ᴄʜɪʟᴅʀᴇɴ ᴏꜰ ᴀ ʟᴇꜱꜱᴇʀ ɢᴏᴅ

I actually have! I'm trying not to accumulate too much stuff, since there's not a ton of space on my boat, you know? So I try to donate some stuff that I notice I'm not wearing or using, and then my theory is that I can get new items to replace them. Oh no! So you basically thrifted for your daughter, even if you didn't realize it.

That makes it perfect sense actually! My closet is almost filled up again. I feel like I just cleaned it too. Essentially, that is what happened. I think she might be starting to realize that I once was young too and had some sense of style. But mostly she likes what’s trendy, so we’ll see

Not busy exactly, although I swear there's always a baby boom at this time of year. So, you know, no busier than my usual spring. The year's absolutely flying by. It's crazy. I bet you're looking forward to the summer break.

It's spring, the time for new beginnings and those fresh starts. Oh, yes! My daughter is thrilled that it is getting closer to summer. It also means we are slowly teaching her how to drive. Not the easiest of feats, but she's happy.

who: nick & open! (0/3)

Lara entered Flour & co in search of a few things. She was out of bread in the kitchen and needed some for the next week and a half for school lunches and just because. Lily had opted in to come along with her because she was done with sports practice for the season and Colton had left before she did, as did the rest of her friends. Lara didn't mind. She liked having her daughter with her.

"We have teenagers now," Cage said with a forced sigh, doing his best to keep amusement out of his voice, "I'm afraid that we're stuck with being old people." There were worse things. At least they were old people hanging out at a cool over-forty club with a darts game at hand… right? "I do, too. Every day, I swear I feel a little bit older. Toss in there the lack of sleep from Ronan keeping us up at night, and it only makes it worse," but he tried not to complain too much. He loved his life, old man bones and all. "Alright," he said lowly, tossing the dart at the board and smiling to himself as it sailed clearly and hit just off the center, reaching for the second and missing by a little bit more. "Third time's the charm?" he asked, pulling back to aim and hitting the board in the center. "Aha!"

“We do,” Lara nodded in agreement. Having a teenager was a whole different ballpark. They had figured out the bumps on the road through middle school, first crushes, first dates. The kids were all grown up now. It made her happy but at the same time a little sentimental because she still remembered moving to town when Lily was just a baby. And now, she was sixteen and with a mind of her own and figuring out the world. So much. She smiled at him. “You have a few more to get to this point. By then you’ll be an expert,” she grinned at him. Lara settled into her spot and waited for Cage to go first with the darts. Nodding along with each attempt, she smirked. “Nice work,” she observed before giving him an applause, waving her hands. “Three tries? Let’s start,” she nodded, moving to take the darts off the board. “One…” she tossed it, barely missing the center. “Two,” she held up two fingers, throwing the next one. “Still got it.”

"Yes!" she couldn't help the little bit of excitement that lit up her entire face when Lara asked about the rodeo, brushing a strand of loose curls back from her face. "I did barrel racing professionally for a while," longer than she thought she would have done it, but at the same time, it had seemed a lot longer once she was finally done and out and moving on to a new aspect of her career. But it also truly felt like she had been living a different life at that point of her life, too. "Oh geez," her eyes widened when Lara mentioned the girl having a boyfriend, "how's that going? The kind of thing that has you waiting up every night when they go out? I can't even imagine," maybe that was why she didn't have kids. The fear of what would happen when they grew up and became independent, grown people. "I'm sure that she'll be great at it. And, plus side, this town seems kind of easy to drive in, there's not a lot of traffic or… well, god awful drivers to worry about."

Lara nodded, giving Ashleigh a curious look. “Okay,” she nodded. “Very interesting,” she smiled at the younger woman. That was something new to her. She had heard a little bit about it but wasn’t familiar with how everything worked. So she was interested to know more about it. She smiled again as Ashleigh asked more about Lily. “I have to be very watchful,” she told her. “But she knows what the rules are and curfew and so does her boyfriend. And the two of them are good kids. So we have zero issues there,” she smiled. “Thankfully… the streets here are easy to navigate. As a mom, I’m still nervous!”

"It's an old people game," he admitted with a laugh, "I remember my dad playing when I was a kid, and I used to think he was the coolest thing." He had it set up in the garage, would throw darts while working on their truck, taught him how to toss them, too. It was something that had stuck with him through the years. "If you insist," he said, reaching to take the darts off of the board and stepping back behind the line. "Let's see if I can put my money where my mouth is."

“Have we gotten to that point?” Lara asked with a crooked grin. “We’re considered old people now?” She laughed. “I feel it, though. The young people are so hard to keep up with.” She wondered if it was still trendy to play bar games. As far as she knew, everything was online, even some of the old fashioned arcade classics. “I do,” she smirked, indicating she was ready. It would be fun to test out those skills again. Maybe get a little practice in, learn a thing or two.

