Maybe it was a bit stupid - taking a broken bicycle to a mechanical shop. But it's not like there was a bicycle shop around Redwood. That was way too specific, probably, not a lot of use for one these days.

And really, Ember gotten used to walking to most places, she would have been just fine doing that around Redwood, but when she found the broken bicycle, it just spoke to her. It was deep purple and dirty, but it would be perfect for getting around and giving her options.

Even sports bars were busy around Christmas; a lesson that Stelly had learned very early on. People wanted to get out, enjoy themselves, meet up with co-workers and friends, and they had very gradually learned that it really wasn't a bad thing. It kept their days busy and more fun and meant that they got to laugh and smile right along with everyone in attendance. That particular night, they were a little on the slower side, though, and Stelly had decided to hang up a new string of lights over top of the bar, was up on the ladder when the string slipped from their hand, bouncing off of the bar top below. "Oops, sorry!" they winced as they looked down, "do you mind handing me that? Your drink is on me as soon as I get down."

AFTER HAVING nursed a rather large glass of elderflower wine or two, accompanied with the leftover rum from the shelf, Marlene threw themselves onto the large sofa just beside Lucas with a relatively amused smirk. “ Have I ever told you just how HANDSOME you look in that shade of black, it really brings out the blue in your eyes.” They slurred their words together, confidently reaching out to push the hair or rather LACK OF hair out of their eyes as their flirtatious side continued to shine. 

Victor had long since left the days of suits and ties behind him.

Nice clothes, he’d always thought, were for charming angel investors and music execs; even on his Rolling Stone cover he'd worn a henley and a pair of jeans, much to the chagrin of his then-publicist (turned girlfriend, turned both ex-publicist and ex-girlfriend shortly thereafter). Suits and ties were a thing of youth and ambition, of paying your dues to an industry that didn’t want you, of sucking up to the man in order to get yourself some crumbs from the table. At 36 and already heading towards the latter half of his success story, he had no use for them. 

Except, maybe, in court. 

He wouldn’t have said that Aris’ conversation had scared him -- no, far from it, their conversation the day before had exhilarated him -- but if a courtroom was where all the fun was going to happen over the course of the next few weeks, he wanted to be prepared. Which, at this stage of the game, meant having his assistant schedule a fitting for his first well-tailored suit in years. Just in case.

Of course, standing in the store, twenty minutes late for his fitting, he felt just a little out of place, looking at the rack of suit jackets along the wall as he waited for someone to acknowledge him. He’d never had much of an eye for color -- what he was sure was forty different shades of navy all blended into pretty much the same color -- and was just thinking about how miserably tedious this afternoon was going to be when he heard someone approach behind him and turned.