#cancelled.starter

a glass filled with ice clashes together, the sound made louder by choice as the bourbon refuses to settle. there is nothing to be done. the days between bidding and casting are tedious. the chips falling in slow motion, they must remember their favorites. “the lead?”

“this seat is taken” her gaze flicks up to the person who is now grabbing the other edge of the chair across from her. whether they contest the judgement or not is up to them. call it a test, call it a short lunch break. she doesn’t much care, she’s only curious. “i didn’t think i’d be seeing you so soon.”

It wasn't his idea to have a chaser of mouth spray. An assistant's choice, tugged down, mouth opened, clinging for dear life in a vodka-stained throat. For the rest of the show he could swear he had a mojito instead of something out of a paper cup, posing as water. Water with a special kick, enough to last through the hour until the lights could dim, the guests to get on with their lives, to let him begin to walk off stage with a hand already working at the tie around his neck. He wasn't going far. Just far enough to get to the mini bar, a staple of the show itself, more used by host than those on his couch.

She didn't celebrate the date, but she couldn't push it far enough out of her mind to let it completely slip either. There was no joy in a divorce. The joy was in its freedom, in the way it corrected a path that had started off on the wrong footing, not the reminder that it had been walked along in the first place. She's learned that there is more value in the future than the past, strictly reserved to visit, not to live in. Perhaps it's why she's chosen to wear the pair of earrings she does--the ones that were made from the ring she was given, melted down and repurposed. It's fitting for a wedding.

The gunshot echoed through the plantation. The hunter knows a noise that ricochets off the trees frightens off the rest of the potential herd, but that is not Sebastian's concern. He may have guests, but it doesn't make him their caregiver, only their host. They will sharpen their skills or they will sharpen the blade that is currently running down the underbelly of the suspended animal he's preyed on. The buck's antlers are brushing the dirt beneath, leaving the faintest trails in its pendulum-like swinging, controlled only by gravity and the knife that's slicing through its fur to be peeled back.

| open

“It’s not constructive criticism...  From a more experienced perspective, we say it’s a paradigm shift. But, as you can tell, a mentor’s job is never as easy as it looks.”

Donate/Trash. The marker squeaked over cardboard, thick black letters over a folded up box. Some of Bonnie's old stuff that he had been left with that had stayed in the same box as when he had been the first one to pack it up in. Old vanity set and curlers. Not a lot for him to do with that. Maybe Kit would have gotten a kick out of it if she had grown up, coming down the stairs with half-curled-half-fried hair.