I don’t know about you, but that seems like a good way to get murdered.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I’m happy about that, I don’t want to kiss you.” Isaac wasn’t even curious about why she didn’t want to kiss, just relieved that he didn’t have to. “Really? That’s cool mildly interesting.” Isaac went over to the railing and looked over trying to find something interesting. “We’re you named after the rock star? If so then why isn’t your name Janice?” 

How quick he was to announce he didn’t want to kiss her did take her aback a little, but she figured she really couldn’t be offended. She continued looking down as he joined her by the railing, catching a waiter spit into some girl’s drink, who probably deserved it by the looks of it. “What? Oh, I’m not sure. Were you named Issac as in Newton?”

Isaac didn’t care about being kissed, actually he would prefer to not be kissed, but he’d gotten encouraged to at least check out who he’d gotten assigned to meet. He went to the balcony and when she told him he could lie he honestly considered it, but he ended up just copping to it, “Yeah, that’s me. Joplin? Hey.” He told her with a nod of his head, but made no move to kiss her or anything, “I hate all of these dumb kissing parties.” 

"Me too, and yet... we’re both here.” She shrugged, thinking she’d kind of like to know what mastermind was behind these parties, if only to get her hands on what they were smoking. “We’re not kissing for the record. But you’re welcome to join me over here. The view’s great, I just watched someone spill red wine all over a white tablecloth.”

Nova’s eyes narrowed as he questioned her. “Now that makes me sound desperate. And that, my good sir, is one thing I am not.” Not anymore at least. Even though deep down she knew that need was still in there, she just tried not to feed it. “But kind of - I mean what if somebody got here and realized their skates were broken? Or they forgot them at home?” She gestured to the skates, “I am like a Christmas miracle worker, duh.” With a quirk of her eyebrow she eyed him. “A hockey player, huh? Well, at least you’re not new to the ice so I won’t have to totally babysit you.”

“I never said you were,” he replied, in his defense, with a chuckle. “Okay, so you’re just being nice, okay, I’ll believe it.” He didn’t know if he actually did buy it, mostly because he could never imagine himself doing something that considerate just based on a couple what-if scenarios. But then again, that was him. “When I was a kid for a bit, yeah, but I never really got into, like, team sports.” In other words, he’d never played well with others. With his skates laced up, he made his way to the ice, standing in front of the girl. “Happy?”

“Well, Uber duty looks pretty boring to me.” She glanced over her shoulder again to the younger kids before looking back to him. “And it doesn’t look like you’ll be driving anybody anywhere for a bit longer.” Her eyes lit up as he walked over to the skates, giving a shrug as he questioned her - though she could feel her face getting hot. “Honestly it was just a shot in the dark.” No, she didn’t have plans to meet anybody - but there were always guys around the rink. And who wouldn’t want to skate with her? “And like you said,” she grinned. “It’s your lucky day. And apparently it’s also just a lucky guess for me. Now come on, show me how good of an ice skater you are.”

Troy had only drove his sister because his family’s personal driver was on vacation, and his parents refused to, and on top of that, in all honesty, he didn’t anything better to do today. And while he didn’t really care if she hurt herself or not, it was a good cover for people watching. “So... you were just hoping somebody would show up and need them?,” he asked with a brow raised and an amused smile. “Oh I’m a shit ice skater. Especially in these.” He flicked the toe pick on the end of one of the skates. “I’m used to hockey skates, I always trip on these.” Still he sat down and started putting the skates on, lacing them up tight.

Nova gave him a smile, figuring it was a good enough excuse until she actually turned around to see the younger girl skating around behind her. “Oh!” Raising an eyebrow she turns back to him. “You know, you’d probably do a better job making sure she doesn’t break a wrist if you were out here with her.” It’s a playful remark, though she does mean it. Looking to the skates again she smirks, “you’ll never know unless you try, right?”

He shook his head, taking another sip of his hot chocolate. “She’s with her friends, I’m basically an Uber.” Looking towards the skates, he hesitated for a moment before walking over towards them. They did look pretty big... He picked them up, turning them over in his hand and was surprised to find they were in fact his size. “I guess its my lucky day,” he said as he turned back towards her, holding the skates up. “Were you waiting for someone, or do you always keep an extra pair of size twelves around?”