"When I was on the rodeo circuit, people would ask me questions about the different places I'd been, and I always felt lame explaining that all I did was eat, sleep and train, and I barely got to sight see, so I'd absolutely make things up," she said with a laugh, "which was always fine until you ended up talking to someone who actually had been there before." And then you were bound to get some odd looks when you started talking about cuisine and shopping and landmarks that just... didn't exist. "Oh, wow! Sixteen... what a time," she said in an almost dreamy way, with a dreamy look on her face. To be that young again would be amazing. "Is she looking forward to driving, or nervous about it?"

Lara watched her and nodded. “Rodeo?” She fingerspelled slowly. “That’s neat,” she grinned at Ashleigh. She chuckled quietly. It was true, sometimes a story got away from the truth and it was hard to backtrack. And then sometimes the facts didn’t match. It didn’t happen too often, thankfully. Lara nodded again. “She’s growing up really fast. Kind of scary,” she signed. “Has a boyfriend and everything. Now she wants to drive, of course,” she said. Her daughter was her world, and they’d have to figure a few things out before Lara could just hand over the keys. She wanted her to be careful and to be safe, especially since things were slightly more challenging with a bit of hearing loss. But she was confident her daughter was more than capable. “I am, but I am also hoping for the best!”

Widening his eyes a little bit when she said she would bet him a bowl of pretzels, he let out a laugh, "you sure about that?" Not that he thought he was actually going to be that good, being rusty and all, but… it could be a little bit of fun, having some friendly competition between the two of them. "Alright," he hefted himself up and gestured for her to follow. "Then we'll play a round of darts for a bowl of pretzels, this seems like a very forty-years-old thing to do."

"Very sure," Lara nodded pointedly with a big grin on her face. It would be fun, and either way, they could get another bowl of pretzels anyway. She laughed at his comment. "I think you are right about that. I have yet to find someone younger than twenty who likes darts the same amount we do," she smiled. She got up and walked towards the dart board. "Want to go first, birthday boy?"

"That begs the question…" Ashleigh began to type, turning the phone to Lara before turning it back around and typing out quickly, "have you ever told someone a grand, elaborate story about a place on a sweatshirt that you've never actually been to?" Thankfully, she had been to a lot of cities, didn't really have to make things up, but given that she loved to use her imagination, Ashleigh could see herself doing exactly that, without a moment of hesitation. Life was too short not to have a little bit of fun, after all! "Oh! How old is your daughter? Is she at the age where she sneaks into your room to steal your clothes yet?"

Lara chuckled at her question. "Yes..." she signed and nodded. She had to tell a few stories over the years in order to make things go smoothly. Did that include a little fib or two to her daughter? Admittedly, yes as well. "I've traveled a bit," she said, before typing that message out. "But it is more fun to just talk about cities with other people," she smiled. "She just turned 16!" Lara nodded. "So she's a teenager and loves to hang out with her friends. She plays softball," she spelled out the last word. "And we're going to work on driving. Soon."

Looking over towards the pool table, Cage nodded his head eagerly at Lara's question. "All the time, especially when I used to travel," there, you didn't know your opponents as well. If you embarrassed yourself by being horrible, you didn't have to live with it very long. And if you took someone for all that they were worth… well, they didn't have to worry about seeing you very often, so that all worked out. "I feel like I'm not quite as good now as I used to be. Darts is my game, I like to call it mini-archery."

“Nice,” Lara signed with a grin and a nod. She laughed, remembering when she and her friends used to play. They’d spend the extra time out there in the bars when they could. And then they had even tried to test out a theory about vibrations and the balls and the pockets but it didn’t get too far. “I’ll bet you a bowl of pretzels, then,” she grinned, gesturing over towards the dart board.

Lara nodded in understanding. The mornings were busy and it was easy to get distracted and have the whole thing ruin one’s morning. In any case, she was usually flexible and it just meant that the rest of the day needed just a slight adjustment. “What do you usually get?” She asked, signing slowly, before typing the message into her phone.

"Exhausting is the keyword," he said with a laugh and a nod of his head. The last time that Cage had 'gone out' had been drinks with his brother back in the fall, a few fingers of whiskey that had knocked him on his ass, and even that had been at Jack's, a quieter place. Vibrations? His head nearly exploded every time he tried to go in there. "This place seems pretty cool, anyway, we have..." he looked around, signing the words as he saw them, "a bar, televisions, pool tables, darts... couches."

Lara nodded, following along with what Cage said. The crowd at Jack’s was more easygoing. It wasn’t that she didn’t love an energetic night out at Vibrations, but at a certain age, some of that energy drained more quickly. She followed to where he was looking and nodded again. “Did you ever play pool and take bets? I was pretty good,” she gestured towards the nearest pool table.